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ASLA AND NATIONAL TRUST ANNOUNCE 2004 LANDMARK AWARD

WASHINGTON, DC, August 16, 2004—The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have announced that the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania will receive the 2004 Landmark Award during the ASLA Annual Meeting, October 29-November 2, in Salt Lake City.

After the Morris Arboretum was bequeathed to the University of Pennsylvania in 1932 by Lydia and John Morris, the gardens and garden features deteriorated and the Morris mansion was demolished. In 1978, the arboretum commissioned Andropogon Associates, Ltd., to design a master plan for revitalizing the institution. This was the beginning of an ongoing, 26-year relationship between the arboretum and the landscape architects, who have guided the site design and implementation of the master plan. The rediscovery of the gardens and the recognition of natural areas as essential components of the original estate led to three key concepts that have shaped the arboretum: to open up historical vistas; to reintegrate the park and garden landscapes with the natural areas; and to link the symbolic and natural landscapes togetheróa concept that led to using the natural areas as plant exhibits.

This year marked a new partnership as ASLA welcomed the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private, non-profit membership organization dedicated to protecting the irreplaceable. Recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Trust provides leadership, education and advocacy to save Americaís diverse historic places and revitalize communities. Its Washington, DC, headquarters staff, six regional offices and 25 historic sites work with the Trustís 200,000 members and thousands of local community groups in all 50 states. For more information, visit the National Trustís web site at www.nationaltrust.org.

The ASLA Awards Program is administered by the ASLA fund, a non-profit 501(c) 3 organization established by ASLA in 2001. The ASLA Fund is dedicated to expanding the body of knowledge of the landscape architecture profession, to promoting the value of landscape architecture, and to increasing public understanding of environmental and land use issues and principles.

Founded in 1899, ASLA is the national professional association for landscape architects representing more than 14,200 members. Landscape architecture is a comprehensive discipline of land analysis, planning, design, management, preservation, and rehabilitation. ASLA promotes the landscape architecture profession and advances the practice through advocacy, education, communication, and fellowship. Learn more about landscape architecture online at www.asla.org.

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"The Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania is a historic public garden and an education institution. It is an important resource for extending an appreciation of the world's ecology, and an understanding of the importance of plants to people, in a biological cultural, historical and aesthetic context." - Advisory Board of Managers, 1996
(Photo Credit: Morris Arboretum)

A series of diagrams illustrated the cultural organization of the site showing the key components in the evolution and devolution of the arboretum. These diagrams picture the arboretum from the Morrisí initial garden collections in the late 19th c. through their later elaboration in the early 20th c. to the universityís research garden in the post-World War II period.
(Drawing Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

(Photo Credit: Morris Arboretum)

The diagram of the landscape types of the historic property—farm, park, gardens, and natural areas—suggested how the original relationships among these types could be adapted as the basis for the modern plan.
(Drawing Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.
Photo Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

"Master planning is a commitment to a process, not an individual product. Andropogon Associates brings to the planning process an understanding of the complex and changing needs of an institution and a rare sensitivity to environmental issues. They produce imaginative designs that tell a story and are able to chart a clear course of action for institutional development."-- the late Dr. William M. Klein, Jr., former director, Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania
(Drawing Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

Designed to dramatize the topography, at each turn the road reveals previously hidden landscapes such as the little stream of Paper Mill Run, the floodplain meadows, and the sweeping slope up from the broad limestone valley. It is a journey of anticipation and surprise where visitors feel they have left the ordinary world.
(Photo Credit: Nick Kelsh)

The design of the new entrance road and parking passed through man iterations to achieve a synthesis of ecological, social and aesthetic goals. The road accomplished three major objectives: 1. It opens up an entirely new section of the arboretum's grounds to the public, effectively doubling the acreage open to visitors and revealing previously inaccessible landscapes; 2. it ties the Compton Garden and Bloomfield farm properties together to facilitate access and service; and 3. it brings visitors to the historic mansion site on the ridgetop, so that they enter the gardens at the original entrance.
(Drawing Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

The parking lot integrates multiple functions as a parking facility, water collector, and horticultural exhibit. The lot allows stormwater to be infiltrated into the soil on the uplands where it falls, instead of being conveyed rapidly in a pipe to a rain-swollen Wissahickon. The lot includes a conventional impervious asphalt roadway through the center, while the parking bays off to the sides are paved with permeable asphalt. A stormwater recharge bed is constructed under the entire lot, and when it rains, water rapidly disappears through the permeable paving and into an underground basin and from there it gradually infiltrates into the ground.
(Photo Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

Designed as a series of level terraces to catch the rainwater, the parking bays are hidden from visitors in the gardens below, carefully set into the ìmilitary crestî on both sides of the ridge top and curving to follow hilltop contours.
(Photo Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

A new loop path incorporated and replaced the old carriage drive, which had limited the main circulation to a small corner of the arboretum.
(Photo Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

Carriage house before. (Photo Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

Carriage house after. (Photo Credit: Andropogon Associates, Ltd.)

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