News

September 9, 2017 – GGN and ZGF Architects collaborated on the installation UPLIFT for the Seattle Design Festival 2017 Block Party in Occidental Square this past weekend. This year’s theme title, “Power,” explores how design can power positive change. “During these tumultuous times, UPLIFT invites us to anchor our hopes in a collective effort. Through our interactions, we as individuals shape an evolving topography; over the course of the installation, our actions reveal a space for unity and empowerment. Come celebrate and elevate the bonds that unite us.” 

Design in Public and AIA Seattle, with more than 120 partners, will be hosting over 80 events and installations across greater Seattle through September 22, 2017.  “It’s important to reflect on our values as individuals and as a design community during a time when the world around us is changing rapidly,” said Debra Webb, Public Programs Manager of Design in Public. “This year’s Seattle Design Festival is all about exploring what role design has to play in elevating everyone’s quality of life.”

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September 5, 2017 – Makie Suzuki is leading a group of students from the University of Washington with co-director Jeff Hou in Tokyo, Japan. As part of this UW Asian Urbanism Exploration Seminar, students are learning about the Ginza Honey Bee Project – creating a community through honey and urban agriculture among high-rise luxury commercial buildings.

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August 31, 2017 – Bernie Alonzo served on a panel to discuss security design of public places, hosted by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), and moderated by Nancy Somerville, Hon. ASLA, Executive Vice President and CEO.

In view of recent tragic events in Charlottesville, Barcelona, and London, the panel examined the urgent need to ensure the public’s safety on public, government, and institutional properties. Key design goals and challenges were addressed with a special focus on how to assess risk, balance addressing threats with public access, as well as recognizing that good design and good security are not incompatible. The virtual panel was recorded and can be viewed here.

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August 23, 2017 – The Detroit RiverFront Conservancy announced today that GGN is among the four internationally-acclaimed firms that have been selected to move forward in a design competition for West Riverfront Park.

“We’re looking to do something unique and compelling for the City of Detroit,” said Matt Cullen, chairman of the board of directors of the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy. “West Riverfront Park will be a place that Detroiters and visitors alike will be drawn to, and that will be celebrated as one of the most special public spaces in the world.”

The competition is among the most significant in Detroit in decades and has drawn interest from leading architects and designers from throughout the world.

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July 6, 2017 – Two talented individuals have joined the staff of GGN.

Ekin Arin joins the DC office as a Design Intern. Ekin received her Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia, where she was the recipient of the Design Excellence Award.

Madeleine Aronson joins the Seattle office as a Design Intern coming from a background in cultural anthropology and multimedia art. She is currently pursuing her Master in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

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June 28, 2017 – Kathryn Gustafson lectured at reSITE 2017: In/visible City this past week in Prague, Czech Republic. ReSITE is a conference where architects, landscape architects, city planners, municipal leaders, and real estate developers meet to exchange ideas, push the limits of thinking about city making, and give practical examples of successful solutions.

Image courtesy of reSITE Festival

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May 25, 2017 – ACE Mentors, Tess Schiavone and Stephanie Brucart, supported their teams last night at the ACE Mentor Program of Washington Student Presentation Night held at Kane Hall, University of Washington. More than 160 students participated in this architecture, construction, and engineering program, presenting the case study projects they prepared during the school year.

Pictured: Tess and Aiden review a diagram.

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May 22, 2017 – The University of Virginia Club of Washington, DC and the University of Virginia School of Architecture presents a reception and panel discussion on the design and construction of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture on Thursday, May 25 starting at 6:00pm. The reception and panel discussion will take place at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC.

Rodrigo Abela will be a featured panelist along with Zena Howard, moderated by Courtney Spearman, Design Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts.

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May 3, 2017 – Jennifer Guthrie had the exceptional honor of presenting the 2017 Landscape Architecture Foundation Founders’ Award to Michael Reynolds, Acting Director of the U.S. National Park Service. With this highest tribute, the LAF acknowledges the National Parks Service for its leadership, ethics, and works of landscape architecture. The LAF Founders’ Award is conveyed to a firm, agency, or organization that demonstrates a significant commitment to preserving, creating, or enhancing landscapes over a sustained period of time.

Photo credit: Dan Smith / LAF

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May 1, 2017 – The 2017 University of Virginia Alumni Exhibit “Spaces of Diplomacy” features the work of GGN’s Rodrigo Abela, Jill Fortuna, Chihiro Donovan, and Peter Malandra as it celebrates the collaborative and influential role of the School’s alumni community on the public realm.

As the Landscape Architect of the Ankara New Embassy Compound in Ankara, Turkey (with Ennead Architects) and the American Embassy in Athens, Greece (with Ann Beha Architects), GGN’s alumni contribute to the exhibition’s examination how design engages with relevant diplomatic issues. The exhibition looks at how the physical design of an embassy and its landscape relates to the cultural and climatic context of a place, all while meeting functional demands that contribute to the civic life and urban fabric of host cities around the world.

“Spaces of Diplomacy” runs through October 9, 2017 at the East Wing Gallery, Campbell Hall, UVA School of Architecture in Charlottesville, VA, and is supported by a grant from the UVA Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation.

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May 1, 2017 ­– On Saturday, Philip Syvertsen  and Chihiro Shinohara Donovan presented “Get Local! Get Dirty!” at Water Boot Camp at the Belltown Community Center along with Drew Gangnes from MKA in Seattle and June Grant, Principal from Blink!Lab Architecture based out of Oakland, California.

Incredible innovations in technology and important changes in policy make it possible for Seattle to strengthen its climate change resiliency and address the profound physical and financial limitations of the existing water treatment infrastructure. The speakers addressed how the “Green Machine” and other tools take a direct approach to address water systems and prevent polluted runoff into Puget Sound.  

Water Boot Camp was sponsored by Growing Vine Street, a community-based non-profit that has been advocating, raising awareness, and engaging with nature in an urban setting since 1995 led by Buster Simpson and Don Carlson.

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April 28, 2017 – Shannon Nichol will present “Repair Work: Fixing, Drawing, and Negotiating Design,” as the keynote speaker for Sasaki Day at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, May 3, 2017, at 5:15pm at the I-Hotel & Conference Center.

Sasaki Day is a full day of design-oriented events including the Sesquicentennial Design Competition, the Alumni Homecoming Lunch, the annual Sasaki Day Awards Competition, an exhibition and celebration of work by the 2016-17 Designers-in-Residence, and the annual Awards and Recognition Banquet.

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April 27, 2017 – Today, as part of the 2017 American Institute of Architects Conference on Architecture, Rodrigo Abela will join a panel of designers and architects to discuss the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Orange County Convention Center.

The panelists will share project takeaways applicable to the specific interests and needs of those working in the field of architecture and design. These pertinent lessons include achieving the client’s vision of creating column-free space; providing civil, structural, and environmental solutions for responsible management of the water table; managing multi-stakeholder input from the Smithsonian, federal and DC agencies; and what it takes to design the most sustainable national museum ever built.

The panel moderator is Zena Howard, Principal and Practice Leader of Perkins+Will located in Durham, NC. In addition to Rodrigo, the panelists include Paul Corrado, Senior Vice President of WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff located in Boston, MA; and Benjamin Rosenberg, Associate of Silman located in Boston, MA.

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April 26, 2017 – GGN is pleased to be a founding sponsor of the year-long workshop series, Drawing in Design, at the University of Washington, College of Built Environments. The final lecture in the series for this academic year is on Friday, April 28 at 5:30pm in Gould Hall Room 322, “Drawing to Understand,” by Teresa Galí-Izard. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Teresa Galí-Izard is a landscape architect and architect from Barcelona, Spain, where she is principal of ARQUITECTURA AGRONOMI, currently teaching at the University of Virginia. In the last 20 years she has been involved in some of the most important contemporary landscape architecture projects In Europe including TMB Park, Coastal Park, the new urbanization of Passeig de Sant Joan in Barcelona, and the Sant Joan Landfill restoration, which won the European Urban Public Space award.

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April 21, 2017 ­– Today Bernie Alonzo presented at the 2017 Utah Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Annual Meeting. He also led tour of the NuSkin Campus and Grounds with Matthew Burke, Global Facilities Director of NuSkin.

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April 19, 2017 – Three talented individuals have joined the staff of GGN.

Lesley Conroy joins the DC branch as a Designer, holding a Master of Landscape Architecture from Virginia Tech’s Washington Alexandria Architecture Center.

Azzurra Cox joins the Seattle office as a Designer with a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design. She returns to the United States after working in Lisbon, Portugal.

Jillian Strobel joins as a Marketing Coordinator in Seattle. She earned a Masters in Business Administration from Claremont Graduate University.

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April 13, 2017 – Rebecca Fuchs, Jill Fortuna and Chihiro Donovan will be presenting at the 2017 Washington Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Annual Conference on Friday April 21, 2017.

Rebecca Fuchs will present “Grown to Survive: How the New Burke Museum Project is Using Forestry Science to Change the Way We Grow and Specify Plants in Landscape Architecture Projects,” with Bridget McNassar from Oxbow Farm and Conservation Center. The Burke Museum project team is learning from the fields of forestry and restoration how to increase the survival rates of new plantings in harsh urban environments, which has implications for changes to plant specifications and project bid timelines.

Jill Fortuna and Chihiro Donovan will present “Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture: Lessons Learned – How Construction informs Placemaking” with Brett Rugo and Duane Kreuger. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), which opened in September of 2016, is located on the last open site in the National Mall in Washington, DC, sharing an adjacency to both the Washington Monument and the White House. Jill Fortuna will begin the session discussing how the design evolved from respecting the unique and inherent location of the Museum, then focusing on how the construction process was influenced by the important historical themes of the project.

Both presentations will take place from 3:15 – 4:15pm on April 21, 2017 at the Spokane Convention Center, 334 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201.

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April 11, 2017 – Yesterday, the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) announced that GGN has received the Excellence in Landscape Architecture for General Design for Lower Rainier Vista & Pedestrian Land Bridge as an Honor Award Recipient for 2017.

Winning entries appear on SCUP’s website and in an online booklet publication of the awards. In addition, members of the jury will present a concurrent session on Monday, July 10 at SCUP–52, the Annual International Conference in Washington, DC July 8-12, 2017. They will discuss observations from this year’s submittals, what was “excellent,” best practices and the challenges that lie ahead for higher education.

Photo credit: Catherine Tighe

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April 10, 2017 – Kathryn Gustafson will deliver a lecture as part of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Public Lecture Series. The series is part of the Spring 2017 program of lectures, panels, exhibitions and conferences aimed at bringing creative leaders to the School.

The presentation will take place at Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium on Thursday, April 13, 2017 from 6:30 – 8:30PM and is free and open to the public.

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