Portfolio
Tower Hill Meadow, Mt. Auburn Cemetery
| Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA
Laurita Winery
Laurita Winery | New Egypt, NJ
Ecological enhancements are a central part of attracting visitors to this 250-acre New Jersey-based winery. Guests seeking an evocative, inspiring landscape find it in the planted meadows rich with wildlife and the woodland walking trails arranged on interpretative themes. The three-acre irrigation pond, sited amidst designed grasslands and shrublands, is a special scenic destination featuring a historic corn crib adapted as a viewing station. Colorful native vegetation in the parking area’s stormwater infiltration basins further communicates the Winery’s commitment to environmentally sensitive land stewardship.
This project included a natural areas brochure with text developed by LWLA.
Project Credits: Kristofer Sperry Architects (architects); Aquascapes Designs, Inc. (pond contractor); Laurita Winery (brochure design).
Library of Congress Packard Campus
Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation| Culpeper, VA
As a consultant to SWA Group, the lead designers for this Library of Congress facility, LWLA helped formulate specifications for reforestation areas as well as approximately 30 acres of native meadows, including two-acres on a five acre green roof. LWLA also educated and coordinated contractors and other design personnel to ensure that natural areas were implemented effectively, establishing with a minimum of effort. As these created natural areas have matured, the site’s massive concrete building (a former bunker) now sits more gently in the landscape, almost seeming to fade into the surrounding rolling Virginia countryside.
Profiled in Landscape Architecture Magazine (September 2010).
Project Credits: SWA Group (landscape architects), Smith Group and Bar Architects (architects), Emory Knoll Farms (green roof consultants), Wiles Mensch (civil engineer),DPR (general contractor), Outside Unlimited (landscape contractor).
New York State Department of Transportation
From 2002 to 2009, LWLA designed specifications, prepared implementation guidelines, and installed twenty acres of seeded meadows along the historic Taconic State Parkway. Low maintenance alternatives to the all-too common roadside turf, these floriferous, long-lived meadows complement the visual and ecological character of native plant communities found along the iconic highway.
Featured in The New York Times (Aug. 15, 2004). The meadows were also the subject of an award-winning photograph by Cece Fabbro that was reproduced in the Federal Highway Administration publication Greener Roadsides (Spring 2005).
Strasburg Community Park
| Strasburg, PA
Located in a former cornfield, this twelve-acre passive park features a rich mosaic of meadow, shrubland, and woodland ecosystems designed to evolve according to the processes of natural succession. Meadows constitute a long-term composition in some sections of the park while in other areas meadows are allowed to evolve into managed shrublands and woodlands. Working closely with the Strasburg Community Park Foundation, LWLA educated stakeholders about this design program, creating buy-in that has made the park, along with its earthen amphitheater, network of walking paths, and habitat observation areas, a treasured amenity in the region.
Wissahickon Valley Park Sustainable Trails Initiative
| Philadelphia, PA
This trail side restoration initiative for a popular urban woodland park faced factors that derail most restoration projects, including invasive vegetation, a long history of site disturbance, significant deer browse, and intensive public use. Yet with strategic initial stabilization measures, the right plant associations, and effective long-term management procedures, the trail side plant communities specified by LWLA have thrived and achieved project objectives within just two years.
