ASLA Iowa Announces Winners of 2018 Chapter Awards
RDG Planning & Design has been celebrated for designs that safeguard natural environments, rejuvenate neighborhoods and enhance the quality of life for future generations.
The Iowa Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has recognized RDG Planning & Design with four 2018 Iowa ASLA Awards. These awards recognize organizations and individuals who demonstrate superior skill in the practice and/or study of landscape architecture.
The four projects recognized include the University of North Carolina – Greensboro (UNCG) Kaplan Center for Wellness in Greensboro, North Carolina (Design-Built Honor Award), the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) Student Activity Center in Ankeny, Iowa (Design-Built Merit Award), Gray’s Station Conceptual Plan in Des Moines, Iowa (Merit Award for Planning & Analysis), and the Walnut Creek Watershed Plan for Iowa’s Polk and Dallas Counties (Honor Award for Planning & Analysis).
The UNCG Kaplan Center for Wellness is part of a new Spartan Village, a mixed-use redevelopment area on the southern edge of campus comprised of industrial, business and residential properties. The Center provides more than 216,000 gross square feet of recreation and wellness space and occupies the majority of its five-acre city block site. A dedicated portion of the site’s southern edge creates a landscape buffer to soften views and scale from existing residential neighborhoods. A series of bioretention cells in this area provide stormwater treatment and peak discharge attenuation. Rainwater is managed in lawn basins, rain gardens, and collection areas, which allow the sediment to collect and remain on-site before the water is “given up” to the city. Jurors noted being impressed with the integration of sustainable design.
DMACC’s new Student Activities, Trail Point Aquatics and Wellness Center, located on the Ankeny campus, retrofits an underused and dated pedestrian building entry and plaza and courtyard. The newly designed plaza creates a functional and beautiful place for students, faculty, staff, and other community members to linger and move through on the way to other campus destinations. The courtyard also connects people to nature by preserving several mature Thornless Honey Locust trees surrounding the existing plaza. The resulting plaza and courtyard combine a unique blend of hardy and native plants, resilient materials, and open spaces to create a campus destination and a living laboratory that allows horticulture students to care for and study plants without leaving the campus. The jury noted the project’s “nice continuity of forms in design with the use of benches and paver borders.”
The Gray’s Station Conceptual Plan envisions a new neighborhood that extends Des Moines’ downtown by 84 acres through careful planning of a greyfield site, creating an opportunity for multiple generations, including the Echo Boom/Millennial Generation, to remain working and living in urban densities while providing a high quality of life, wellness opportunities, and living spaces that are adaptable to a variety of abilities; defines land use, open space, and transportation systems that are diverse and forward-thinking; and transforms the site’s role in the regional watershed from a current utilitarian baseline into a model for the urban stormwater. Jurors noted with a “strong case for permeability with bikes and pedestrian circulation, Grey to Green was an impressive theme throughout the project.”
The Walnut Creek Watershed Plan focuses on developing a highly-effective, well-communicates, science-based plan for improving water quality across the watershed. It’s purpose is to interpret very technical information in a way that can be understood by implementers, policymakers and the general public, to develop consensus among potentially conflicting interests and lead directly to on-the-ground, measurable results. The jury noted the project’s “great in-depth analysis of watershed and strong communication used through the entire presentation.”
Participation in the Iowa ASLA awards program helps broaden professional boundaries, increase public awareness of landscape architects' roles and raise the standards of the discipline.