OvS Receives 2011 LongHouse Landscape Award

The LongHouse Reserve Garden Committee awarded Oehme, van Sweden & Associates the 2011 LongHouse Landscape Award on Saturday, September 17th at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, NY. The award, given for the first time ever to a firm or group, celebrates the “powerful changes that OvS has consistently and continuously brought to the American landscape for the past five decades.” Prior recipients of the award include landscape architect Dan Kiley, American gardener and horticulturist Frank Cabot, and the founder of the Central Park Conservancy, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.

L-R: Eric Groft, Wolfgang Oehme, Sheila Brady, Jack Lenor Larsen & Lisa Delplace

Following tours of private gardens in East Hampton, a dinner at the home of Alex and Carole Rosenberg in Water Mill and a luncheon at LongHouse, OvS Principals Sheila Brady, Lisa Delplace, Eric Groft and Founding Partner Wolfgang Oehme accepted the award on behalf of the entire OvS team.

OvS Principal Eric Groft

As part of the afternoon’s events, guests enjoyed a panel discussion between Oehme, van Sweden clients Kris Jarantoski, Executive Vice President and Director of the Chicago Botanic Garden and Todd Forrest, Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections at the New York Botanical Garden. The panel was moderated by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, President of the Foundation for Landscape Studies, and previous winner of the LongHouse Landscape Award.

L-R: Kris Jarantoski, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, and Todd Forrest

LongHouse Reserve exemplifies living with art in all forms. It’s collections, gardens, sculpture and programs reflect world cultures and inspire a creative life.

LongHouse brings together art and nature, and aesthetics and spirit, with a strong conviction that the arts are central to living wholly and creatively. Dedicated to quality and integrity, LongHouse programs encourage a broad concept of learning.

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APGA’s Annual Conference

The annual conference of the American Public Gardens Association took place June 21 – 24, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA. While attending the conference, Oehme, van Sweden Principals Lisa Delplace and Sheila Brady were panelists at a seminar focusing on SITES, the Sustainable Sites Initiative. The idea behind SITES is to create voluntary, national guidelines for sustainable land design, construction and maintenance practices.

Some of the first groups to whole-heartedly embrace and test the ideas of SITES were public gardens – the arboreta, conservatories and botanic gardens of the world. Two of OvS’ current projects, the New York Botanical Garden’s New Native Garden and The Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center at the Chicago Botanic Garden, are Pilot Projects of the initiative and were a topics of discussion among the seminar panelists.

In addition to Lisa and Sheila, Melanie Sifton of Humber Arboretum, James Ward from the North Carolina Botanical Garden, Stephanie DeStefano of American University and Kelly Ogrodnik from the Phipps Conservatory discussed how they work with nature to ensure built gardens mimic natural systems at NYBG and gardens worldwide.

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Spring is Here!

By this point, there is no doubting that we’ve been ready for Spring. Take a look at our past couple of postings – we’ve been talking about Spring’s arrival since late February!

Chicago Botanic Garden green roof

Even though Mother Nature doesn’t have her mind COMPLETELY made up about the switchover to Springtime, (Cherry!) blossoms, buds and blooms are popping up all over the place – including the green roof on the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Science Center at the Chicago Botanic Garden. In fact, just this week, the Science Center’s green roof was Project of the Week at www.greenroofs.com AND featured prominently on their blog – Sky Gardens: Where Cool Green Meets Lofty Blue. Pay these guys a visit, and help them inform, promote and inspire the earth-friendly technology of green roof architecture! FINALLY – spring is here!

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The Chicago Botanic Garden Trellis Bridge

There is exciting progress on the Trellis Bridge at the Chicago Botanic Garden! Construction began this past fall and with the stone piers and steel beams in place, the bridge is ready for wood decking.

The Trellis Bridge is the third in a series of bridges designed by Oehme, van Sweden at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Each bridge was designed with classic elements of the garden in mind. The Serpentine Bridge recalls the gentle meandering form of a garden path. The Arch Bridge and adjacent plantings were inspired by Monet’s famous bridge paintings and an Impressionist color palette. The new bridge features a cable trellis to guide vines planted on the shore out past the water’s edge and along the span of the bridge, providing a contemporary take on the traditional garden trellis.

Once completed, the Trellis Bridge will link Evening Island to CBG’s Plant Evaluation Garden and the new Plant Conservation Science Center. The Plant Conservation Science Center is a LEED Gold Certified 38,000 square foot facility housing state-of-the art laboratories and teaching facilities to support the garden’s ongoing mission of plant conservation. The building’s viewing gallery and green roof (designed by OvS as well!) are open to the public and offer visitors a unique opportunity to get a firsthand look at the science and study of plants.

Stay tuned as construction on the Trellis Bridge progresses!

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OvS is pleased to announce that two of our projects were selected for the Sustainable Sites Pilot Program.

Oehme, van Sweden & Associates is pleased to announce that two of our projects have been selected for the Sustainable Sites Pilot Program. The Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES™) is a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the United States Botanic Garden, and was created to promote sustainable land development and management practices that can apply to sites with and without buildings.

The two Oehme, van Sweden projects that have been selected are:

• The Chicago Botanic Garden’s Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Science Center: A 38,000 square foot facility, completed by Oehme van Sweden & Associates in 2009. The site contains a Rain Water Glen that filters storm water run-off and a 16,000 square foot green roof open to the public.

• The New York Botanical Garden’s New Native Plant Garden: To be completed in 2012, this is a 3.5 acre garden made out of sustainable materials, designed to attract visitors with the diversity and beauty of native plans. This project was generously funded by the Leon Levy Foundation.

Projects accepted as part of the SITES pilot program will be the first to demonstrate the application of The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, released on November 5, 2009. Feedback from the pilot projects will be used to revise the final rating system and inform the technical reference manual.

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