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Conway School of Landscape Design Graduate Program in Landscape Planning, Design, and Management
Carl Heide
The mission of the Conway School of Landscape Design is to explore, develop, practice, and teach design of the land that is environmentally and ecologically sound. The intention is to: • provide graduates with the basic knowledge and skills necessary to practice design of the land that respects nature as well as humanity; • develop ecological awareness, understanding, respect, and accommodation in its students and project clients;
• produce project designs that fit human uses to natural conditions. Facts in Brief
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Founded 1972 Fall 2004
Program Ten months (September through June) of applied integrated study
A Note from the Director...........................................1
Emphasis Environmentally sound land use planning, design
School News .............................................................2
and management; integrated communication skills; individual educational goals; learning through real residential and community projects
2004–2005 Speaker Series .......................................4 The Making of a Meliorist by Don Walker .....................7 Avoiding Monocultures of the Mind by Ken Byrne ......10
Size 18–19 graduate students Faculty Three core faculty, one adjunct faculty, 50+ guest
Rain and Runoff by Jean Killhour Akers .......................11
speakers
Gentle Design by Malcolm Wells ................................12
Degree Master of Arts in Landscape Design, authorized by the Massachusetts Council of Higher Education
The Survival of the Significant Other by Lee Rosenthal ..............................................14 Spotted Salamander and Gardener by Crystal Neoma Hitchings .........................................16 Student Projects 2003–2004...................................17 News from Alums....................................................21 Annual Report ........................................................27 Letter from the Chair...............................................29
Accreditation New England Association of Schools and
Colleges, Inc. Location Rural western Massachusetts near the academic,
cultural and natural resources of the Five College Consortium and the Connecticut River Valley Campus 24.5 acres of wooded hilltop located one-half mile east of Conway town center Facility 3000 square feet with four wood-stoves and solar hot water panels, spacious design studio with individual drafting stations, library, classroom, a design/print area, and a kitchen and dining area
Cover: Management considerations for the Conway Hills Wildlife Sanctuary’s forested riparian buffers, by Bethany Atkins ’04 The Conway School of Landscape Design, Inc., a Massachusetts non-profit corporation organized under Chapter 180 of the General Laws, is a professional training school of landscape design and land use planning. As an equal opportunity institution, it does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital or veteran status in the administration of the educational, admissions, employment, or loan policies, or in any other school-administered program.
A Note from the Director
A Fitting First Year BY DON WALKER
STAFF Director Donald L. Walker, Jr. Administrative Director Nancy E. Braxton Associate Professor of Landscape Design and Graphics Jean Killhour Akers Assistant Professor of Humanities Ken Byrne Office Coordinator and Financial Aid Advisor Ilze Meijers
Context is published annually by the Conway School of Landscape Design. Editorial Coordinator Ken Byrne Graphic Design Maureen Scanlon
Seth Charde
Conway School of Landscape Design 332 South Deerfield Road P.O. Box 179 Conway, MA 01341-0179 413-369-4044 www.csld.edu
THE CONWAY SCHOOL OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN has occupied its South Deerfield Road campus for sixteen months. A few of the intended activities have happened, as have some that were unforeseen. Two bear cubs climbed the ash tree outside my office window on the Sunday before graduation; a dozen green frogs frequent our diminutive pond and a flurry of miniature tree frogs swarmed across the ground outside our door in late July. Deer, red and gray squirrels, chipmunks, turkeys, a fisher, a mink, a pileated woodpecker, and untold numbers of birds and dragonflies were glimpsed or heard as the seasons changed. Just this morning, as I was replacing a lay-by sign on the driveway, a male moose puffed and thumped by me, almost within touching distance. When twenty feet beyond, he stopped, turned his head to see what I was doing (just staring), then continued up the drive and westward into the woods. Surveying classes have circled the building, leaving flagged turning points but creating no base maps. A trail-planning class and a workshop with Peter Jensen left orange and blue flags and a hundred feet of isolated and intentionally invisible treadway. Professor Hank Art organized the vegetation sampling of several random plots at the south end of the property. Professor Tom Wessels guided a forensic walk through the north end. Notes of both these investigations are awaiting transfer to maps. Bill Lattrell led the class to investigate the two vernal pools, and Jean Akers and I led plant identification classes in fall, winter, and spring. Plants rescued from parking lot construction are thriving in their new locations. A boundary survey of CSLD property was completed by Sterling Hubbard (’75), and the sharp bend of the drive was modified to a forty-four-foot centerline radius by Henry C. Kocot Sons, Inc. Indoors, many shelves and bulletin boards are installed, some of the backlog of uncataloged books are shelved, boxes of ancient financial records and correspondence have been shredded and delivered to the Conway paper recycling dumpster, and a new copy machine replaces its ailing eleven-year-old predecessor. Two wood stoves from Delabarre Avenue are in place (a total of four) and the solar hot-water heater has been repaired so we can reduce our reliance on heating oil. The sixteen-member class of 2004 completed its work by the end of June and graduation was attended by 150 relatives and friends under a white tent on a beautiful day. Everyone who attended the ceremony, as well as all the other guests and visitors, has bestowed accolades on the site and its building. Local residents who knew the property as friends of the previous owners, the Macintoshes, have said how perfect the transition has been from Jack and Tip’s home to this school. Yet to come are the removal of invasive exotic plants, setting out several hundred seedlings, expansion of the shrunken pond, reshaping the surface of the eroding driveway, and organizing basement storage so seminars can be held there. These and myriad additional improvements occupy a list available for students’ involvement during their—and my— non-existent spare time. We look forward to another excitingly busy year.
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School News FACULTY/STAFF UPDATES New Director Search: Status Report As reported in the 2003 Con'text, CSLD Director Don Walker will retire at the end of the 2005 academic year, following twenty-six years of dedicated, passionate, and visionary service to the school, including six years as Academic Director and the last seven years as Director. In fall 2003, the CSLD Board of Trustees constituted a preliminary director search committee, which formulated a job description, outreach and advertising overview, schedule, and budget, all approved by the full board. Announcements were distributed nationally over the spring and summer of 2004, setting August 1, 2004, as the beginning date for reading applications. In mid-September, a director search committee composed of selected past and present board members, alumni/ae, and a staff representative began reviewing applications, with consultation from alumni/ae and board member advisors. Candidates deemed eligible have been invited to the CSLD campus in November and
December 2004 to meet with the committee, faculty, and staff, and to present a class and/or studio to students. The search committee will make a recommendation to the CSLD Board of Trustees, which will vote on this matter at its February 2005 meeting. It is expected that the new Director will commence responsibilities in July 2005.
Professional Development In October 2003, through the ASLA on-line continuing education program, I presented a session on “Planting for Water Quality.” The presentation, offered live to approximately fifty participants and archived on the ASLA website, focused on integrating stormwater management, improved site design, and the use of landscape plantings in re-establishing more natural hydrology on developed lands. At the Citizen Planners Training Collaborative sessions in Worcester last March, a few students experienced the myriad of issues facing local communities in their efforts to guide growth, conserve town character, and preserve natural resources.
Accounting For Myself In the year since I retired my Muppets lunch box and relinquished my editorial pencil, I still find myself thinking of Hinkley-Merrimac sandy loam, twenty-three percent slopes, and sun/shadow diagrams. But now I do this while I watch the hypnotic choreography of dark-eyed juncos or the preoccupied poses of an occasional yellow-shafted flicker. I have even seen a bobcat melt into the evening shadows at the edge of my road. This fall, after an intensive training with Amherst Writers & Artists, I have begun my own creative writing workshops in Northampton under the name Writing Full Tilt. In my own writing, I have discovered that there are more stories than I could have imagined lurking just beneath my daydreams. I write both in workshops with other fine voices and alone. My writing is focused on children’s stories and I am presently immersed in a young adult novel. Poetry still bubbles up and onto the page. I am collecting a healthy share of rejection slips, but know that once I reach the critical number of “no’s” a “yes” or two will arrive. My house isn’t any cleaner than it was before, but my Haydn piano Allegro is much improved. I keep all our conversations in my heart, insert the occasional wayward hyphen, and still eat my Luna bar every day. —Maureen Buchanan Jones, Professor of Humanities 1992–2003
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Once again trying to promote better use of our water resources, I presented an educational session on “Water Quality Landscapes: Solutions for Stormwater Runoff” at the April 2004 American Planning Association National Conference in Washington, DC. The general sessions that I was able to attend included some excellent and stimulating materials on conducting dynamic charrettes, environmental planning case studies, traditional neighborhood development, smart growth, and international eco-communities. Two specific programs offered at the APA conference were particularly relevant to CSLD programming. An afternoon workshop, “Planning Analysis Using GIS,” provided some valuable examples for curriculum development for this year’s class. This training session offered four hands-on exercises on the use and applications of ArcView 8.3 in land use and community planning. A full-day workshop, “Conserving Woodlands During Development,” examined two different land development standards currently being applied in Maryland’s Prince George’s County and Montgomery County and conducted site visits to projects where these standards had been incorporated. An ArcGIS 9.0 introductory session offered through ESRI covered changes to ArcView programming, new planning tools, and considerations for annual maintenance contracts and future upgrades. Changes to ESRI GIS software versions and upgrade policies will affect how we use and incorporate GIS in our curriculum at CSLD. —Jean Akers, Associate Professor of Landscape Design and Graphics
CURRICULUM Digital Improvements Since the move to our new location, we have incorporated several upgrades to the technological tools in the school program. The older studio computer was converted to library use and a new computer acquired to take its place. The two student workstations were shifted from wireless Internet access to hard-wired connections to avoid interruptions from the portable phone in the studio. Students’ laptops with wireless cards can access our broadband Internet connection from anywhere in the building. Additionally, student laptops with USB connections can use any of the available scanners and printers. This mix-and-match versatility along with individual unlimited Internet access relieved some of the previous bottlenecks with the student workstations. The incorporation of computer programs for illustration enhancement and report publishing has moved forward. In the winter term, Irene Stapleford, a graphic artist and experienced Photoshop/Illustrator instructor, conducted an afternoon workshop on the tools and techniques of Adobe’s InDesign publishing program. Combined with GIS mapping, Illustrator plans, and Acrobat PDF files, this year’s winter project reports were all created in digital as well as conventional hardcopy form. This format provides more convenience to our community clients and will allow more report sharing between the school and prospective project clients, students, and other interested parties.
higher education in New England with the purpose of assuring quality and assisting in institutional improvement. Accreditation status is granted to educational institutions that meet criteria regarding the quality of the educational program and of institutional characteristics such as financial condition and administrative strength. CSLD has been accredited by the Commission since 1989 and was last reviewed in 1994. During the 2004 academic year, faculty and staff produced two drafts of the CSLD Self-Study, an internal assessment of the institution responding to the eleven NEASC standards. This study was conducted under oversight by a CSLD board NEASC committee composed of three academics with experience in institutional accreditation: Al Rossiter, Chair, Buckingham, Brown & Nichols; Hank Art, Williams College; and Jack Barclay, University of Connecticut, Storrs. During the summer and fall of 2004, Administrative Director Nancy Braxton, Self-Study coordinator, solicited and received comments on pertinent sections from eight volunteer alums from the classes of 2003 and 2004. These comments will be incorporated into a final draft of the Self-Study, which will be available on the school’s website (www.csld.edu) by February 1, 2005. The NEASC evaluation team, chaired by Mr. Lawrence H. Mandell,
President of Woodbury College, is scheduled to visit the CSLD campus March 6–9, 2005. The public is invited to submit comments about the school to the Commission, addressed to: Public Comment on Conway School of Landscape Design Commission on Institutions of Higher Education New England Association of Schools and Colleges 209 Burlington Road Bedford, MA 01730-1433 E-mail: cihe@neasc.org These written, signed comments, addressing substantive matters related to the quality of the institution, must be received by March 9, 2005 and include the name, address, and telephone number of the person providing the comments. Comments will not be treated as confidential.
Trail-Making Workshop on Campus Over the three-day weekend of August 27–29, 2004, Peter Jensen, principal of Openspace Management of Stockbridge, MA, gave hands-on instruction in siting and constructing trail systems. Peter has twenty-seven years experience in design, layout, and construction of trails, and has been a subject instructor at the school for twelve years. Fifteen people came from Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Accreditation Notice CSLD is entering the homestretch of its accreditation review by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC). The nation’s oldest regional accrediting association, NEASC oversees accreditation for over two hundred institutions of
Peter Jensen leading trail-making workshop on campus.
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An Evening With Rick Darke 2004–2005 SPEAKER SERIES The public is invited to attend the following events in the Wednesday Public Speaker Series. Please RSVP in advance. Events are held from 7–9 pm., at no charge. October 6, 2004 Bruce Coldham, Coldham Architects, Amherst, MA Co-Housing November 3, 2004 Steve Strong, Solar Design, Harvard, MA Photovoltaics December 15, 2004 Jonathan Tauer, Buildings Program Director, NESEA, Greenfield, MA Residential Green Building and Renewable Energy February 2, 2005 Sarah James, Sarah James & Associates, Cambridge, MA Eco-Communities March 9, 2005 Mark Nelson, Horsley Witten Group, Sandwich, MA Water Resources and Land Development Processes March 24 (Thursday), 2005 Randall Arendt, Greener Prospects, Narragansett, RI Protecting Townwide Networks of Interconnected Conservation Lands April 13, 2005 Jocelyn Forbush, The Trustees of Reservations, Northampton, MA Highlands Initiative: Conservation, Land Planning, Public Education May 11, 2005 Larry Weaner, New Directions in the American Landscape Using Processes of Succession in Garden Design
Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin to attend the workshop. During the weekend, they learned about trail system design, construction, materials, tools, costs, and proposed standards for accessible rails. On the campus, participants flagged three trails and constructed a hundred-foot section of trail. Reactions were overwhelmingly positive; one participant wrote: “I thoroughly enjoyed working with this group on this topic. An excellent adventure.” Peter was praised as a well-organized, thorough, and articulate teacher. Suggestions for future CSLD workshop topics included native plant and tree identification, stone wall construction, vernal pool conservation, and open space management.
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Acclaimed author, photographer, lecturer, and landscape design consultant Rick Darke gave a two-hour Wednesday evening presentation, “The Evolving Landscape and the Nature of Persuasion,” in April. The talk was also open to CSLD alumni/ae, some of whom traveled from as far away as Boston and Burlington, Vermont, to take advantage of this special opportunity. Rick arrived at the school with his state-of-the-art notebook computer, projector, screen and digital camera, using the technology to illustrate his design philosophy and his techniques for persuading audiences to embrace environmental designs featuring native plant communities. He also presented a current project—a design for The High Line, a derelict elevated rail line along New York City’s West Side—that has evolved from his longstanding studies of the interrelation of technology and landscape. Images of his own evolving garden in Pennsylvania, featuring regionally native plants, and memorable northeastern landscapes changing over time generated excitement among the students and alums, many of whom stayed after the presentation to discuss digital technology and photographic techniques with Rick. Rick Darke’s latest book, The American Woodland Garden, has received the American Horticultural Society’s Book Award, the Garden Writers Association Golden Globe Award for book photography, and the National Arbor Day Foundation’s Certificate of Merit. His work with deciduous forest ecology and design was the subject of Ketzel Levine’s December 2002 National Public Radio program “Talking Plants.”
CELEBRATIONS Colloquium to Honor Don Walker, July 2005 Save the date! Striving for Fit: Repairing the Human Connection to Nature will be held Saturday,
July 2, 2005, at the Conway School of Landscape Design. This event will be an opportunity for friends and colleagues of many years to join together to honor Donald L. Walker, Jr., Director of the Conway School of Landscape Design, on the occasion of his retirement. Organized by CSLD Advisor Ruth Parnall and alumna Virginia Sullivan ’86, the colloquium is a time-honored marker at the retirement of a distinguished academician. The daylong program will consist of a number of papers presented by speakers of national stature in the fields of design, ecology, and environmental education. Discussion will follow the presentations, facilitated by a moderator. Each speaker will contribute a manuscript, to be included in the Colloquium Proceedings for possible publication as a monograph. Arrangements are in process; a list of speakers will be available by the end of the year. The colloquium will be held at the school campus on Saturday, July 2, 2005, from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm. Attendance will be limited to the first 150 registrants. The event fee of $75 includes a catered lunch and a reception following the colloquium. Please join us at this significant event!
Donald L. Walker, Jr. Scholarship Fund In 2001, the CSLD Board of Trustees established two $500 scholarships, the Donald L. Walker, Jr. Scholarship, awarded to a student newly entering the field of landscape design, and the Walter Cudnohufsky Scholarship, awarded to a student continuing in the field. Each scholarship is based on need and merit—the promise of both a high level of success in the CSLD Master of Arts program and of contributing to the field of ecologically based landscape design in line with the CSLD mission. These scholarships have been awarded to students in the classes of 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. A gift to the CSLD Scholarship Fund underwrote the first
scholarships, but your support is needed to continue funding this program. Don has served the Conway School of Landscape Design for twenty-six years, as a teacher, Academic Director, and Director. During this time the school solidified its national reputation as an environmental landscape design program and moved from its historic half-acre campus on Delabarre Avenue to the wonderful twenty-four-acre wooded hilltop across town. On the memorable occasion of Don’s retirement, please take this opportunity to honor Don by making a restricted donation to the Donald L. Walker, Jr. Scholarship Fund.
Brunch for Don The day after the colloquium, on Sunday, July 3, we will host a brunch at the campus from 10 am to 1 pm. This is an opportunity for Don’s students, colleagues, and friends to gather informally to celebrate Don. There will be a separate charge of $15 to cover the cost. Virginia and Ruth will be fielding questions and taking a preliminary count for both events at P.O. Box 32, Conway, MA 01341; sullivan@earthlink.net or parnall@crocker.com.
Enjoying the traditional brunch of poutine in Quebec.
New! FY 2005 Phonathons will be held Saturday, November 13, 2004 Board member Candace Currie ’97 is leading the school’s operational fund-raising initiatives as Chair of the FY 2005 Annual Fund drive. This year we are trying a different strategy for our phonathons based on a recommendation from Bill Montgomery, last year’s Annual Fund chair, and other expert advice: we will hold the phonathons in November 2004 rather than in the spring of 2005, and we will conduct them on a Saturday rather than on weekday evenings, following the model of the successful April 2004 Washington, DC Phonathon. As always, your support will be greatly appreciated!
TRUSTEES/ADVISORS/ COMMITTEES Bill Montgomery ’91 Retired from the Board Bill served two terms on the CSLD Board of Trustees. His important contributions during the past six years include serving as chair of the long range planning committee guiding the search for a new campus and the transition from Delabarre Avenue to South Deerfield Road, and serving as chair of the annual fund committee during FY 2004, working many hours in the effort to achieve a balanced budget. We have counted on Bill as a person whose counsel and followthrough have been critical to the success of every initiative he undertook. Before attending CSLD, Bill was employed for thirty years at AT&T; his experience there contributed to his comprehensive and varied skills as a CSLD board member. After graduating from CSLD in 1991, Bill served as Program Leader for Continuing Education at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies (IES) in Millbrook, New York, for six years. During his tenure there, CSLD faculty, staff, and students were involved as lecturers, guests, and students. Bill’s goal for his service to CSLD was “participating in developing a vision for the school and progressing towards that vision.” For six years, he has been a spokesperson and an activist for that vision; his perseverance and dedication to CSLD brought in one of the largest donations ever
received, launching the campaign for our new home. He also proposed three community projects to the school as a result of his connections to land conservation groups in Danbury, Connecticut, where he lives. While Bill has “retired” from board membership, we are grateful that he will continue to serve the CSLD community as an Advisor. Meanwhile, Bill is serving as president of the Swampfield Land Trust in Danbury, continuing to focus his energies and leadership skills in landscape design, land management, and preservation of open space. Thank you Bill! We will miss you on the board, but we greatly value and look forward to your continuing involvement as an Advisor, great friend, and supporter of CSLD. —Carrie Makover ’86, Chair, Board of Trustees
New Trustees The CSLD Board of Trustees has accepted the resignation of three of its members: Ed Landau in February 2004 following an illness in his family; Wynne Wirth in May 2004 following her announcement that she is expecting a child in the fall of 2004; and Bill Montgomery in October 2004, following six years of active and devoted service (see article above). We reiterate here our hearty thanks to Bill for all he has given and continues to give to the school, including the excellent groundwork he laid for ongoing and future fundraising initiatives. We congratulate
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Wynne on the birth of Owen on September 24 and look forward to her continuing to serve CSLD in other ways. Ed’s work with the board during his one-and-a-half years of service was extraordinary. Among other initiatives, as chair of the long range planning committee he created a new draft Strategic Plan to guide the school over the next five years and led board discussions concerning the school’s stance on the property adjacent to the school, which went on the market this year. In addition, Ed served actively on the crucial finance committee. Thank you Ed, for all that you have given the school; your loyalty to and experienced service on behalf of the school will never be forgotten. Joining the board in the fall of 2004 are two CSLD alums whose graduations from the school span twenty-five years: Donald Richard ’77 and Clémence Corriveau ’02. A registered landscape architect in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, and New York, Donald is Vice President of John G. Crowe Associates, Inc., Belmont, MA, where he has worked on numerous corporate and school site design projects. He has led workshops on wetlands replication for Ecological Restoration Symposia as well as erosion control seminars, and has served as a critic for CSLD formal presentations. Welcome Donald! Originally a native of Sherbrooke, Canada, Clémence worked in Montreal as an arctic archaeologist for several years. When her family moved to Connecticut in 1995, she continued her archaeological studies as a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts before attending the Conway School of Landscape Design. Since graduating from CSLD, Clémence has opened Ecological Landscape Design in West Hartford, CT, focusing on residential design and installation. Welcome, Clémence!
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Board Committees CSLD has seven active committees. We invite you, our alums and friends, to consider joining a committee. It is not necessary to be a member of the Board of Trustees nor an alum of the school to be a member of a board committee. Your ideas and energy will be appreciated! Committees typically meet one to three times a year, and most work is accomplished through email and/or telephone communications. Please contact Carrie Makover (carrimak@optonline.com) or Nancy Braxton (nebraxton@ csld.edu) if you are interested in serving the school in this way. CSLD’s Board of Trustees’ committees are listed below with their current chairs. We take this opportunity to thank Jack Ahern for his capable leadership of the Long Range Planning Committee during the spring term this past year. Committee
COMMUNITY OUTREACH Brunch with Conway Residents In April, CSLD hosted a brunch for invited residents of Conway—old friends and new—as an opportunity to learn about our program and see the new campus. Two members of the class of 2004, Bethany Atkins and Brian Tamulonis, gave a minipresentation of their winter project, a master plan for Conway’s Fournier property adjacent to the Conway Grammar School. A lively roundtable discussion ensued. Comments from our guests were enthusiastic about the school’s location and program; they urged CSLD to expand our invitations in future outreach brunches to Conway residents and others. “Everyone in town should realize that CSLD is a prestigious and demanding program,” said one participant.
Chair
annual fund ...............Candace Currie long range planning ......Jack Barclay neasc accreditation .........Al Rossiter student liaison .............Nat Goodhue finance .............................Rick Brown board development ....Jonathan Tauer capital campaign .......Carrie Makover
Advisors: Farewell to Mark Zenick Over the past three years, CSLD has been fortunate to have had the frequent, wise, and timely advice of Mark Zenick, Executive Director, Franklin Land Trust, who stepped down from this position during the summer of 2004 after seventeen years of service. Mark’s knowledge of and relationships with land trusts, property owners, and town officials have been a wonderful resource for CSLD during the critical period in which the school considered numerous sites for its new campus. In addition to his valued assistance as a CSLD Advisor, Mark has served as a guest lecturer on the topic of initiating land conservation goals with developers. We will miss Mark, and we wish him the very best in his future ventures.
CSLD Participates in 2004 Green Buildings Open House On Saturday, October 2, the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) held its 2004 Green Buildings Open House, and the Conway School of Landscape Design opened its doors to the interested public. Our green building features include solar hot water, passive solar, and day lighting. Describing our building in a hundred words or less, Director Don Walker wrote, “A 150-foot-long, east-west building with many south and east windows and few on the north. The saltbox roofline and partial earth berm and evergreen windbreak provide some protection from winter winds. Most of the landscape is the result of natural regeneration of native plants, although some residual garden exotics remain and removal of numerous invasive exotics has yet to be accomplished.” Thanks to CSLD Board member, Jonathan Tauer, NESEA Buildings Program Director, for offering the school the opportunity to be part of the 2004 Open House program.
The Making of a Meliorist* BY DON WALKER
“I DON’T KNOW” is my usual response to those who ask what I will do after this, my last year at CSLD. Once I said, “I will convert my 1963 Corvair to run electrically,” although my only electrical training was during the summer of 1953, when I carried tools and equipment and chiseled through masonry basement walls as the assistant to an electrician in New Jersey. Oh, yes, I spent another summer electrically spotwelding blood plasma cases during our war in Korea. Whatever I do, it will be attempting to find ways to live in better harmony with the earth’s ecosystems. A fundamental fact about the climate crisis is that Nature does not compromise. As I see it, my country continues to Beauty has little play war games while the earth’s to do with atmosphere burns away, so I must continue as best I can to counterappearance, act the dire future I foresee for and everything my and your grandchildren. There has been no master to do with plan. I have not been bulldozing understanding. my way through the landscape of life’s complex sequence of circumstances and encounters. More like the growth of vegetation on blowing dunes or fallen logs, the development of my being has responded to the winds of experiences just as the forces of nature shaped all the natural hills and valleys. One of the significant forces on my life was Stanley Hart White. At the end of the first class in Freshman Design, Professor White assigned a project: “Design a cloister garth and draw it in plan and cross-section with India ink on illustration board.” I was familiar with ink and, over the preceding years, had drawn plans of medieval castles, the thirteen colonies, the yard next to my family’s row house in the
Bronx, and numerous roads and towns in the dirt of that yard, but the rest of the assignment was a foreign language to my seventeen-year-old mind. It required trips to the dictionary, the library, and the art supply store before I could begin the “real” project. Within the week, Professor White walked the class to the university’s forest tree plantation (a.k.a. The Forestry), the geometric gardens and allees of the university president’s house, and the intricate backyard of one of Professor White’s friends. As he dismissed us he said, “Write a report about today’s trip, due next week.” Stan White expected designers to be observant of their experiences, to be curious, analytic, and responsive, much as Robin Kimmerer describes learning in traditional, indigenous communities: “by patient observation, discerning pattern and its meaning by experience.” Prof. White also expected his students to be thorough, articulate, and energetic. His hikes through the bottomlands of Allerton Park in Illinois or the valleys and cliffs of The Shades in Indiana would have his teenage students puffing even as Stan, then in his late sixties, would tirelessly explain the vegetation and the several waterfalls that indicated a one-time drop in the erosional base level. “For next class, draw cross-sections that accurately depict the species we have seen and their proper locations on
* Meliorism: the improvement of society by bettering humans’ physical being and environment instead of by ethical or religious means.
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landforms” was just another increment toward convincing his charges that “The earth is design.” Among the convinced, I was readily responsive to Bernard Rudofsky’s Are Clothes Modern?, where he reviews how people have tortured and maimed their bodies in the name of fashion. His illustrations of Chinese bound feet are an earlier version of presentday USA toe amputations to squeeze women’s feet into center-pointed shoes, both antithetical responses to natural design. Those willing to suffer personal pain and disfigurement for a fashionable appearance would, it appeared, bar no holds to altering their environment by any means for any reason. Nuclear energy proponents promoted the rerouting of rivers by blasting new valleys. To these hazards of radioactivity, Rachel Carson added the indictment of destruction of life on earth via chemicals, which students could witness in the death-convulsions of birds beneath campus elm trees that were being sprayed with DDT. Meanwhile, I spent several enlighteningly depressing years working in three landscape architecture offices, contributing to the destruction of earth’s design under the still-current titles of “development” and “redevelopment.” No wonder I was attracted to a book titled, The Making of a Moron, which had the thesis that vital work, such as sorting and loading produce in cold and dark wholesale markets, develops ethics and responsibility as well as muscles, while jobs as floor managers in department stores and chewing gum factories were fraught with petty conflicts, because
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they carried no burden of importance to the well-being of society. Suddenly, two whirlwind Ian McHarg lectures in one week revived the suffocating embers of my desire to design with nature, but also demanded a more thorough understanding of earth’s processes. The master’s program under Prof. Brian Hackett (an Englishman with a philosophy similar to McHarg’s, but without brogue or reputation) required courses in regional geography, geomorphology, and plant ecology, all of which were previously missing from landscape architecture education. Now I was building a solid foundation to my understanding of earth’s design, but it had taken seven years in the university and eleven years in public schools for me to build it. With the vital knowledge about living respectfully on this fragile planet barely, if ever, an included subject, schooling seemed much too long. I was hired to teach at the University of Illinois, where I initiated frequent field trips to experience and learn about natural landscapes and the natural forces that formed them. Jacques Grillo’s What is Design? (a.k.a. Form, Function, and Design) and then Rudofsky’s Architecture Without Architects provided examples of designing with nature before McHarg’s Design With Nature burst upon the world with rationales and case-studies of human actions based upon understanding of the powerful and complex systems of earth’s design. At this time, the United States was saturating Southeast Asia with Agent Orange. My fourth attempt at putting my principles into direct practice through an established landscape architecture office ran afoul of both clients and employer. My retreat to academia harbored the idea that my influence would best be accepted before students were fully formed. Soon after my return to teaching, I had the serendipitous opportunity to spend three days with the entire Conway School of Landscape Design at a conference in Guelph, Canada. I discovered that Walt Cudnohufsky, founder and director, held some of my beliefs and was practicing them: (1) The education of landscape architects should be changed. (2) Students should learn by doing and
so gain confidence. (3) Students should have the responsibility of solving real problems, which requires curiosity and the motivation to develop real understanding. (4) Students should learn by having to explain to others using oral, written, and graphic means. (5) The school should strip its curriculum to essentials so students can afford the time and expense. I wanted to be a part of this unique place, and because there was no opening as a teacher, I enrolled as a student. Within the year, Walt’s assistant, Lawrence Kornfield, announced his departure to visit Japan, and in 1979 I was CSLD faculty. More instruction in and attention to geology and drainage basins and natural vegetation came with me, as well as my aversion to design for appearance sake alone. Having a colleague allowed Walt the time to return to part-time professional practice, but an increasing student body, additional staffing obligations, the requirements of academic accreditation and, finally, a sharp decrease in enrollment which almost closed the school convinced Walt to step down and establish his still on-going full-time professional office. I remained, first as academic director, and then as director of the school. My outlook has continued to evolve and, as a result of the initiative of students, three slogans encapsulate my work here. “When I begin a project, I never think of beauty. But when I am done, if it isn’t beautiful, I know it is wrong” (R. B. Fuller via P. Underhill ’89). “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler” (A. Einstein via K. Fitzsimons ’90). “The earth is design” (S. H. White). To me, Fuller says that beauty has little to do with appearance and everything to do with understanding. His worrying through a project, knowing what was intended, aware of the limitations, the failures, the opportunities, the breakthroughs, the setbacks, and incalculable ideas incorporated and discarded that went into and shaped the accomplished physical result, registers as beauty if the intentions are fully realized. In many ways, Einstein says the same thing, and many of Fuller’s projects seem to be as simple as possible. One really doesn’t know which result is too simple without exploring numerous options. Where Fuller limits his statement to his “project,” Einstein’s can refer to the understanding of astronomy, physics, and ecology; to the design of the earth. Simplifying the landscape, a purposeful action of many designers for
the resulting “boldness” it achieves, and what most humans always do without thought or hesitation, undoubtedly is violating the inherent structures and processes of ecosystems everywhere. Making things simple may seem easy enough but “not simpler” should pull one up short, wondering what has been neglected, overlooked, and not understood. As biologist Robin Kimmerer states it, “If there is anything I’ve learned from the woods, it’s that there is no pattern without a meaning.” As we mindlessly simplify our intricately designed planetary systems by physical, radioactive, chemical, electromagnetic, and genetic manipulations and accidents, the future becomes evermore unpredictable unless we accept, as I do, Albert Schweitzer’s admonition used in the dedication of Silent Spring: “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” Rather than throw in the towel, I have been and will continue to encourage the capacity to foresee and to forestall. Designing requires seeing clearly, collecting, analyzing, and assessing all relevant information, developing and evaluating alternative scenarios, envisioning the implementation of each, and thoroughly explaining the advantages and disadvantages to create an informed clientele. Clear and logical thinking must lead to drastic changes in the way we live on earth, so that every project and every action will replace current landscape decoration with scientifically grounded ecosystem/landscape restoration. These skills will become evermore critical as the earth’s condition deteriorates. There will be an ever-greater need for the kind of education that CSLD currently provides.
REFERENCES Niall Brennan, The Making of a Moron, Sheed and Ward, 1953. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Ross Gelbspan, “Boiling Point,” The Nation, August 16, 2004. Jacques Grillo, What is Design?, Paul Theobald, 1960. Robin Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, Oregon State University Press, 2003. Ian McHarg, Design with Nature, Natural History Press, 1969. Bernard Rudofsky, Are Clothes Modern?, Paul Theobald, 1947. ————, Architecture without Architects, Doubleday, 1964.
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BY KEN BYRNE
on the Canada trip, even before the on-the-fly analysis of rotary and roundabout design, is “What do we not need to consider in the field of landscape design?” The conversation that follows inevitably arrives at the conclusion that almost anything could come into play. Or, put another way, nothing can be ruled out beforehand as irrelevant. The lesson here is not that designers must become masters of the known universe before they can begin work, but that they must be open—to the patterns, structures, tendencies, clues, indicators, arriving from many angles and perhaps unexpected sources. Shift your feet to the left or right and see now what you see. Furthermore, if landscape designers need to see the world from many different angles, they also need to see it through many different human spectacles—to be comfortable asking: How might an anthropologist understand this? A child? An activist? A historian? A psychologist? A post-structuralist linguist? A nonneoclassical economist? A poet? This openness to the multiplicity of human experience was what I found so attractive about CSLD’s program. Unlike large institutions of higher education where narrowly defined fields of study may leave little room for cross-disciplinary exploration, CSLD offered an educational environment that was humane, intimate, flexible, far from routine, and one that— crucially—acknowledged the importance of diverse realms of human knowledge. How has this cross-disciplinarity operated in practice at the school? In discussions among faculty about upcoming curriculum content, guest speakers, field trips, and the requirements of student projects, opportunities to reinforce learning by integrating activities emerge. At the start of this past winter term, for example, as students were just beginning to explore issues around land use planning and community development in the context of their first community projects, a number of activities coalesced around the public debate over the future of big-box retail centers then coming to a climax in Hadley.
THE FIRST QUESTION ASKED OF STUDENTS
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GIS mapping and Illustrator software were introduced as technical tools to help generate layered graphics for analysis, using the proposed big-box retail store site as a foundation. Geological and historical land use studies were discussed alongside developers’ memos, traffic studies, and opponents’ letters to the editor. Relevant legal issues were examined with the help of a guest speaker specializing in the legal intricacies of zoning regulations and the specific context of Massachusetts law, leading to discussions of potential alternatives to conventional zoning regulations and existing movements for their reform. In the humanities class, the rhetorical strategies of the opposing sides of the debate were discussed. What information were the developers leaving out? How were the opponents of the project framing their concerns? How were the maps presented by the two sides of the debate constructed? Broader economic and social issues that emerged—including the purpose of “development” and possible alternatives to the standard narrative of economic growth—were discussed in the context of alternative economic community development literature. A short story by Donald Barthelme presented another angle on the potential hubris of planning. Such a cross-disciplinary approach to the issue of the development of a single parcel, in the context of a debate unfolding in real time, helped prepare students for the multiple shifting and conflicting issues they faced as they began their own winter projects. Just as environmental monocultures are destructive of our natural resources, what Vandana Shiva has called “monocultures of the mind” are destructive of our ability to understand our diverse world—and surely the two are linked. Acknowledging that people are complex elements in a complex world, CSLD’s approach avoids the trap of believing the truth to be self-evident and available at first glance, while also avoiding the paralysis that comes with believing that only with total knowledge can we ever act.
Dennis Snider
Avoiding Monocultures of the Mind
Photos: Jean Akers
Rain and Runoff
Integrating stormwater and landscape
BY JEAN KILLHOUR AKERS figure 1
Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Beautiful rain. Singer-songwriters may enjoy stormy weather in their lyrics but in land use planning, rain events can offer serious design challenges in the land development process. Managing stormwater runoff has become a more significant design variable as land coverage shifts from natural plant communities to impervious surfaces. As part of the hydrologic cycle, and thus as an integral part of our water resources, runoff generated from rainfall is finally—within some progressive communities—getting the attention needed to protect water quality and quantity. The overall site design objective for integrating stormwater runoff into the landscape is to preserve (or minimize change in) natural hydrologic figure 2 conditions. Design practices include preserving natural drainage patterns, limiting impervious surface areas, reducing hydraulic connectivity figure 3 of impervious surfaces, and protecting natural depression storage. An example of a development project that integrated stormwater management into the project design is illustrated at Prairie Crossing, a “conservation community” featured recently in Landscape Architecture magazine (figure 1). This land development set aside several hundred acres as part of a conservation preserve before laying out the community plan on the remaining 678 acres. Prairie Crossing is located near two commuter rail
lines, forty miles northwest of Chicago. The residential areas (317 homes) comprise 20% of the total acreage. Industrial and commercial uses are designated on 11% of the site. Open spaces, including restored natural areas, parks, and permanent agricultural lands total 69% of the project’s acreage. The native landscape incorporates a “stormwater treatment train,” a concept developed by Steve Apfelbaum of Applied Ecological Services that uses open swale conveyance, upland prairie biofiltration, wetlands, and a manmade lake (figure 2). The development plan uses narrower, uncurbed streets to limit impervious surfaces and naturalized residential landscapes (figure 3) to reduce runoff volumes and pollutant loads. The open space in Prairie Crossing was restored to emulate the historic function (and aesthetic) of presettlefigure 4 ment prairies, wetlands, wet prairies, and savanna communities of northern Illinois. These large-scale restored landscapes were the most effective element in the stormwater treatment train. The lake serves as a final water treatment for any stormwater created by the development. Beyond the water quality enhancement, the lake is a recreational amenity, clean enough for swimming and the stocking of rare fish (figure 4). Based on best management practices effectiveness information and hydrologic modeling, Prairie Crossing is expected to reduce surface runoff volumes by 65% and pollutant loads by 85 to 100%. The integration of stormwater management into the fabric of the development pattern resulted in the protection of the water resources for this community and for those downstream.
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Gentle Design
BY MALCOLM WELLS
Conway School of Landscape Design 2004 Commencement Speech about your school, I was surprised and delighted, a few months ago, when Matthew Bourne ’04 phoned me to ask if I’d speak here today. Life has some nice surprises. Still, I feel as if I may have been invited by mistake. I never went to a landscape design school. I never went to an architectural school. And I have no degrees. Not only that, I don’t even have a computer, or a cell phone, or e-mail. (I do, however, have a website: malcolmwells.com.) In spite of all that, I’ve managed to wiggle through the cracks far enough to teach at Harvard, to speak at almost all the architectural schools, and to turn out a lot of books. But I won’t presume to speak to you, of all people, about landscape design. Instead, I decided to tell you the story of my life. The only trouble is it takes too long, so here are just a few experiences you might find useful. Here are two things my father taught me. They may sound trivial but they’re increasingly important in the land of the computer zombies. Smile and look people in the eye. Be dependable and on-time with your work. I’ll bet half the good things that have happened to me came about as a result of my listening to my daddy. Out of the Marine Corps in 1945 with no career, I decided to be an artist. After all, my mother had been a high school art teacher and, during World War I, a detail draftsman on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Some of it must have rubbed off. I took my portfolio to an ad agency art director. He looked at a few things. “Is this your best work?” “Well, I guess so. I don’t know, I suppose it is.” “Is this your very best work?” “No, I guess not.” He snapped the portfolio shut. “Come back when you can show me your best work.” That was fifty-four years ago. Maybe he’s still waiting for me. Every now and then I’ve had to treat a job applicant in the same way. On my way home from the ad agency, I took my portfolio to a little basement-type office in my home
neighborhood. A sign said, “George Von Uffel, Architect.” He took one look at my work and hired me on the spot. That’s how desperate he was for help. I’ve been in architecture ever since. In those days a few years spent working for an architect qualified draftsmen (there were virtually no women) to apply for registration. I applied and soon found myself with an architect’s license and no prospects. But, the very next day, a big preacher-man with a ten-gallon hat and a Texas accent said the local barber had told him about me. “Can you design a church?” “Of course,” I said, matter-of-factly, having no idea how to do it. But I did my best, got the design approved by the congregation, did the construction drawings and specs, took bids, and went off to get the building permit. The building inspector took one look and said, “Did you do this?” “Yes.” “Did you ever hear of a building code? Did you know this breaks more safety rules than I can count?” I hadn’t known of building codes, and it took a lot of fancy footwork to get the congregation to wait while I revised all the drawings but I wiggled out of that one, and before long the church was built. Then followed ten years of design commissions as I learned architecture on the job. Most of my work came from the big electronics firm RCA. The post-war TV boom had them scurrying to find a fast-responding, nearby architect—and there I was,
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Recorder photo/Peter MacDonald
HAVING HEARD SO MANY GOOD THINGS
dependable and smiling. My very first job for them was a 200,000-square-foot semi-conductor plant. They just handed it to me. In no time, thanks to me, the hundred-acre site of rolling farm and forest land had been turned into a level parking lot, five-acre building, and a small “landscaped” area. I was a “successful young architect,” and I kept that sad self-delusion for years, doing factories, labs, and offices while my young family and I lived the high life, never looking back. By the mid-sixties, I had my own timber and concrete office building on a riverside parkway. I had six employees. And RCA had just asked me to design its showcase pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. But there were dark clouds on the horizon. The war in Vietnam was getting bigger and uglier. Environmental activists were awakening me to some of the consequences of my work. And after its two-year run, the entire World’s Fair was pulled down and trucked to vast dumping grounds without any of its glittering building materials having been salvaged. It was total American-style wastefulness, and I began to open my eyes. That same year, a young Australian architectural student, Laurie Virr, asked me for, and got, a job. He was, and still is, a very bright and very outspoken man. Thanks to him I changed many of my wasteful ways and began dreaming of underground designs— “Gentle Architecture.” Laurie once stopped by as my family and I were leaving for church. When he heard where we were going he couldn’t believe it. “Oh no! Please don’t go there. It’s all rubbish. Hocus pocus.” I must have subconsciously been thinking the same thing because I had my necktie off in a flash, and I was happy to see my wife kicking off her high heels. The kids went crazy with all the Sunday freedom, and we never set foot in a church again. Laurie also awakened us to the unconscionable cruelty of zoos and aquariums.
The environmental mood of the times was perfect for my conversion to earth-covered buildings. Not only did they promise efficient energy use, they also promised silence, permanence, site restoration, and fire safety, not to mention their extra appropriateness in regions of brush fires and tornadoes. I had no trouble launching a lecture and writing career. Underground felt right, then and now, and it has felt and performed better all these past forty years. I’d fallen into what had been for me a perfect job. But for several years I hadn’t actually built anything earth-covered. I’d just talked about it and gotten others to build that way. Then along came my neighbor, Phyllis Greves. “Mac, if this is such a good idea, why don’t you do it for yourself?” I was out there laying brick before the month was up. It was great, and I could feel the green world waiting to join in and complete the job. Within a year or two you could hardly see the building. That was just the way I wanted it: sun-filled rooms overlooking a natural landscape. Underground architecture has never let me down. There’s a rumor that pops up now and then, a rumor that I’d made great sacrifices in giving up my big corporate clients. It makes a good story but it never happened. All my employees found good jobs in other offices, and I earned enough from lectures and books to live pretty much the way my family and I had lived in the bad old above-ground days—without the guilt. You know all about the green-plant, life-force part of landscape design. Far more than I do. All I can add is I hope you won’t waste your careers, as I did, zigging and zagging for ten years when the right way for each of you, whatever it is, is waiting directly ahead. But you don’t need me to tell you that either. Thanks very much. Malcolm Wells is the author of, among many other works, Underground Designs (1977), Gentle Architecture (1981), and Recovering America: A More Gentle Way to Build (1999).
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The Survival of the Significant Other (Or “SOS” for short) BY LEE ROSENTHAL
We received an unusual request as we prepared for this year’s graduation. Lee Rosenthal, husband of the graduating student Angela Sisson, asked that he be granted time to speak during the ceremony on a topic of burning import and relevance. The following is a condensed version of his remarks.
I’VE ASKED TO SPEAK TODAY in the public interest to reveal the dark side of The Conway School of Landscape Design. The issue I will focus on is the survival of the significant other. A “significant other” for the purpose of this exposé is defined as “Any person (without regard to intelligence or sanity) who has a loving relationship with a Conway student, but is not, themselves, attending Conway.”
Finding Conway (Masochist or Sadist?)
Let’s start at the beginning with the discovery of the existence of the school. Many students found Conway on their own, but I discovered that three significant others learned about the school first, and then went ahead and told their partners about it—surely a strong push down the slippery slope to their partner’s enrollment. This insight led me to redefine the word “masochist” as one who enrolls in Conway, and the word “sadist” as the significant other who discovers Conway and then proceeds to enable enrollment. For example, significant other Tracy thought that student Josh with his academic orientation and interest in art and design would enjoy studying landscape design. And significant other Bernadette (whose profession incidentally, is advising executives on career changes) supported student Dennis in his career change, as he had done for her at another time. Lawn Abuse (Environmentally Incorrect?)
Now let’s focus on a new environmentally incorrect dirty word: “lawn.” It is obvious that lawn largesse looms large in landscape logistics at Conway. For example, my wife Angela has recently instituted a “Lawn Reduction Program” for our property. Visits (Conjugal and Otherwise)
Geography has typically had a negative effect on visits between significant others except in the case of student James. One of the reasons he has been able to see his significant other Jackie so often is because she lives near Paradise Copies—much used by Conway students. And, she has been known to dine formally
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with him in the school library on a four-course dinner she prepares, delivers and serves. Wow! “Conjugal visit” is the wording that one of our friends uses when inquiring if student Angela is home for a visit or working at Conway. When she first arrives at our home and property for a visit, there is a specific ordered routine that she always follows: (1) identify new ephemerals, (2) locate new exotic invasives, (3) examine trees, leaves and pine needles, (4) check the turtle logs in the pond, (5) pet the cats, and finally, (6) say hello to her significant other—me. For one of Angela’s visits, I considered dyeing the little hair I have left a leaf green and then standing naked in the woods with a tattoo on my chest saying “Spring Ephemeral.” Significant other Lisa’s description of the elaborate planning needed to spend even one hour alone with student Brian sounds more like an illicit liaison between lovers: one that is secret from the Conway School—the real spouse. Significant other Skip’s view of visits is related to Einstein’s Conway-space-time contraction theory. He perceives that student Lizabeth’s visits are significantly shorter and much less frequent than she believes them to be. Time (Relativity and Relatives)
Continuing with the theme of Albert Einstein and quantum physics, let’s examine other effects of the Conway experience on time. The amazing phenomenon of CST (i.e., Conway Standard Time) is that during the tension-filled weeks before project final presentations, time appears to both speed way up and simultaneously slow way down—all at the same time. (How can that happen, Professor Walker?) Another example of the warping of time was documented by significant other Jeff, who says that student Crystal used the “carrot and the stick approach” by telling him day after day, for what seemed like months, that there were only two weeks left to the term. And Conway Standard Time (which, please note, has thirty-six hours in a day) appears to stop completely when Don Walker critiques.
Significant other Michelle has defined a new unit of Conway Standard Time. She astutely observed that the length of time for a human pregnancy cycle is approximately the same as that of the Conway academic year. During her pregnancy, she said that she “couldn’t sleep and was always exhausted.” Student Matt, on the other hand, while attending Conway, “couldn’t get enough sleep and was always exhausted.” Michelle calls this “sweet revenge.” In addition, she noted that Matt did not seem to hear the babies cry and I suspect, in kind, that Michelle does not hear the exotics invading. Changes (Cause and Affection)
Until now, I suffered under the mistaken illusion that this school was licensed by the State of Massachusetts to award only one degree—specifically, a Master of Landscape Design. However, I have just learned that student Lizabeth informed significant other Skip that she will be receiving the degree of “Mistress of Landscape Design.” Look out Vermont! The graduation card accompanying my graduation gift of a Weed Wrench tool (for removing exotic invasives) reads, “To Angela—A Weed Wrench for a Weed Wench!—Lee.” By the way, is Weed Gigolo the masculine of Weed Wench or is it more accurately, Weed Slave? Student Kirsten’s significant other, Steve tells of the appearance on every surface in their home of a myriad of cups and bowls filled with water and plant samples that made him wonder if Kirsten’s collecting wasn’t basically defoliating the neighborhood. Significant other Skip reported that student Lizabeth is now
calling all plants only by their Latin names. And both Angela and Lizabeth have alerted their significant others that they have big tree and shrub moving plans —meaning there is hole digging in their futures. Significant other Tracy met with indignant resistance from student Josh when she unwittingly tried to put some potted plants out on their patio that were definitely not native to the housing complex in which they were living. Student Amanda’s significant other, Jonathan, flew in during the previous year’s fall project with a wedding ring and a marriage proposal. Unfortunately they could not get married until the divorce from her winter project team finally came through, because you cannot be married to a significant other and the Conway School of Landscape Design at the same time. Kids (Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Conways!)
Significant other Lisa says that, as a direct result of student Brian’s long hours spent away from home at CSLD, their young son was seen running after the mailman yelling, “Daddy! Daddy!” Matt and Michelle report that when they pointed out an injured tree with a scar to their two-and-ahalf-year-old daughter, she first called it a Dogfood tree (her name for a Dogwood tree). Then she announced that it had a boo-boo and needed a doctor. But, because it was an exotic invasive Norway maple, Matt said, “don’t bother.” Michelle believes that he still has not adequately explained that decision to their “concerned little arborist.” Significant other Lizzy and student Sean’s older and wiser four-and-a-half-year-old Brian Tamulonis and Matthew Bourne presenting—when they should be home with their families.
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daughter did know the reason, however, when she pointed to a tree and said, “It’s a Norway maple, an exotic invasive—it has to go!” Communications (PowerPointlessnesses?)
Nourishment (Food to Study By!)
Significant others have been known to support student’s drug habits. An example is significant other Fritha, who has been identified as the supplier for student Robin’s high-end chocolate addiction. In fact, this so-called “Conway Connection” has had the effect of raising the standards bar (pun) on chocolate for the entire school population. Finale (Thank Goodness It Is Over!)
Perhaps significant other Lizzy summed it up best when she said that whenever she feels like complaining about CSLD, she remembers that Sean is following his heart, in the educational program of his dreams, and that the attendant sacrifices are a blessing not a hardship. And three announcements in closing. The distribution copies of this exposé have been printed on paper made entirely from recycled lawns and exotic invasives. They can be found between the “No! No! Lawns Must Go!” signs and the Conway School of Landscape Design “Exotic Invasive Fantasy Garden.” I want to thank everyone who spilled the beans on their significant others for being such good sports. Doing the research for this exposé was a wonderful experience. The interview conversations I had with the significant others were extremely interesting and very moving. And I want to thank the Conway School of Landscape Design for running such a superlative educational program, and giving Angela and every other student such a wonderful gift. June 27, 2004
Kirsten Baringer
My worry about the after-effects of the heavy emphasis on communications at CSLD took on reality when I discovered the following presentation roll downs in our closet at home: Hello Lee / I love you / Take off your shoes / Please take out the garbage / You swine!
Spotted Salamander and Gardener He comes up dumb and blind in a shovelful of mud, translucent eyelids squeezed against a sudden terranean glare, fat and still, as if dead. In terror I poke him, and he shifts, slow as the ooze he comes from. I have never before seen those blue dots, electric splashes in dull mud, that fat slow jelly body woken from the thickness of sleep, a quiet miracle. When I place him down, far from my digging, he awakens at the touch of wet earth, slipping fast beneath muddied water. My palm tingles, alive with the touch of his world. I move back to where I found him. My job here is to tear out those sedges hanging low and messy into the water, sedges whose dark canopy once held him. I slice my weapon into the bank, watching every shovelful for spotted salamander halves. Crystal Neoma Hitchings ’04
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Student Projects ‒ FALL PROJECT CSLD students begin their year working with area residents on their home properties. Projects may involve siting a new house, reducing erosion, reorienting driveways, or making a property more habitable for wildlife. Through careful observation, students come to understand the relationships among natural systems.
Working and Living by the River The Compton Property, Conway, Massachusetts. Designer: Angela Sisson
Accommodating the needs of a young family and a blacksmith shop
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he Comptons’ two-hundred-year-old house sits high on the western edge of their six-acre property, within one hundred feet of a busy road. One of the owners is a blacksmith who works out of a shop on the property, but the unheated shed needs to be replaced and is unsuitable for renovation. The Comptons sought help to site a new blacksmith shop, which needs to be close to the road for truck access but far enough from the house to allow for a protected family zone. The owners also want to make their small front yard safer for their two young children and to make outdoor space more usable. A primary constraint in siting a blacksmith shop is the two-hundred-foot riverfront protection boundary that extends over most of their property. Other challenges include protecting mature trees and maintaining household privacy. Working within these constraints and taking sun and shadow analysis into
consideration, the designer determined that the best location for the shop was just east of the existing shop. The recommended site is on the sunny outer edge of the protected riverfront, out of the family’s view but close enough for easy truck access. Siting the building here maintains clear views to the field and woods; protects mature trees, most notably a large oak tree; and preserves the Comptons’ one-ofa-kind barn. In addition, the design reclaims the front yard by placing a picket fence twenty feet from the road. The outer, more public yard acts as a buffer between the fence and the road, and the inner yard becomes safe for family use. The main entrance, shaded deck, and stone terrace are also redesigned. Wider steps and a small deck wrapped around the corner become part of the redesigned front yard. A planting plan for the property reduces the back yard lawn, replacing portions with a native meadow. Native shrubs planted along the road screen it from view and native trees and shrubs planted in the back yard screen the blacksmith shop from the house. Paths designed throughout the property enable access to the brook, the field, and the woods.
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WINTER PROJECT For their second project, student teams work with local communities and nonprofit agencies throughout New England and eastern New York to develop long-range plans for conserving fragile ecosystems and placing human activities where the land can sustain them. Students identify and map natural resources and immerse themselves in local government issues, state regulations, and regional contexts.
Planning for Future Growth Pedestrian-friendly hamlet development
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ardiner is a town in transition, facing intense development pressure as it shifts from a predominantly agrarian community to a commuter town. Fearing an onslaught of strip malls and chain stores, Gardiner residents determined that focusing commercial growth within a few hamlets would serve the town by both allowing economic growth and protecting the character of its rural landscape. The historically bustling Central Hamlet now has increased vehicular traffic with inadequate parking and a lack of pedestrian networks. The result: citizens either drive from store to store or bypass the Hamlet altogether, traveling to commercial locations in nearby towns. As part of the town’s new Comprehensive Master Plan, the CSLD team prepared a feasibility study, analyzing the Central Hamlet’s natural resources, circulation and parking patterns, and recreational resources. They explored a variety of schemes around these elements, addressing the needs of businesses and residents and the town’s desire to establish a cohesive community identity. The project’s final report includes design recommendations for the Central Hamlet with analyses and schematic plans for
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three outer hamlets. Design guidelines outline key considerations for steering development toward smallscale, pedestrian-friendly, and ecologically sensitive hamlets. Meanwhile, the schemes incorporate the unique identity and function of each hamlet, from town center to historic mill site to tourist destination. To provide easier pedestrian access, the design for the Central Hamlet recommends an extensive sidewalk network within the hamlet and extending into nearby neighborhoods. Reducing curb-cuts and increasing shared back-alleys allows for maximum on-street and off-street parking and establishes the visual dominance of street houses over driveways and cars. A realigned main intersection slows entering traffic while street trees and vegetation establish a deliberate, comfortable landscape within the hamlet. A town green occupies land in the center of the hamlet where the historic railroad station burned down in 2002, creating a communal meeting place and a destination for the existing rail trail. The Gardiner Hamlet Study is currently being used by the Hamlet Revitalization Committee in conjunction with the Comprehensive Master Plan.
Kirsten Baringer
Gardiner Hamlet Study, Gardiner, New York. Designers: Kirsten Baringer, Seth Charde, David Nordstrom
SPRING PROJECT CSLD student teams spend the third term
working with community and nonprofit clients to develop sitespecific design plans for parks, town centers, and riverways. Students base recommendations on ecological conditions and on assessed community needs. Final designs illustrate foot and bike paths, planting choices, lamp standards, and other details.
A More Liveable Community Courtyard Condominiums, Amherst, Massachusetts. Designers: Sean Gaffney, Robin MacEwan
Improving quality of life for residents and environment
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his twenty-unit condominium complex has not aged gracefully since it was built in 1987. The residents association contacted CSLD to help address significant problems that were limiting their use and enjoyment of the site, including poor drainage, degraded pavement, a lack of usable outdoor space, and inadequate separation from the nearby commercial center. Poor grading and poorly draining soils contributed to many of the infrastructure concerns of the residents. The design team created a grading plan that improves the site’s two non-draining swales, regrading slopes and incorporating a new stormwater retention pond and culvert. The pond allows the overall grade of the swale to be increased beyond what was otherwise possible and hydrophytic vegetation partially screens views of the busy street. The addition of the culvert allows a steep, eroding portion of the swale to be removed while avoiding extensive regrading that would otherwise have been necessary. Based on meetings with residents and their analyses of site use, circulation, views, noise, and microclimates, the design team created a planting plan, using native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous species, that enhances natural function and privacy in the landscape. It creates a visual screen between the property and bordering West Street, defines semi-private areas around private porches and access points, and creates a shaded community sitting area. By partially vegetating swales, the detention and retention pond, and portions of the regulated riverfront area and wetland buffer, the plan increases summer shade and improves water quality. Along West Street, a stone wall helps
define the property boundary and decreases tire noise from the busy street, while a footpath provides access to the village center. The final recommendations of the master plan were developed in conjunction with Courtyard Condominiums residents and serve to enhance the functionality and enjoyment of the site by solving drainage problems, enhancing private and outdoor community-use areas, developing connection with and privacy from the village center, and protecting the environmental values of the nearby riparian zone.
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Other Community Student Projects ‒ WINTER Shawangunk, NY: Open Space Inventory and Analysis. Joshua Clague, Crystal Hitchings, Angela Sisson
The team inventoried and analyzed agricultural land, scenic views, historical sites, recreation land, water quality protection zones, and wildlife habitat for this rapidly growing town seventy-five miles north of New York City. The composite layering of the information and analyses developed provides the town with an updateable, interactive planning tool to help the town preserve its most valuable natural and cultural open space resources. New Marlborough, NY: Open Space and Recreation Plan. Matthew Bourne, Judith Griggs
For New Marlborough to preserve its rural character while promoting economic growth, this plan recommends connecting protected land with corridors for human and wildlife use, protecting land along riparian corridors, instituting zoning that encourages development patterns that preserve open space, and preserving land through land trusts and private stewardship. Chelmsford, MA: Chelmsford Land Conservation Trust Master Plan. Sean Gaffney, Lupin Hill, Dennis Snider
Environmental and cultural inventories and analyses were conducted for
the Trust’s ten sites, totalling seventynine acres of protected open space in this sprawling suburban landscape. The master plan gives recommendations for increasing the visibility of the Trust, increasing access to the parcels, creating and maintaining trails, establishing and maintaining wildlife habitat and diversity, increasing the educational value of the sites, managing problem plant species, and developing links to other sites. Conway, MA: Fournier Property Master Plan. Bethany Atkins, Brian Tamulonis
The Fournier Property is a sixty-acre town-owned parcel that currently includes the Conway Grammar School, town highway buildings, trails, a historical farmhouse, and one-room schoolhouse. After facilitating community meetings and conducting site analyses, the team recommended that a town garage not be sited on the property. They also indicated how the environmental, recreational, and educational opportunities of the property can be encouraged. Union Vale, NY: Tymor Park Master Plan. James Allison, Robin MacEwan, Lizabeth Moniz
This five-hundred-acre town park contains a mix of hardwood and softwood forest, open fields, wetlands, and water bodies. The master plan takes into account the unique nature
of the park’s resources, the longand short-term needs of the growing community, and the intent of the land’s donors, providing specific recommendations guiding sustainable and integrated management of the park’s diverse natural resources and recreational facilities. SPRING Leverett, MA: Leverett Elementary Schoolyard Master Plan. Kirsten Baringer, Matthew Bourne, Brian Tamulonis
The school is located on a seventeenacre parcel of land shared with the town’s fire station, highway department, and library. A newly acquired fifty-three-acre woodland parcel lies to the east of the school. The design team prepared a master plan for an outdoor learning environment, linking the curriculum to the outdoor classroom while highlighting the property’s resources as amenities available to the entire community. Deerfield, MA: Historic Deerfield Master Garden Plan. Judith Griggs, Dennis Snider
Through research of historical documents covering the period from pre-settlement to the late 1800s and building on environmental and human-use analyses, the design team prepared plans for period landscapes, gardens, and improved circulation patterns for visitors. The plan includes memorial garden design, species recommendations, and a planting and management plan. Whately, MA: New England Wildflower Society’s Nasami Farm Master Plan. James Allison, Crystal Hitchings
The seventy-five-acre farm, containing wetlands, meadows, forest, and rivers, supports threatened and endangered species and exemplary habitat associations. The project scope includes design for expansion of the retail and production areas; a new building to house education and retail; habitat management and restoration recommendations; and
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News from Alums
Ashfield, MA: Belding Memorial Park Master Design. Seth Charde, Lupin Hill, Angela Sisson
This popular, centrally located twelve-acre town park includes a boat launch, recreational facilities, a beach, and buildings currently housing the town’s highway department. The master plan for the park addresses possible future uses of these buildings, the erosion of steep slopes, and the proximity of the boat launch to residences. It also makes recommendations for the future development of the site, incorporating riverfront protection measures and the addition of native vegetation.
1974 Clarissa Rowe is a Massachusetts registered landscape architect with Brown, Richardson & Rowe in Boston. Recent projects include Tufts Park in Somerville, MA. Daughter Jessica graduated from Duke University and is headed to law school. Son Nicholas is a freshman at Skidmore College. Floyd Thompson is the National Program Leader for Travel, Tourism and Byways at the USDA Forest Service in Washington, DC. The September/ October issue of VISTAS featured his article about the scenic byways program. He also co-authored A Technical Guide for Integrating Recreation, Heritage and Wilderness into Land and Resource Management Planning. Daughter Rebecca graduated from York College magna cum laude and is working for TV Guide Corporation. Daughter Heather attends Shepherd College and is engaged to be married in May 2005.
1977 Donald Richard is a registered landscape architect with John G. Crowe Associates in Belmont, MA. He served as a critic for the CSLD winter 2003 presentations. He joined the CSLD Board of Trustees in October 2004.
1978 Dummerston, VT: Earth Sweet Home Site Plan. Lizabeth Moniz, David Nordstrom
Robbin Peach continues as Executive
The site plan for this twenty-sevenacre, non-profit educational center and family home addresses the clients’ immediate desires for permaculture food production and recreational areas, and their longterm interest in developing a five-unit co-housing cluster on the site with buildings for community space.
1979
Conway, MA: Audubon Society’s Conway Hills Wildlife Sanctuary Plan. Bethany Atkins, Joshua Clague
The sanctuary is a hundred-acre parcel predominantly wooded with white pine, hemlocks, and hardwoods. A hayfield and barns remain from the property’s farming past. A busy road bisects the sanctuary, exposing the site’s rural character to passersby and creating two distinct tracts within the property. In addition to management recommendations, the plan provides designs for a parking area and system of trails that allow the site to function as wildlife habitat while providing access to its various vegetative communities and unique cultural features.
Josh Clague
trails. Design focuses are on circulation patterns and sustainable development practices, with an emphasis on integrating education and maximizing ease of production.
Director of The Massachusetts Environmental Trust in Boston. Donald Chamberlain is Director of Technical Assistance for AIDS Housing of Washington. He develops plans to address chronic homelessness and is lead planner for counties and cities, including Seattle and Oakland. Through his work with AIDS housing, Donald has been in contact with classmate David Ivancic in Columbus, OH. He recently hired another professional to design and remodel his city lot in Seattle. He invites alums to come visit his new gardens, which include native plants as well as Japanese and Mediterranean sections. Peg Read Weiss has left her teaching position at Chauncy Hall School in Waltham, MA, in order to pursue her interest in painting, drawing, and yoga. Daughter Marina spent the year in Costa Rica and will attend Amherst College this fall. Son Logan is in tenth grade. Tom Sargent is Principal at Equity Community Builders in San Francisco.
1980 Sharyl Green was one of three teachers
awarded 2003 Preservation Awards for Public Space and Education by the Chittenden County Historical Society in Vermont. Third grade classes at the Jericho Elementary School studied the geology, natural history, history, and culture of the Mills Riverside Park focusing on field-to-forest succession and the river. Classes created brochures and a play, and worked to preserve their local history.
Each year incoming students take over the ongoing project. Byrne Kelly is the vice president and manager of the design and installation division of The Behnke Nurseries in Beltsville, MD. He is also a partner in the development of thirty waterfront acres on Chesapeake Bay. Son Tyler is thirteen and daughter Clara is eleven. 1982 Irene Carlson completed a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell in May 2004. She is a part-time production artist for BostonBranding and a landscape designer with Carolyn Cooney & Associates. John Hamilton is Senior Project Manager for HELIX Environmental Planning in San Diego. He lives in La Mesa, CA. Liz Vizza continues master plan implementation for Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. Other recent projects of Brookline-based Elizabeth Vizza Consulting are master plans for Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston and Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA.
1983 Phyllis Croce coordinates landscape
restoration, education, and outreach for the Metropolitan Sewer District and the Beargrass Watershed Council in Louisville, KY. Recent projects include a brochure detailing the effects of impervious surface on water quality. She reviews stream restoration plans and is developing a stormwater ordinance. Phyllis also teaches a course in residential landscape design using native plants at a local nature center. Erik Van Lennep organizes an annual planning conference, “Rethinking the City,” and is starting a school for sustainability studies in Dublin, Ireland. He says CSLD has served as a model for the development of
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the international internship program at the Cultivate Sustainable Living Centre into a more structured school. 1984 David Jacke completed work on his book,
Edible Forest Gardens, which should be available in bookstores by February 2005. He is teaching permaculture courses in addition to residential design and garden construction projects. Daughter Emily is fifteen and attends Northfield Mt. Hermon School. Kathleen Kerivan is a full-time graduate student in Conservation Biology at Antioch New England. Her recent internship with the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo emphasized environmental education, and her last practicum was a schoolyard design for Haley Public School in Boston. She has sold her Franconia, NH, bed & breakfast. Jane Sexton Hemmingsen has been working for four years to improve the Nashua, NH, public library to include a plaza and gardens as part of the “Pocket Garden” committee, which has planted gardens throughout the city for its sesquicentennial celebration. She participates in water-quality monitoring for the Merrimack River, which she happily reports is once again swimmable. 1985 Robert Cole owns ilux, a New York City-
based company specializing in the manufacture and sale of comfortable luxury garments for women. 1986 Bill Halleck is Associate Landscape Architect
and Environmental Permit Specialist for the City of San Jose, CA. He is also Planning Commissioner for the City of Menlo Park, where he lives with his partner Tom Smith. Jean Pierre Marcoux is park planner and coordinator for the Regional Park of Lake Taureau in Quebec, Canada. 1988 Helen Anzuoni says she has finally
accomplished the goals she set when enrolled at CSLD. She works for LJM Design Group in Truckee, CA, and is a professional ski patroller at Lake Tahoe in the winter. She plans to take the exam for registration as a landscape architect this fall. She thanks Don and Walt for “encouraging me not to give up on my dreams.” Claudia Kopkowski recently marked her tenth anniversary as Land Protection Specialist at Mass Audubon. She managed the conveyance of 104 acres, which became its sixty-first sanctuary: Conway Hills Wildlife Sanctuary (nearly next door to CSLD and a student project in spring 2004). She and husband Steve became grandparents of a baby girl, Celia, in October 2003. They are designing a small adobe house in the midst of a mango orchard in To Dos Santos, Baja Sur Mexico. The adobe, with views of the
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Pacific Ocean and migrating grey whales, will be their winter home in retirement. Ann Turner Whitman visited the new CSLD campus in the spring, and thinks being surrounded by the natural world will help students counter the stress of work and study and serve as a constant reminder of one of their missions as landscape designers. Ann continues to write for gardening media, but is exploring career changes that could provide the best fit for her skills and interests. 1989 Mary Crain Penniman left her position with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection in 2002 to work as a freelance landscape designer. Current projects include residential master plans in Acton and Concord. She competed in sprint triathlons during the summer. Son Jake is ten and husband Bill is Conservation Director at the New England Wildflower Society. Gordon Shaw continues his long-distance bike rides. His latest was a week biking with friends from Canada to Massachusetts through Vermont. Alison Trowbridge is completing a program in massage therapy and starting her own massage therapy practice in Vermont. Pamela Underhill had a “fun time working on the school’s spring phonathon.” She enjoyed talking with other alums about their work in planning, public works, design, and building. She noted that CSLD has broadened many lives and careers. Pamela continues her work at Landscape Master Plans in the Washington DC area, where there is plenty of work with demanding and driven clients and a city pace. Her domestic responsibilities include two elementary-school-age children, a hard-working husband, and a new puppy. She took the August Trail-Making workshop at CSLD for a chance to get back to the woods and fresh air. Jim Urban works for Land Design and Development, a multidisciplinary engineering, planning, surveying firm near Louisville, KY.
1990 Patricia Finley is nearing completion of an addition to her house in Conway, MA, where she now lives full time. She invites alums to visit and see her new front door complete with dragons and a phoenix. Janet Powers is home-schooling her daughters Isabella, nine, and Ilana, five. She continues to work on several landscape design projects, and to experiment with permaculture and raising chickens in Bedford, MA.
1991 Annette Schultz is happy to be able to “talk the talk and walk the walk,” as she is moving from Pennsylvania to Morristown, NJ, within walking and biking distance of her office at the RBA Group. She is preparing an update to a scenic byways management plan for thirty-five miles along the Delaware
River. Many current projects involve trails, greenways, and bicycle/pedestrian facilities. 1993 Amy Craig is working on residential and
community designs and subdivisions in the Durham, NH, area. She also consults for an engineering firm. Sunnifa Deehr Brady is a music teacher in Fairbanks, AK, where she also works part-time in the brewery she co-owns. She has completed landscape designs for friends and family in Fairbanks and Michigan. Abbie Duchon continues to manage the conservation easement program as Real Estate Specialist for the New York City DEP. She spent three months last winter hiking all over the “spectacular landscapes and wilderness areas” of New Zealand and southern Australia. Beth Ferrari is a parttime Program Administrator for the Genesee Waterways Center, coordinating rowing and kayaking classes, managing the Whitewater Center, doing media, membership, and outreach. She is also working full-time learning the ins and outs of commercial real estate in western New York State, while she looks for work to continue her career in land conservation. Her old cobblestone house in the Rochester area is a work in progress. Daughter Alice is three. Michael Hylton is an ecological designer and land planner for Cedar Design Group in Encinitis, CA. Recent projects include creating a series of brochures for organizations such as the Center for
Natural Lands Management. Ann Sinclair served as a judge at the New England Flower Show in March. Her urban garden in Jamaica Plain, MA, was on the Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) tour of Bostonarea organic gardens in July. The summer issue of People Places & Plants has a small profile of Ann and her home garden. Her business, Ann Sinclair Landscape Design, has a new website featuring services and events. 1994 Katherine Anderson, husband Peter Hill, and year-old son Carter moved to Seattle where Peter accepted a job with amazon.com. Larissa Brown has left the firm she co-founded, Community Design Partnership, to join Goody Clancy & Associates of Boston as Chief Planner. Though she has pangs about leaving her own business, which will continue under her partner, she is very happy to become part of “a great firm that offers tremendous opportunities.” Esther Danielson and husband Bill live in Pocasset, MA, but are continually lured away to Alaska to visit their children and grandchildren, this year for the month of May. In September they toured “the awe-inspiring tundra landscapes of Labrador’s Torngat Mountain Fiords, with visits to Greenland and Newfoundland.” Lynn Harper moved to Athol, MA, providing herself with a new set of landscape challenges after leaving behind her extensive established gardens in Holyoke. She continues to work as Habitat Protection Specialist for the Massachusetts Natural Heritage Program, Division of Fisheries & Wildlife. Lynn served as a critic for CSLD’s 2004 winter project presentations. Melissa Mourkas is a self-employed landscape designer in Sacramento, CA. She recently traveled to Italy. Martha Petersen continues as principal of Martha Petersen Landscape
Design in Kittery, ME. The gardens she and Neil Jorgensen have created at their home were featured in Better Homes & Gardens magazine. 1995 Jim Cowen continues to be a botanical and design consultant for Environmental Planning Services in North Stonington, CT. Kristin Fletcher earned tenure at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, FL, where she is Professor of Spanish. She is enjoying the wildlife at her new house bordering a Florida state nature preserve. Her front yard includes lots of native plants and no lawn, while the backyard is “totally wild.” Cynthia Hayes is based in Fremont, CA. WaterShapes magazine recently featured one of her residential design projects. Pat Kolbet has her own design business and is doing well despite widespread summer drought in Idaho. In the winter, she teaches horticulture at a local high school and landscape design at a technical college. Pat is a student too, and hopes to complete a PhD in two years. She is studying water utilization by plants in established landscapes.
1996 Andrew Franch moved to Asheville, NC, where he is planning and installing a native landscape on his three-and-a-half acres while looking for employment in the area. Michele LoGrande Bongiorno has been combining part-time work with parenting. She and John have three children, Olivia, John, and Sophie Marie. Michele’s latest project is a residential design for a neighbor who is a great-nephew of Frederick Law Olmsted. Jean (White) Tufts is project scientist for Wetland Studies and Solutions in Chantilly, VA, where she delineates wetlands, does endangered and threatened species surveys, and conducts tree stand evaluations. She reports they have built a couple of rain gardens.
1997 Candace Currie continues as Mapping &
Planning Projects Manager at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge MA. She is working on a land survey of all ten thousand cemetery lots and says “the hardest part is getting all of the lot markers, granite posts in the ground, uncovered.” Candace serves on the CSLD Board of Trustees. Christine (Wisenbaker) McGrath continues parttime work with Okerstrom Lang Landscape Architects in Great Barrington, MA, while caring for son Ian. She also has found time to prepare for the landscape architecture registration exam and hopes to be registered in fall 2004. 1998 Peter Freisem operates Cricket Hill
Landscapes in Conway, MA, where he recently bought a house. Brian Higgins is Restoration Specialist at Jones & Stokes in Bellevue, WA. His Penny Creek Culvert Replacement Project improved fish passage for endangered chinook salmon and won a 2004 award from the Seattle Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is engaged to marry Jill Weems in 2005. Wendy Ingram is a planner at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, making maps using GIS. Her most recent project involves bicycle trails. She received a GIS certificate from University of Massachusetts-Boston in December 2003. She also took a course in GIS/GPS at the university’s Nantucket Field Station in June 2004, working on a project showing how Nantucket had developed between 1950 and 2004. Wendy and her husband John Marlow visited classmate Catherine Rioux and husband David in August 2004, in Machias, ME. “A highlight of the trip was the sight of a bog of cotton grass in bloom with a mother and baby moose nearby.” James McGrath continues working with the Pittsfield, MA, Parks and Recreation Department where he directs the city’s thirty-one parks as well as its recreation programming. He has a new perspective on playground design; he and wife Christine ’97 have been spending time at playgrounds throughout the Berkshires with year-old son Ian. Darcie Woodruff Perkins and her husband Dusty have moved to Texas, where he is a biologist coordinating research for national parks in the southwest, while she stays home with three-year old Tanner and is expecting a new baby. She has patented a window box design and volunteers at the local elementary school creating bird habitat. Her volunteer work reconnected her with classmate Marya Fowler in Austin. 1999 Janine Chagnon left Hopkinton Stone & Garden two years ago and started the LTS Group, a “deconstruction/design/build”
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company working on residential and commercial landscapes and interiors. She also owns a real estate investment company, which rehabilitates properties using as many green building techniques as possible. Janine, boyfriend Domenic and their husky, Dakota, live in Somerville, MA. Cindy Tavernise continues working as a residential designer and has completed the Granville, MA, Open Space and Recreation Plan. Seth Wilkinson launched Wilkinson Ecological Design, a land management and restoration company focusing on wetlands protection and invasive species eradication. Project highlights include a sixty-five-acre coastal grassland restoration, an Atlantic cedar wetland restoration to reestablish critical habitat, and technical assistance, for conservation commissions drafting management plans. He reports that his firm is the only one on Cape Cod specializing in the management of invasive plants. Seth and his wife Alison Flynn have constructed an environmentally-sound demonstration home showcasing passive and active solar, alternative sewage treatment, and recycled building materials; it uses no fossil fuels for heating or cooling. Seth gets around in a car converted to vegetable oil fuel and uses biodiesel for his commercial equipment. 2000 Joan Casey lives in Annapolis, MD. Janet Curtis moved to Burlington, VT,
and is working as a development officer for the University of Vermont’s School for Environment & Natural Resources. Carl Heide is Director of Technical Support at Probind in Beverly, MA. Peter Phippen coordinates Eight Towns and the Bay, funded by the Mass Bays and Estuaries Program, for the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission in Haverill, MA. He has installed several environmental demonstration landscapes for state projects. Peter has been appointed to the Board of Trustees for the Manchester Essex Conservation Trust and the Ipswich River Watershed Association. Seth Reynells and wife Leah moved to the sunny coast of South Carolina where Seth works for Sunshine Nursery & Landscape doing residential and commercial designs. They celebrated the birth of their daughter Olivia Grace, born June 9, 2004. Judy Rice completed her third year at Three Season Landscaping in Hopkinton, NH, and reports that design requests are on the rise. She is a candidate for certification by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Teresa Rogerson completed the Michael Lin graphics workshop and recommends it, especially for incoming CSLD students. She hopes to expand her business, Ecology by Design, to reach clients in San Diego and the Silicon Valley and says collaboration and good health are the keys to her success. Tree joined the Association of Professional Architectural Illustrators and is working toward becoming a registered
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landscape architect. She “is looking for the next step to diversify her experience into the public sector.” Judy Sherburne is a selfemployed landscape designer in Juneau, AK. Recent projects include new library grounds and a natural area/parkland design. In the winter, Judy taught botany at the University of Alaska. She is interested in partnering a business with other CSLD alums. 2001 Chuck Arnold and his wife Lisa have
moved to California. He is enthused about year-round bike riding and hiking, with redwood forests and beaches just over the Santa Cruz Mountains. Terry Marvel is a landscape designer with Stano Landscaping, a design/build and contracting firm in Milwaukee. He lectured on “Art and Urban Ecology” for Wild Ones Natural Landscapers and presented “Native Plant Communities as Models for Home Landscaping” at the 2004 Natural Landscaping Conference in Milwaukee. In June Terry attended the Landscape Institute at The Clearing, Jens Jensen’s former home and school in Wisconsin. The workshop focused on contemporary stewardship issues of Jensen’s designs and other historic, naturalistic, public landscapes. Lora Migliore works for KT Enterprises, a design-build firm in Chantilly, VA. Elizabeth Rousek completed a Certificate in Practical Horticultural Training with the Royal Horticultural Society at Rosmoor Garden in Devon, England. Her dissertation is titled, “A Meadow for Every American: Meadows in the American Landscape.” Elizabeth was awarded a grant to study alpine meadows in the Pyrenees for two weeks. She “loves English country life and the travel afforded with twenty-three days of holiday!” She has a job offer from a RHS garden in Yorkshire and is awaiting a work permit. Aaron Schlechter is project manager at Creative Habitat Corporation in White Plains, NY. Current projects include the Staten Island BlueBelt, the Blue Heron Nature
Center, the eradication of invasive mile-aminute on Staten Island, the NYC Parks-Bronx River embankment restoration, and municipal restoration projects in Rye and New Rochelle. He won Best Naturalistic Garden and Best Demonstration of Environmental Sensitivity awards at the 2004 Connecticut Flower & Garden Show, and was asked to give a presentation on rain gardens at the 2005 show. Aaron was interviewed by several newspapers and radio stations, including NPR, about the many miles he commuted in his waste vegetable oil-converted VW Jetta, getting thirtyeight miles per gallon, all for free. He hopes to replace the old VW with another diesel car to convert to veggie power soon. In the meantime he is happy driving his new Toyota Prius from his new residence; Aaron and his partner have bought a townhouse in Norwalk, CT. Robin Simmen lives in Brooklyn, NY, and manages Brooklyn GreenBridge, the community horticulture program at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Designing and promoting rainwater harvesting systems is a favorite part of her job. She also teaches workshops and street clinics, writes newsletters and tip sheets, and gives technical assistance to community gardens. Lesya Struz led one hundred McDevitt Middle School students on a tour of Waltham, MA, to explore the city’s past, present, and future ecology as part of the seventh-grade art, science, and English curricula. Jason Williams was promoted to Senior Associate at Studer Design Associates, Ridgefield, CT. Plans are underway for wetlands mitigation, two large boat marinas, multiple equestrian facilities, and large private estates throughout Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. He recently completed courses in AutoCAD and Architectural Desktop. Jason also started Container Gardens, a small company designing and installing potted plantings. He purchased a small farm in Huntington, CT, where he will grow cut flowers to sell at farmers markets
2004 ANNUAL FUND/PHONATHONS The FY 2004 Annual Fund brought in a total of $57,520. A total of 241 donors contributed, including 100% of our board of trustees. Hearty thanks to board member Bill Montgomery for his exceptional leadership of the Annual Fund initiatives this year. The 2004 spring phonathons held in April in Boston, Amherst, and Washington, DC again proved to be important vehicles for annual fund giving, raising $9,845, or a critical 17% of the FY 2004 Annual Fund. Special thanks to the volunteers and to those who loaned their facilities or home: • Boston, MA, at the law offices of Duane Morris, LLP, available thanks to Richard Snyder: Candace Currie and Judy Thompson, Co-Coordinators, Marty Petersen, Wynne Wirth, Bill Montgomery, Wendy Ingram. • Amherst, MA, at the office of Blair, Cutting and Smith Insurance Agency: Jen Luck and Madeleine Charney, Co-Coordinators, Sari Hoy, Grey Angell, Don Walker, Bill Montgomery, Anna James, Ilze Meijers, Nancy Braxton. • Washington, DC, at the home of Byrne Kelly, Coordinator: Bruce Stedman, Pam Underhill, and Jenny Reed.
and florists. Francie Yeager continues working long hours at Groundwork in Concord, NH. She was in charge of getting a hundred trees planted throughout the city in April. Francie leads youth in “green teams” doing jobs to improve the local environment. She is also working with a landscaper and learning more about plants. Daughter Katrina continues to enjoy her work at Yankee magazine, and Jodi has graduated from college and is living in Milwaukee. 2002 Michele Albee Devaney married Brian Devaney in June. The couple honeymooned in Banff National Park where Michele reports they didn’t see any grizzlies, but they did see a wolverine. They live near Park City, UT, where Michele is enjoying her job as a planner for Summit County. Cindy Bright, husband Eric, and daughters Franziska and Schuyler celebrated the birth of baby boy Cairn McDonough on May 24, 2004. Cindy recently completed a residential design on a small city lot in Springfield, MA, and helps Eric run Pennyfarthing Investment Management, a socially and environmentally responsible investment advisory. They live in Belchertown, MA. Michael Cavanagh continues to operate Cavanagh Landscape Designs in Newport, RI. This year he became a Rhode Island Certified Horticulturist and joined the Ecological Landscaping Association. Michael married Sheri Weltman in October 2003. Graham Claydon was promoted to head of department for outside gardens at Home Depot. He really likes his newly purchased 2001 Prius, and has installed an active solar water heating system at his home in Shirley, MA. Clémence Corriveau operates Ecological Landscape Designs, focusing on residential designs and installations in the Hartford area. She enjoys introducing her clients to the benefits of native plants while satisfying their wishes for unique and beautiful landscapes. She joined the CSLD Board of Trustees in October 2004. Alexander Ganiaris launched Solidago Landscaping in San Francisco, working on design, installation, and maintenance. “It’s just me, an old truck, and some hand tools.” He plans to take the California contractor’s exam for landscape construction. Alex spent a month surfing in Baja to escape the cold waters of northern California. Alma Hecht owns Second Nature Design in San Francisco. Her “Garden of Sustainable Delights,” featuring a green roof, rain chains, and a rain barrel, won the bronze medal at the 2004 San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. She recently spoke at Merritt College about her experiences at CSLD and says that “what I learned made it all possible.” Sonja Kenny and Selina Rossiter have started their own business, Twinleaf Associates, in Cambridge, MA. Whitney Rapp was in Alaska for another summer internship; she arrived in
Glacier Bay National Park the first week of spring after driving from Maine across the trans-Canada and Alaska Highway in her Toyota Prius. She was responsible for inventorying the plants and animals from the lowwater line to the woody vegetation, assessing the substrate, taking representative photos, and taking GPS points for updated GIS maps. Her role included performing a necropsy on a very smelly dead humpback whale calf. Whitney’s latest adventure was a thousandmile road trip from Skagway, AK, through the Yukon in August. Elisabeth Reese Cadigan continues her work as Watershed Planner with the City of Portland, OR, Bureau of Environmental Services. Inspired by the completion of extensive renovations to their 1906 triplex near downtown Portland, Elisabeth and husband Michael formed a design/build firm focused on restorative landscaping and sustainable building methods. 2003 Madeleine Charney is Information
Resources Manager at the New England Small Farm Institute, a non-profit organization supporting beginning farmers and smallscale sustainable agriculture. She is also a part-time reference librarian at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Active with Tree Stewards of Northampton, MA, she helped organize educational workshops about local sustainable economics. Madeleine has published three articles in the Northeast Organic Farmers Association newsletter and taught a vermicomposting workshop at the NOFA winter conference. She also gives an annual Wednesday evening lecture to CSLD students on library resources. Matthew Farrington
lives near Woodstock, VT, where he continues carpentry work and is establishing cattle grazing pastures. He recently completed a native planting plan for a client on the Maine coast. Terra Freeman De Medici is enjoying her work at a non-profit outdoor education center on Catoctin Mountain in Thurmont, MD. She reports that much of what she learned at CSLD is used daily: garden design, land management plans, restoration, and trail design. She and her husband bought a cedar chalet on five acres in West Virginia, a mile of challenging mountain road off the main road. Olivia Imoberdorf operates Living Earth Landscape Design, a design/build company in Suffern, NY. She and John bought a house with an “acre to play with where the woodpeckers are happily knocking away.” Bill Joyce is a drafter and project manager at Isabelle Greene Associates in Santa Barbara, CA. His work focuses on residential design using sustainable techniques and materials. In September, he and girlfriend Nicole hiked the Napali Coast in Hawaii. Angela Kearney is doing conservation planning for the Town of Lincoln, MA, and started her own design and planning studio, Minglewood Designs, from her home in Concord. Previously she worked for Highmark Land Design, a landscape architecture and planning studio concentrating on residential, community, and institutional design. She participated in a design charette in Kennedyville, MD, working with regional planners on a twenty-five-acre “traditional neighborhood development.” Last fall she installed native front yard plantings and meadow which remain “a thriving ecological landscape within a very traditional suburban subdivision.”
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Angela worked with classmate Jono Neiger and a local builder to install phase two of her CSLD residential design project, including a zip-line landing platform and climbing wall. Jono is Conservation Officer with the Palmer Conservation Commission. He has moved to a small property on the Sawmill River in Leverett, MA. He reports his landscape design and land management business is taking off, and he has been elected to the Board of the Kestrel Trust. Joy Prescott moved to Brunswick, ME, where she is coordinating the Maine Coast Protection Initiative, a planning effort sponsored by the Land Trust Alliance, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the State Planning Office, and NOAA. The plan will identify priority areas for future conservation, based on coastal and estuarine habitat, scenic and cultural resources, and public access points. She is also working for a co-housing group in Brunswick to site a common house. Joy and her husband Steve plan to build a house there. Andrew Robertson is a residential landscape designer with Paul Keyes Associates in Tenafly, NJ. He received AutoCAD certification last spring and has integrated the technology into the office. Mary Whitney finished a Wellhead Protection Plan for Chelmsford, MA, and is lecturing about ecological landscape design in Carlisle and Stowe. Mary volunteers for the state’s Low Impact Development Task Force, the Alewife Restoration Project for the Concord River, the Nashua River Watershed Association, and the Ecological Landscaping Association. Amanda Wischmeyer continues as a draftsperson at a civil engineering, architecture, and landscape architecture firm in Cincinnati, OH. She is learning AutoCAD and aspects of civil engineering and land planning. Amanda and her husband are developing their own residential landscape design business. 2004 James Allison traveled across the country with girlfriend Jackie after graduation, camping at state and county parks along the way. Since arriving in Portland, OR, they have been hiking in the Cascades, sea-kayaking on the Columbia, and floating the smaller rivers around Portland. Back at work at the City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services, he has been assigned a small stream channel restoration project and two wetland creation projects with lots of grading. He is taking a CAD course and “looking forward to using my CSLD skills on these projects.” James is also “volunteering for a local school that wants to remove part of their blacktop and disconnect their downspouts into a rain-garden— this should be a fun project, as it has a lot of parent and community support.” Kirsten Baringer is living in Greenfield,
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MA, honing her GIS skills, job hunting, and dreaming up plans for the future. Matthew Bourne has enjoyed spending more time with wife Michelle and daughters Olivia and Mchale at home in Northampton, MA, and catching up with other family and friends. He says “we are very busy but enjoying a more comfortable pace of life.” He completed a hardscaping project in Springfield, installing a walkway, patio, and retaining wall. He is working on a plan for a client in Maine that includes a realigned driveway, regraded yard, patio, two walkways, planting beds, retaining wall, and steps, and wants to collaborate with a local subcontractor to do installations of his plan this fall. He will also work with a design-build firm in Amherst. Josh Clague is a Land Conservation Planner at Scenic Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY. He and Tracy Collins were married in October. Sean Gaffney reports that he has officially registered his new ecological landscape planning and design company, Salamander, with the city of Northampton, MA. He has several projects underway, including work with Nuestras Raices, his first student project client, as they begin implementing the design from last fall. He is also creating a website for his business. Sean, wife Lizzy Tyler, and daughter Lila are getting settled into their new home. He is “very busy and having a lot of fun putting everything that I learned into action.” Judith Griggs is a conservation planner with the State of Massachusetts Association of Conservation Districts, based in Holden. She is working with large land-holders, towns, nonprofits, and farmers to use land in ways that protect the environment. Judith is taking classes in water quality, wetlands, and pest and invasive species management. Lupin Hill had a great drive across the country after visiting with classmates Crystal Hitchings and Bethany Atkins in Maine. She is in Portland, OR, now and has decided to stay; she is fixing up her house and looking for a job. Lupin is “happy to be back on the west coast. It feels good to reconnect with old friends and community.” She has seen classmate James Allison a couple times and said “It’s comforting to have a Conway companion all the way out here.” Crystal Hitchings returned to Maine and got settled in time to enjoy visits from classmates Lupin Hill and Bethany Atkins. In late July, she and Jeff moved to a hundredacre island to live in a propane-and-solarpowered home with a hand-dug well and outhouse. They had to refurbish the place, which had not been occupied in ten years. They’ve also been opening up some of the woodlands. She enjoys this time away from computers, phones, cars, and crowds, with opportunities to pick gallons of raspberries, kayak, hang around with her cat, and bathe
in the ocean. There are plans to re-build a small camp and another house on the land, and eventually build greenhouses and start a native garden. After returning to the mainland for the winter, focus will be on a trip to New Zealand and on starting a business. A week-long wetlands workshop helped Crystal realize she wants to run her own business rather than work for a land trust or other firm. Robin MacEwan has moved to Seattle, Washington. Lizabeth Moniz has been “reconnecting with Skip and my cats.” By mid-August her “whirlwind summer” included a fifteen-year Peace Corps reunion, a family reunion, the Cullowhee Conference of Native Plants, eight visitors from France, and teaching carpentry for women at Yestermorrow. She looks forward to settling in and getting fully unpacked, finishing her house and finding work, as well as finding more time to reconnect with friends and community. Angela Sisson is glad to be relaxing back at home in Wallkill, NY, just “hanging out watching TV and movies, wandering around, hiking and identifying plants.” She and husband Lee Rosenthal went canoeing in the Adirondacks, spent a couple days in the Berkshires, then traveled to England for three weeks in September. Brian Tamulonis has moved with his family to Lynnfield, MA, where he is busy with landscape design and installations.
Former Staff Marilyn Anderson, staff 1980–82, grad-
uated from the University of Chicago with a Masters in Landscape Architecture. She has had several painting exhibitions and is Director of the Peace Institute and founder of the Aristotelian Society of Chicago. Chet Cramer is deeply involved in management and evolution of his home and property in Leverett, MA, where he has cleared and reseeded the pastures with timothy and clover and planted twenty-five sugar maples along the road. He is showing his art, “Photo Abstractionism,” in Amherst, and has been commissioned to do a portrait of a 1770 colonial house. Chet is active in the New Warriors/ManKind Project, which offers support and leadership training for men and says it is “changing the world one man at a time.” He celebrated the births of his first grandchildren over the summer: daughter Hannah’s baby girl Olivia and son Nat’s baby boy Sam.
Annual Report Fiscal Year 2004 Summary of Operations FY 2004
STATEMENT OF ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 2004 (with comparative figures for 2003)
During the first year at CSLD’s new campus, we expected to experience a substantial operational deficit. However, FY 2004 continued the overall picture of the school’s fiscal stability with net assets approaching the million dollar mark, despite a slight and remarkably small ($2,952) overall decrease during the school’s first year in the new facility with an enrollment of 16 students. The FY 2004 Summary of Operations highlights the extraordinary advances in the school’s net assets during the preceding two years as a result of the school’s initial capital campaign for the new campus, including a major grant and the sale of the Delabarre premises. The FY 2004 annual drive was somewhat lower than the FY 2003 CSLD high-water mark but still significantly higher than previous years, and capital campaign contributions of nearly $30,000, while on a different scale from the 2002 and 2003 drives, nevertheless enabled the school to renovate its full studio space for use by the class of 2004. We are grateful to all who made contributions to the Conway School of Landscape Design in FY 2004.
UNRESTRICTED PUBLIC SUPPORT AND REVENUE Revenue and Gains: Contributions In-kind contributions Grant income Tuition and fees Project fees Net realized and unrealized investment gains/losses Net realized gain (loss) on sale of assets Investment income—net of fees Miscellaneous income
57,520 4,775 – 324,800 53,716 (12,824) (146) 12,111 2,051
62,056 2,656 76,500 332,749 54,550 12,901 133,246 13,137 14,113
Total Unrestricted Revenues and Gains Net assets released from restrictions
442,003 31,930
701,908 301,494
473,933
1,003,402
366,179
392,954
78,211 29,639
74,804 31,263
474,029
499,021
FY 2004
TOTAL UNRESTRICTED REVENUES, GAINS AND OTHER SUPPORT
UNRESTRICTED EXPENSES Program Services: School activities Supporting Services: Administration Fundraising TOTAL EXPENSES NET CHANGE IN UNRESTRICTED NET ASSETS
TEMPORARILY RESTRICTED NET ASSETS Contributions Net realized investment losses Interest income—scholarship/loan fund Investment income—scholarship/loan fund Net assets released from restrictions
FY 2003
(96)
504,381
28,342 – 232 500 (31,930)
257,799 (7,609) 689 1,231 (301,494)
NET CHANGE IN TEMPORARILY RESTRICTED NET ASSETS
(2,856)
(49,384)
INCREASE (DECREASE) IN NET ASSETS
(2,952)
454,997
NET ASSETS AT BEGINNING OF YEAR
959,517
504,520
NET ASSETS AT END OF YEAR
956,565
959,517
The board of trustees, faculty, and staff of the Conway School of Landscape Design are deeply grateful to the following individuals for their generous donations to the school’s Capital Campaign during the period July 1, 2003, through June 30, 2004. This support enabled us to convert the former three-car garage of the new facility into a studio, thereby creating a beautiful unified, double-studio space, used and greatly appreciated by CSLD students beginning September 2003. Thank you very much! Betsy Abert Charles Arnold Matthew Arnsberger Henry Warren Art Terrence Boyle & Assoc. David Buchanan Elisabeth Reese Cadigan JerriLee Cain & Richard Law Donald Chamberlain Clémence Corriveau Patrick & Susan Ernst Corser
David Cox Walter Cudnohufsky Abbie Duchon Marlene Eldridge Elizabeth Farnsworth Barbara Fisher Don & Betty Fitzgerald Adeline Fortier Michael Gibbons Wendi Goldsmith Bradford M. Greene John Gutting Lynn Harper
Brian Higgins Betsy Hopkins Cynthia Johnson Steve Kellermann Annice Kenan & Jesse Smith Lauren Snyder Lautner Jackie Leopold Carrie Makover Mary & Robert Merriam James Mourkas Gary &Mary Oggiani Mary Crain Penniman
Roger Plourde Janet Powers Walter Reynolds Design Assoc. Ltd. Christopher Rice Peter Richter Melissa Robin & Michael Caplan David Rosenmiller William A. & Sheila K. Sanders Aaron Schlechter Richard Snyder
Trillium Judith Stone Cindy Tavernise Judith Thompson Karen Tiede Hap Wertheimer Robert & Judith Wilkinson Judith Wilson Thomas & Helene Wirth Wynne Wirth
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Bethany Atkins
Capital Campaign Donors FY 2004
The board of trustees, faculty, and staff of the Conway School of Landscape Design extend deep appreciation to the following individuals and organizations for their contributions credited to the school’s 2004 fiscal year, including annual fund gifts, in-kind donations, and gifts restricted for FY 2004 operational expenses. Their generosity was crucial to offering our unique graduate program in ecological landscape design, planning, and management during this fiscal year, contributing 14% of the school’s operating income and covering 39% of our operating costs (excluding salaries). We extend our warm and whole-hearted thanks. Anonymous (2) Amy Spencer Ackroyd Susanna Adams John F. Ahern Michael Albano Jennifer Allcock Grey Angell Helen Anzuoni Charles Arnold Matthew Arnsberger Henry Warren Art Mollie Babize & Mary Quigley Ben Baldwin Yanhua Bao Hatha Gable Bartlett Terence Beltramini Mark Bethel Cynthia Boettner Michele LoGrande Bongiorno Ken Botnick & Karen Werner Terrence Boyle & Associates Nancy E. Braxton Barbara Keene Briggs Cindy Bright Tim Brooks Lorna & John Broucek Larissa Brown Richard K. Brown & Anita Loose-Brown Edmund Bruno David Buchanan Elisabeth Reese Cadigan JerriLee Cain & Richard Law Anne Capra Ralph A. Caputo Dennis Carboni Michael Cavanagh Bruce Coldham Randy Cole David B. Coleman Arthur Collins II Jill Ker Conway Carla Manene Cooke Clémence Corriveau Perry Cousseau James Cowen David Cox Phyllis Croce Walter Cudnohufsky Candace Currie
Janet Curtis Ruth B. Cutler D. Alex Damman Esther Danielson Mimi Darrow Robert Dashevsky Dennis Delap Michael Dobson Brian Dobyns Harry Dodson Lea Doran Sarah Wilson Doyle Gregory Drake Abbie Duchon Donna Eldridge Marlene Eldridge Jon & Barbara Elkow Carolyn Ellis Paul Esswein Don Eunson Mathew Farrington Elizabeth Fay Lila Fendrick Patricia Finley & Charles Taylor Eckhard & Susan Fischer Marcia Fischer Rachel Fletcher Adeline Fortier Marya Fowler Andrew Franch Elizabeth French Fribush Jeannine Keith Furrer Paul Gallagher Michael Gibbons Esther Gleason Wendi Goldsmith Nat Goodhue Sharyl Green Stephan Green Randy Griffith William Gundermann Bill Halleck John Hanning Bruce Harley Lynn Harper Martha Harrington & Satch Lampron Channing Harris Cynthia Hayes Alma Hecht Jane Sexton Hemmingsen Brian Higgins Duncan Himmelman Blair Hines & Liz Vizza
David & Marcia Holden Betsy Hopkins Benedict Hren Michael Hylton Olivia Imoberdorf Wendy Ingram Leonard Jekanowski Leslie Dutton Jakobs James Jensen Daniel Kaden Steve Kellermann Byrne H. Kelly Annice Kenan & Jesse Smith Betty Kenan Sonja Kenny Kathleen Kerivan Robin M. Key Anne & John “Hiki” Klauder Amy Klippenstein & Paul Lacinski Cindy Knauf Kathleen Hogan Knisely Nancy Knox Patricia Kolbet Claudia Kopkowski Sarah & Max Kruzansky Ed and Sandra Landau Elsie H. Landstrom Edward Lareau Lauren Snyder Lautner Jorge Leal Robert & Virginia Lemire Susan Leopold Jason Long Marc & Susan Long Jennifer Luck David Lynch Carrie Makover Margaret & Andrew Maley John H. Martin Terry Marvel Cecil Charles Maxfield Dean Maynard Ann Georgia McCaffray Heather McCargo Tim McClaran Christine & James McGrath Janet McLaughlin Dorothy Merrill Renny Merritt & Janet Taft
E. Lynn Miller James Monahan William & Melody Montgomery Andrea Morgan Andrea Morgante Darrel Morrison James Mourkas Mary Mourkas Gwen & Andrew NagyBenson Marilyn Nordby John Nuzzi Rebecca Okrent Omgeo LLC Wendy Page William T. Payne, Jr. Mary Crain Penniman Martha Petersen Peter Phippen & April Bowling Janet Powers Linda & Ron Prokopy Alison Reddy Jenny Reed Walter Reynolds Design Assoc. Ltd. Christopher Rice Donald Richard Jeff Richards William & Sally Richter Ann R. Roberts Andrew Robertson Melissa Robin & Michael Caplan Elizabeth Roebuck Teresa Rogerson Ellen Rosenberg Susan Rosenberg David Rosenmiller Allen & Selina Rossiter Joel Russell Barbara & Tom Sargent Sheafe Satterthwaite John Saveson Aaron Schlechter Tina Schneider Annette Schultz Barbara & James Scott Gail Seefeldt Teresa Serafin & Morris Lainer Gordon & Joy Shaw Valerie Shulock Robin Simmen
Bloodroot
Kirsten Baringer
Donors FY 2004
Diane Sirois Angela Sisson & Lee Rosenthal Robert Small Karen Bess Smith Peter M. Smith Richard Snyder Susan Space Steven Stang Bruce Stedman John A. Steele David & Jane Stemple William Stillinger Lesya Struz Donna Sturgis Virginia Sullivan Jonathan Tauer Cindy Tavernise Betsy & Brian Taylor Richard W. Thomas Judith Thompson Robert & Lydia McIntire Thompson Brinkley Thorne Michael Thornton Karen Tiede Alison Trowbridge Pamela Underhill Mr. & Mrs. M. E. Van Buren Peter & Susan Van Buren Donald L. Walker, Jr. & Ruth Parnall J. Jackson Walter Dan Wardell Stan Warnow Julia Washburn Joseph Wasserman Eric Weber & Barbara Young Frederick & Peg Read Weiss Hap Wertheimer Lauren Wheeler Seth Wilkinson Judith Wilson Mary Garrett Wilson Larry & Vicki Winters Wynne Wirth Janice Wood Ronald D. Yaple
We make every effort to acknowledge everyone’s generosity. If a mistake has been made, please accept our apology and contact us so that we may correct the error in our records.
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Letter from the Chair BOARD OF TRUSTEES Carrie Makover ’86 (Chair) Consulting Planner Fairfield, CT
John Ahern
Reaching Out BY CARRIE MAKOVER ’86, CHAIR, BOARD OF TRUSTEES
University of Massachusetts, LARP, Chair Amherst, MA
Henry Art Williams College Biology Dept. Williamstown, MA
John S. Barclay University of Connecticut, Wildlife Conservation Center Storrs, CT
Richard K. Brown Darrow School Sheffield, MA
Arthur Collins II ’79 Collins Enterprises LLC Stamford, CT
Clémence Corriveau ’02 Landscape Designer West Hartford, CT
Candace Currie ’97 Mt. Auburn Cemetery Arlington, MA
Michael Dobson Landscape Architect Greenwich, CT
Nat Goodhue ’91 Goodhue Land Design Stowe, VT
Donald Richard ’77 Landscape Architect Marlborough, MA
Allen Rossiter Buckingham, Brown & Nichols School Cambridge, MA
Jonathan Tauer Northeast Sustainable Energy Association Greenfield, MA EMERITUS TRUSTEES
David Bird Gordon H. Shaw ’89 Bruce Stedman ’78 FOUNDING DIRECTOR
Walter Cudnohufsky
ADVISORS John Hanning ’82 GIS Database Specialist Montpelier, VT
Amy Klippenstein ’95 Farmer Ashfield, MA
David Lynch ’85 MA Capital Asset Management Watertown, MA
William Montgomery ’91 Landscape Designer Danbury, CT
Darrel Morrison University of Georgia, Professor of Environmental Design Watkinsville, GA
Ruth Parnall Landscape Architect Conway, MA
William Richter ’77 Landscape Architect West Hartford, CT
Joel Russell Land Use Attorney Northampton, MA
Steven Stang Investment Advisor Simsbury, CT
I HAVE BEEN THINKING A LOT RECENTLY about reaching out. Maybe it has to do with pruning the fast-growing vine over my front deck the other afternoon. Talk about reaching out! That vine needed way more than pruning; it needed hacking. But I put up with it, at least for now, for its summer shade, and beautiful flowers in the spring. CSLD is reaching out too—though like most native and non-aggressive plants, it is reaching out at a sustainable rate. We reach out in several ways: to our friends and alumni/ae, by keeping them informed through this publication, and to the world at large through our website, which has attracted visitors from around the globe. We’ve recently added our new 2004–2005 catalog to the website as a downloadable PDF file, introducing the school to even more people. We reach out in other ways. For instance, our Wednesday night speaker series features a monthly presentation that is open to members of the community, publicized on the website and in local newspapers. Some evenings we get just a few visitors; other nights we fill the room. And this August we held our first summer workshop at our new campus—three days of trail-making with Peter Jensen, of Openspace Management, that drew attendees from all over, including several alumni/ae and two current students, and received rave reviews. We hope to do a workshop on another topic next summer. We’re also reaching out in our search for the school’s new Director—our first Director who will not be someone who began CSLD (Walt) or served several years on the faculty (Don). Through this process of reaching out, we are again introducing the school to a new audience; the person hired will, in turn, reach out to the CSLD community and introduce some of his or her own ideas that will shape the school for the future. You, our alumni/ae, help us reach out to prospective students. So many requests for admission information come from people who have heard about the school from you. Your word-of-mouth referrals are irreplaceable. Thank you so much! As always, I want to thank our dedicated faculty, Director Don Walker, Jean Akers, and Ken Byrne, and our administrative staff, Nancy Braxton and Ilze Meijers, for their dedication to this school and what it stands for. Also, hearty thanks to our remarkable board of trustees and advisors for their service to this smallest accredited graduate school in the country!
Introducing the Class of 2004 Front row (left to right): Brian Tamulonis, Lizabeth Moniz, Angela Sisson, James Allison. Second row: Kirsten Baringer, Bethany Atkins, Lupin Hill, Ken Byrne, Sean Gaffney, Crystal Hitchings. Back row: Dennis Gemme, Nancy Braxton, Jean Akers, Judith Griggs, Dennis Snider, Robin MacEwan, Don Walker, Joshua Clague, David Nordstrom, Seth Charde, Matthew Bourne.
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