Presidents Message

Courtney Landoll, ASLA

Today, I am proud to announce that WASLA is coordinating an educational session with Victor Stanley to bring Rainer Stenge from Oslo, Norway to Seattle. The session will occur on Monday, November 3rd in the evening and will be followed by a catered reception. Exact times and location to be determined. 

I am also excited by the year's election ballot for the WASLA EC. We have a lot of new names and faces covering West, East and South Washington. Please remember to vote! 

Last, I wanted to share that one of my fellow Chapter Presidents, Jeannette Compton, is presenting about Urban Renewal and Resilient Design at the SXSW Festival. She encourages the rest of us to get out and talk about landscape architecture beyond our own professional community. I couldn’t agree more. With that, I will leave you the question, "What can you do to promote the profession of landscape architecture beyond your office and your clients?" If we all make it a goal to do one thing in 2015, what a difference that could make!

Rainer Stange

Rainer Stange (Professor of Landscape Architecture at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design) established Dronninga Landskap AS in 2005 together with his business partner Ragnhild Momrak. The two met while studying landscape architecture and later worked together at the international architecture, landscape architecture and interior design firm Snøhetta. Dronninga Landskap considers projects to be “haut paysage”: exclusive and with emphasis on art aptness. Rainer and Ragnhild want their work to be lush, fertile and tailor-made. As team, they are committed to the design of public space, public transport on rails and a green and blue urbanism.

Session Summary

Carl Berners Plass is situated in a densely populated area in the eastern part of the inner city of Oslo. The junction serves as an east connection between the avenues from the city center and the middle boulevard; Ring 2. The new design of the avenue system is based upon the Great City Plan of 1929, bringing back the urban and green qualities from when car traffic did not dominate the square.

A process of implementation with different users and departments resulted in a new hierarchy of functions. Planted, generous sidewalks and a new tramway were given priority to the private car. The new plan was controversial when proposing a reduction of car capacity with 40 %. After 5 years of planning and 2 more years of political process, the building site finally started in 2008. When the construction finishes 3 years later, an 81 years old urban plan will be completed.

-Courtney Landoll 

Return to October 2014 Newsletter