Healing The Land
Two Recent Landscape Projects Bettered Their Sites–
And Won National ASLA Design Awards
BY NORA BURBA TRULSSON
The Biodesign Institute
Tempe, Arizona
Ten Eyck Landscape Architects
Phoenix, Arizona and Austin, Texas
Photography by Terrence Moore and Bill Timmerman
For decades, students at Arizona State University walked, drove and pedaled down Terrace Road to get to and from classes and dormitories. Their view? A sterile parking lot to the north and a water-retention basin and nondescript parking garage to the south.
Several years ago, the four-acre parking lot was designated to become the university’s new Biodesign Institute, a research and learning center comprised of three buildings and a conference center. Working with a project team that included Lord, Aeck & Sargent as design architect and Gould Evans as architect of record, Ten Eyck Landscape Architects of Phoenix was asked work on the site’s master planning and its landscape design.
“The idea of the project was to draw inhabitants out of the buildings and connect them with nature,” explains Christy Ten Eyck, FASLA, principal of the firm. “We also wanted students and faculty traveling along Terrace Road to have an experience with nature.”
Viewing the site as an urban infill project, Ten Eyck convinced the university powers to add the wedge of land south of Terrace Road that served as a water-retention basin to the project, allowing the Biodesign Institute’s landscape to also serve as the road’s streetscape. Additionally, the architects chose to elevate the buildings on a five-foot plinth. Ten Eyck saw the grade change as an opportunity to showcase two desert biomes on the site--a higher bajada-style landscape and a riparian zone at the lower levels and in the retention basin.
Terrace Road was repaved and flanked by new bike paths and detached walkways, which serve to visually narrow the street and slow traffic. Gently sloping entry plazas were designed for the buildings, allowing for accessibility without railings. Cast-in-place concrete retaining walls angle down the site, creating a rhythmic pattern. Seat walls provide places for discussions or to ponder nature. A sunken garden and outdoor amphitheater provide opportunities for gatherings and classes.
Water–specifically, the conservation of water–was essential to the landscape design. Permeable paving allows rainwater to nurture plant materials and to collect at a biosponge/bioswale at the lowest point of the institute’s site, which connects via pipe to the water-retention basin across Terrace Road. Additionally, a sophisticated water-harvesting system collects as much as 5,000 gallons of HVAC condensate water per day from one of the institute’s buildings and is used for irrigation. The site’s seat walls terminate in a sculptural irrigation seep, which becomes an ephemeral water feature when the irrigation is in use.
 Ten Eyck had the site–including the water-retention basin–heavily planted, cooling and shading the area. “We used palo verde trees, creosote, brittlebush and desert milkweed for the bajada zone,” Ten Eyck explains, “and mesquites, chuparosa and native grasses for the riparian zone.
The landscape and site design helped the institute’s first building achieve LEED Gold Certification and its second receive LEED Platinum Certification. The landscape itself won a 2009 national ASLA Honor Award in the General Design Category.
“The researchers at the Biodesign Institute work to cure diseases, to help people heal and live better lives,” says Ten Eyck philosophically. “We like to look at this landscape as healing place, too, a place where wildlife can come back, where the plants filter the air and where people can appreciate nature.”
Landscape architect: Ten Eyck Landscape Architects, Inc., 808 E. Osborn Road, Phoenix, AZ 85014, (602) 468-0505 and 3112 Windsor Road, A375, Austin, TX 78703, (512) 492-5808 or www.teneyckla.com.
Architect: Lord Aeck Sargent, 1201 Peachtree St. NE, Suite 300, Atlanta, GA 30361, (877) 929-1400 or www.lordaecksargent.com and Gould Evans, 3136 N. Third Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85013, (602) 234-1140 or www.gouldevans.com.
General contractor: Sundt, 2620 S. 55th St., Tempe, AZ 85282, (480) 293-3000 or www.sundt.com and DPR Construction, Inc., 3020 E. Camelback Road, Suite 100, Phoenix, AZ 85016, (602) 808-0500 or www.dpr.com.
Trees: Arid Zone Trees, 9750 E. Germann Road, Mesa, AZ 85142; (480) 987-9094 or www.aridzonetrees.com.
Plants: Mountain States Wholesale Nursery, 10020 W. Glendale Avenue, Glendale, AZ 85307; (623) 247-8509 or www.mswn.com.
Irrigation controller: Rainbird, www.rainbird.com.
See Web-only extra images of this project.
Two Rivers Residence
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Verdone Landscape Architects
Jackson, Wyoming and Driggs, Idaho
Photography by David Swift
Located at the confluence of the Gros Ventre and Snake rivers, with views of the Teton mountain range, the 35-acre property was the ideal place for a family retreat. Rather than creating a flashy home with numerous site amenities, the clients requested restraint and respect for the setting, both in the design of the house and the landscape architecture.
“We spent a lot of time walking the site with the clients,” says Jim Verdone, ASLA, principal of Verdone Landscape Architects. “There was a long period of visioning and analysis to make sure we respected the attributes of the property.”
Those attributes include long views, a rich mosaic of wetlands, a pristine spring creek, a steep, wooded hillside and a broad stretch of pastoral grassland.
According to Verdone, the property had been a cattle ranch, and part of the wetlands had been degraded by grazing. “Because of county regulations and environmental restraints, the actual building envelope was rather small,” explains Verdone. “The building site was in the grassland. The question became, how do we incorporate the attributes of the site–such as the wetlands–closer to the house?”
Besides the site, the other inspiration for both the home and the landscape is a 19th-century stone creamery building. The architectural firm, JLF & Associates, Inc., designers of the house, found the building in Montana and had it disassembled and reconstructed on the site to serve as the home’s public wing. Verdone created a subtle landscape surrounding the main house, guest cabin and garage that speaks of forest, small streams, springs, ponds and graveled lakeshores.
Verdone retained the open grasslands to the east of the home’s creamery wing, allowing visitors an unobstructed view of its pitched roof form and stone walls as they drive up to the home. The creamery wing’s west side--where a terrace helps draw the family outdoors--was shaded with strategically placed cottonwood trees.
Echoing an existing small pond at the home’s entry, Verdone created an additional pond, set in the “L” shape of the home’s two wings. A dining pavilion was designed to overlook the pond. The pavilion, sunken into the ground to reduce its profile, serves to “push people into the landscape,” says Verdone. A well provides water to a spring source located near the house that flows through a large patio area, spilling into the pond through a stone spout. The patio is paved with native stone, with larger stones serving as steps. Just north of the pavilion, Verdone created a dam and spillway, using more native stone and reclaimed cedar cladding, reminiscent of the area’s historic irrigation structures.
The new pond, rimmed in a gravel shore lined with boulders, ties the house to the spring creek, wetlands and rivers that lie beyond the building site. Wetlands to the south of the house that had been affected by cattle grazing have been reclaimed to their original condition.
In addition to cottonwoods, Verdone specified spruce and native grasses to link the house to the rest of the property. “This project wasn’t about formal gardens and lawns,” he says. “We wanted to enhance the natural environment and embrace the Western heritage.”
The project received a 2009 national ASLA Honor Award in the Residential Design Category.
Landscape architect: Verdone Landscape Architects, 73 E. Kelly Avenue, Jackson, WY 83001, (307) 733-3062 and 85 Depot St., Driggs, ID 83422, (208) 354-1020 or www.verdonelandarch.com.
Architect: JLF & Associates, Inc., 140 E. Main, Suite A, Bozeman, MT 59715; (406) 587-8888 or www.jlfarchitects.com.
General contractor: Big-D Signature, Jackson, WY; (307) 733-9822 or www.bigdsignature.com.
Lighting: B-K Lighting, www.bklighting.com.
Native grass sod: Allred Gemco, Inc., 2013 E. 200 North, Rexburg, ID; (208) 356-4689.
See Web-only extra images of this project.
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