Commercial and Public Consulting Projects

During most of the time that I have been teaching landscape architecture, I have engaged in consulting work. This activity was invaluable in supporting the undergraduate courses I taught. In addition, it provided me with the opportunity to apply the results of research I was conducting with Alzheimer's disease patients. The projects involving Alzheimer's disease victims is presented elsewhere. This section addresses other public and commercial projects I was involved with before I began teaching and after.

The most recent work in this category was done by my firm, Environments, (Gary Austin and Linda Hanson, principals). About 60% of the firm's business was public and commercial.

Table of Contents

PORT TOWNSEND COMMUNITY CENTER

The first set of images is of the Community Center for Port Townsend, Washington; Miller/Hull Architects. The first two images show the teenagers' courtyard while the third illustrates the grade school childrens' area. Not shown is a plaza for elderly citizens.

KIRKLAND CEMETERY

Environments completed several cemetery projects in Seattle (the only chance I ever had to work for the famous Nordstrom family - they were very pleased with the designs, as far as I could tell). Cemetery projects provide great opportunities for landscape architects to do good design work since the quality of the landscape is a pre-eminent concern. Also, cemeteries are interesting cultural institutions which are being socially redefined and physically transformed.

SEATTLE SYMPHONY SHOWCASE HOUSE

The next project is a hybrid between a commercial and residential undertaking. The delapitated house and ruined garden were remodeled and redesigned as the Seattle Symphony Showcase House for 1990. This is a design by Gary Austin and Linda Hanson for the garden.

The next images show the project under construction and just before the public tour began.

RESTAURANTS

Previous to my Seattle work was a range of commercial projects were done as an designer in a landscape architecture firm or as an independent consultant. A portion of that work was for thematic restaurants in California, Colorado and Japan. The image below shows a preliminary design for a proposed restaurant in California done while I was with Purkiss-Rose Associates.

OFFICE BUILDING COURTYARD The next project is a commercial office building courtyard in Brea, California.

RECREATION AREA FOR HOUSING SUBDIVISION

I have designed many recreation areas for housing subdivisions. The plan below shows a grading plan for a pool terrace in a subdivision.

FOUNTAIN AT CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY, POMONA
AILA AWARD

This image is of a project on which I was a construction foreman while employed as a teaching assistant at California State University, Pomona. I was co-designer of the fountain (with Budd Sutton) and was responsible for the hydraulic plan and calculations. Professor D. Rodney Tapp conceived, acquired funding and managed the project.

The park project at Cal Poly was awarded an American Institute of Landscape Architects Special Award.

MOUNT ABEL MANAGEMENT PLAN

I co-authored the Mt. Abel Management Plan (with Budd Sutton, Jeff Hook and Robert Goto). This was the terminal project of my Master's Degree. The project won the ASLA, California chapter, Honor Award in the professional category. The image below is one of my drawings from the book.

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Go to Samples of Residential Projects

Go to Samples of Projects for Alzheimer's Disease Victims