This year Dietz/Hartlage Landscape Architecture spun off as a new and separate division of AHBL, the Tacoma and Seattle-based multi-disciplinary firm. Now at six, the staff size has recently grown by two employees.

Dietz/Hartlage is currently working in six states on projects that include botanic gardens, urban forestry, sportsfields and playgrounds, zoos, ethnobotany and historic landscapes, “and everything else we believe contributes to the holistic restoration of our planet,” according to Principal Duane Dietz. He finds that business has been steadily increasing at a rate of about 15 percent per year for the last three years.

Projects:

• Regenstein Center for Great Apes, Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, was designed with PJA Architects and is currently under construction.

• Ober Park playground for the Vashon Park District, a new community-based playground completed in 2002, showcases island mosaic artists.

• Kitsap County Special Events Center and Ballfield Complex, for Kitsap County Parks and Recreation, Silverdale, is a five-field renovation of existing ball fields emphasizing the use of low-impact planting and paving and stormwater re-use.

• New Children’s Garden, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, is a 3-acre children’s garden designed with PJA Architects, based on an 1860’s Missouri river town theme.

• New entry, Point Defiance Zoo, for Metro Parks Tacoma with McGranahan Architects, will add a gift shop, entry gates, education center and accessible pathways to the rest of the zoo.

• Akalat Center and Ethnobotanical Garden, LaPush, is being designed with Bassetti Architects for the Quileute Tribe. The ethnobotanical garden surrounds a new tribal gymnasium and community center.