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Gustafson Guthrie Nichol |
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Jennifer Guthrie, a partner at Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, said her company stays on the cutting edge by working with complicated landscape projects. That is, projects built over structures or with unique engineering or client issues. “I think the challenge is exciting,” she said. “We don’t want to be in a position where we’re recreating the same kind of thing over and over again. We want to keep the blood flowing.” One of those projects is the recently completed North End Parks in Boston. With the Big Dig construction project completed and underground, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority wanted to turn the empty space above ground into parks. GGN did one of the three park parcels. Guthrie said the project was complex because of the client and because the people in the North End neighborhood, Boston’s Italian district, cared so deeply about it. “There were fist fights happening over this project,” she said. “People were showing up at these meetings with broken arms.”
Challenging projects Another complex project is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation campus in Seattle. GGN is doing the landscape for the project, which Guthrie said is about 50 percent landscape and 50 percent building. The challenge there is pursuing the highest levels of sustainability, creating a landscape that represents Seattle and creating a design that provides security while being open and inviting. Slowing economy The firm’s ability to choose difficult and exciting projects could be hampered by the slowing economy. “The last couple years everyone’s been lucky. Everyone’s been in the position of having a choice,” Guthrie said. “Our workload is well set up for the coming year but it’s next year that we’re worried about.” Guthrie said cities and private developers are going to be cautious, so GGN might have to change the way it goes after projects. Recently, projects have come to the company but with the slowing economy, GGN may need to go back to how the company started getting work in 1999 — through competitions. More challenges ahead Guthrie sees the whole field of landscape design getting more challenging, as cities regulate more and focus on sustainability. She said she hopes cities continue to focus on the urban core, bringing people back to the city. As cities become denser, she said landscape will change as well. Space will become more constrained so landscape design will be challenged to work on sidewalks, on top of roof decks, bridges and “anything that might float in the air.” As that happens, she said landscape design might become more scientific. “The balance between beauty and function is maybe going to even out a lot more than it might currently be,” she said. That will mean looking at water differently and focusing on the opportunity to catch, filter and reuse water. This condensing of space is already happening in Europe, she said.
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