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Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture

Specialty: Ecologically based landscape design with modernist approach, including minimalism
Management: Principals Charles Anderson, Michelle Arab and Jim Gerlach
Founded: Formed as Anderson and Ray in 1994, became Charles Anderson in 2001
Headquarters: Seattle
Current projects: Olympic Sculpture Park; the 2,400-acre International Peace Garden between North Dakota and Manitoba, Canada; the Bay Street Promenade, connecting upper Seattle to the waterfront; a “top-secret” institutional building for a major area clothing designer; the Anchorage Museum of History and Art

Anderson

Charles Anderson, principal and founder of Seattle’s Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture, said one of the biggest trends in landscape architecture is a growing demand to work with native plants.

Anderson said that’s not just a local trend, and it stems in part from increasing global recognition of the practice.

“Even on our projects in China or Vietnam we’re using native plants,” Anderson said. “A lot of the projects that are including native plants are winning major awards.” He said use of native plants in landscaping also follows suit with the growing popularity of LEED and an understanding of green principles overall.

This is a positive trend, Anderson said, both for the aesthetics of projects, and for their impact on the land.

Architects try their hand

But there are some negative trends as well. Anderson said more architects and engineers are trying to design landscapes, and their lack of specific training in the area can hurt projects.

“When you get outside, the scale is different and the light is different. They (architects) misjudge,” he said.

Anderson said the number of firms devoted exclusively to landscape architecture is dwindling. He said industry predictions have long been of landscape architecture standalone firms being absorbed entirely by architecture firms.

Photo by Andrew Buchana

Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture was the landscape architect on the Olympic Sculpture Park, which won the AIA Seattle Honor Award in November 2007.

“What will happen, I predict, is if too many landscape architects get sucked into architecture firms, the landscape will become less dramatic and more watered down,” Anderson said. “I’m going to fight that.”

Grass from “outer space”

Another unfortunate trend, Anderson said, is very complex designs rather than simple, minimalist forms.

In Seattle, he said, there is a very limited amount of open space in which to do significant civic landscape architecture. He said the waterfront and Seattle Center offer the most exciting opportunities for great civic work.

In terms of local design, Anderson said one of his biggest pet peeves is using ornamental grasses in landscape architecture.

“I don’t like it. It’s not from here,” Anderson said. “Where that type of grass grows is fine but it doesn’t grow here; it looks like it came from outer space.”