In-Depth Cooperation Between The Turenscape and Lake|Flato Architects
2012-05-03
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The Turenscape + Lake|Flato Architects Team, led by Dr. Kongjian Yu and David Lake, will work to focus their team’s, “diverse strengths on an inspiring vision during the competition and beyond.”
The planning and design group will act as a “main stem” for this team, with “contributing tributaries” – ecology, public art, and lighting, storytelling, economic development and engineering – “feeding new ideas and insights into the planning and design main stem.”
TEAM STRUCTURE
The Turenscape + Lake|Flato team is structured to harness the breadth of expertise required to achieve comprehensive performance across the spectrum of issues represented by the competition’s Design Principles, and to focus these diverse strengths on an inspiring vision during the competition and beyond.
The team’s planning and design core includes Landscape Lead, Kongjian Yu, and Turenscape’s Managing Partner, Ling Shihong.Kongjian and Ling’s collaboration on Shanghai Houtan Park earned the highest honor of the American Society of Landscape Architects, an Award of Excellence, in 2010. The core also includes Architecture Lead, David Lake, and Lake|Flato’s Managing Partner, Bob Harris. David and Bob have teamed up on many of Lake|Flato’s award-winning green modern projects, and are now collaborating on Austin’s Central Public Library. The team’s Project Manager, Nate Cormier,in close contact with the Managing Partners, will bridge the lead firms and coordinate the team’s communication with project stakeholders.This core group is supported by local and national leaders exclusive to our team that will provide expertise in urban design.
Planning and design will be infused with insights from strategically chosen experts that the team has gathered into five thematic groups for efficient communication and collaboration. The first of these groups is ecology, which will be led by Randy Vogel of Applied Ecological Services (AES). AES is a nationally-recognized ecological restoration firm. Randy and his colleagues will work with Steve Windhager, recently of the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center and a founder of the Sustainable Sites Initiative. Steve will ground the work of AES in the habitats of Central Texas and consider urban ecological experiments along Waller Creek. Additionally, the team has John Dustman, a leader in the field of soil and groundwater remediation using natural processes.
The public art and lighting group is led by two creative talents, Lorna Jordan and Leni Schwendinger. Together they will vividly illuminate and animate the forces and flows of Waller Creek. Lorna is a public artist and public art planner with a special focus on the performative and theatrical qualities of water in the city. Her artwork has advanced greener approaches to public works well ahead of adoption in mainstream design. Leni is a lighting designer and public artist who understands that the purpose of lighting in public spaces is to bring people together, especially during nighttime hours. For someone so knowledgeable about color and light, she also has a remarkable appreciation for the value of darkness.
The storytelling group is led by Herman Dyal, the team’s interpretive and wayfinding lead. Herman and his partners will consider the elements that help visitors understand and appreciate their surroundings. They will look beyond physical solutions to virtual and cultural platforms for interpreting Waller Creek as an evolving place. Because the story of Waller Creek is one of multiple scales and dimensions the team also has Jonathan Ogren, an Austin geographer, to root the project in its regional context and peel back the layers of space and time to discover relevant design cues. And because the story of
Waller Creek is an ongoing conversation, the team has Austin’s Diane Miller to facilitate a variety of community engagement processes, from public meetings and stakeholder interviews to guerrilla marketing and interactive social media.
The economic development group is led by Daniel Hernandez, a Central Texas native, of Rose Urban Solutions. Daniel and his colleagues in the Jonathan Rose Companies network bring a wealth of experience in revitalizing communities with attention to financial sustainability, creative reuse of existing structures and equitable impact on affected communities. They will provide a strategy that attracts the resources needed to improve Waller Creek and provides real value to residents and small businesses of adjacent neighborhoods. Liz Lambert, founder of Bunkhouse and owner of the San José Hotel, demonstrates the entrepreneurial spirit of Austin’s development community. Liz will share her funky and homegrown perspective on programming and activating the public open space and adjacent properties along Waller Creek.
The engineering group is anchored by Austin’s Freese and Nichols, Inc. (FNI), who will build on their long track record with the City to provide the team’s local civil engineering, hydrology, transportation planning, permitting, cost estimating and construction administration services. Kim Patak will manage FNI’s diverse contributions and FNI staff will support their counterparts at SvR, Alta and AES. The team also has Architectural Engineers Collaborative on
board for structural and Encotech Engineering for MEP. Both are long-time collaborators with Lake|Flato. Additional supporting roles that may be needed, especially as the team shifts from the competition to design development and implementation, are identifi ed at the end of this submittal.
MANAGEMENT PLAN
In order to facilitate Turenscape’s work in the United States, Turenscape and SvR have formed a strategic partnership. This partnership is based on a mutual passion for the ecological regeneration of cities, and so far has involved a series of visionary competition proposals, most successfully as a finalist for the Minneapolis Riverfront design competition. Nate Cormier, the team’s Project Manager, has spent time in Kongjian’s Beijing office working with Ling and other Turenscape staff. Kongjian visits SvR’s Seattle office periodically on his way back and forth between Beijing and his teaching appointments on the East Coast. Turenscape and SvR have developed strong extranet and videoconference tools and protocols that allow for successful collaboration.Turenscape and Lake|Flato staff will have design authority and will do the majority of design production. Turenscape and Lake|Flato internal design reviews will be augmented by SvR’s standardized quality assurance and control (QA/QC) system, especially as the work of the lead designers is coordinated with supporting technical disciplines. In order to consistently deliver high quality public realm improvements, the team will develop shared guidelines for costing and QA/QC and use powerful tools like Deltek Vision and Newforma to track schedules, scope progress, file sharing, invoicing and communications.
As specific projects emerge after the development of the overall vision, the team structure is flexible. It can adapt to allow high profile pieces of the design to be taken to final documents and construction administration by Turenscape and Lake|Flato, while other pieces are advanced by local team members such as RVi for landscape and FNI for civil. All would undergo frequent review by the lead designers. The Turenscape + Lake|Flato team shares a culture of “planning to implement,” where by even early conceptual work is enriched by a thorough consideration of the opportunities and constraints associated with construction and long-term stewardship. The Turenscape + Lake|Flato team is built on shared values and diverse strengths, which will be brought together on the ground in Austin. In addition to offering urban design expertise, Sinclair Black and his staff will provide the design team a stimulating workspace in downtown Austin for the duration of the project. This field office will be the team’s physical and social hub for workshops and meetings. The Project Manager will be onsite along with design staff from Turenscape and Lake|Flato between frequent visits by Kongjian, David and other team members.
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