Weathering and Durability in Landscape Architecture:
Fundamentals, Practices, and Case Studies
2004, (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York)

Even the most innovative and dynamic design projects are susceptible to weathering. The first book of its kind to address this important yet long-neglected design consideration, Weathering and Durability in Landscape Architecture discusses how landscape materials should be selected, shaped, and implemented to help built landscapes change and evolve over the years, rather than deteriorate.

Weathering and Durability in Landscape Architecture explores a variety of landscape design approaches and site strategies practiced in the industry today, with a focused examination of the link between the conception and implementation of landscape ideas and a range of seen and unforeseen forces that will shape the built landscape over time. Landscape architects and designers can discover how to combat the devastating consequences of deterioration through:

• Innovative weathering strategies incorporated into the traditional design process
• Data and commentary on the maintenance and durability of completed landscapes
• Weathering and durability strategies from leading landscape architects
• Dozens of case studies supporting examined techniques
• More than 125 informative graphics

For landscape architects, architects, landscape contractors, urban designers, and environmental designers, Weathering and Durability in Landscape Architecture is an essential volume of proven techniques for creating lasting landscape designs.

Detroit Riverfront
editors, Mary Margaret Jones, Niall G. Kirkwood
Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2000

At this particular point in history Detroit faces enormous opportunities in the revitalization of its riverfront. Significant projects are planned and/or underway, and public and private conditions are in place for an economic re-birth of the district, and renewed public focus on the waterfront. These opportunities allow the creation of a district that represents both the needs of individual developments as well as Detroit and the region.

This revitalization will happen either as a series of a cooperative effort of all the stakeholders involved. There is no doubt that the results will be much more successful through such collaboration. Each project within the district should be developed in concert with each other to maximize public connections, orientation to the river, development of a public realm, and the overall sense of place. The riverfront is Detroit's front yard, and as such can become the iconographic image of the city, with a civicness that will put Detroit in the league of the world's great waterfront cities.

These proposals represent various strategies for achieving a unified yet diverse and vital district. While they do vary greatly, and are not final proposals by any means, they do illustrate the visionary approaches that are possible, particularly with cooperation. We urge the city and stakeholders to embrace this movement and work together to take the next steps in overall planning.

The Art of Landscape Detail:
Fundamentals, Practices and Case Studies of Detail Design in Landscape Architecture.
1998 (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York)

This book provides a landscape construction design text for design educators and students that introduces the subject of landscape detail and its approaches, themes, and processes as they inform the physical production of the built environment. The objectives are to broaden the vocabulary and detail language of progressive landscape design, to unite the act of landscape detail processes with site design, and to impact and rectify the poverty of generic site detail found within current design literature and instruction. The Art of Landscape Detail will include extensive illustrated detail case studies of projects carried out by contemporary practitioners including interviews, drawings, and site photographs.

Contents

Manufactured Sites:
Integrating Planning and Design in the Remediation, Reclamation and Reuse of the Post-Industrial Landscape.
1998, Island Press, Washington, DC
Niall G. Kirkwood (Editor)

The main focus of Manufactured Sites is the legacy of industrial production and pollutants on the contemporary landscape and their influence on new scientific research, innovative site technologies, and progressive site design. These address a range of sites including disturbed land, wetlands, urban brownfields, derelict waterfronts and despoiled extraction and mining sites. The book draws on the interdisciplinary nature of this work to present a legal, regulatory, scientific, engineering, and design introduction and overview to the subject. Topics included are soil bioremediation, phytoremediation, brownfield development, structural soil, subsurface flow wetlands, landfills, bioengineering for soil and water quality.

Contents

ARTICLE
Failure Studies in Landscape Construction Design

HOLDING OUR GROUND
Niall G. Kirkwood
Landscape Architecture Magazine, February 1996

Technology, Holding our Ground

"Many contemporary landscapes are deteriorating at an alarming rate. Can a study of the causes of failure help the profession avoid making the same mistakes repeatedly? The subject of failure in landscape architecture, although increasingly pertinent, is rarely discussed among landscape architects."

This article published in the monthly journal of the ASLA introduced the ideas of permanence, durability, and change at the detail level and proposed a new approach to the study, evaluation, and criticism of the contemporary designed landscape.