CJM::LA

An Industrial relic turned into a creative campus

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Urban Outfitters HQ
March 10, 2016
Landezine

image courtesy of D.I.R.T. Studio

The new corporate campus for the retailer Urban Outfitters transformed a decommissioned naval yard in Philadelphia into a new space for the city with artistic vengeance and ecological vigor. Maintaining the integrity of the original site, the design uses existing industrial elements to dictate the forms of the design. Suddenly former rail lines carrying cargo carry to and from ships now carries employees from their office to a cup of coffee.

Click here to read more about this poster child for industrial redevelopment.

Natural Playground

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Buga 05 Playground
March 3, 2016
Landezine

image courtesy of RSL

Normally playgrounds are simple prefabricated structures that can be placed in any park. Although these structures are usually the cheaper option, Rainer Schmidt Landscape Architecture utilized modified land forms to create a more naturalistic park that evokes play with no structure needed.

Click here to read more about Buga 05 Playground.

Lifting the Veil on Downtown Los Angeles

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Making Sense of The Broad: A Milestone in the Revitalization of Downtown Los Angeles
February 24, 2016
Arch Daily

image courtesy of Jeff Duran

The 20th century was not kind to downtown Los Angeles. While the city stretched out into suburbia, cities like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood blossomed into cultural centers. Meanwhile the downtown “core” of the city rotted into vacant corporate mega towers.

Click here to read about how the opening of a new contemporary art museum downtown that is transforming the area into a new cultural hub for a new Los Angeles.

Wilderness and Exodus

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Wilderness and Exodus: the Production of a National Landscape
February 18, 2016
World Landscape Architect

image courtesy of Shelley Long

Car travel is a way of life in North America. Ever since the 1950’s development of our society has tended to focus on how easily things can be accessible by our vehicles. This industrial mindset tends to be detrimental to existing natural systems. Shelley Long, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, wanted to challenge this disconnect by incorporating national park typologies into existing infrastructure.

Click here to read about Shelley Long’s visionary project about turning a famous Canadian roadway into a series of curated experiences that blurs lines between city and national park.

A New Stage for Daily Life in Vienna

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Mariahilferstrasse – Landezine
January 28, 2016
Landezine

image courtesy of B + B

Mariahilferstrasse is a common shopping street in the Austrian capital city of Vienna. Dutch landscape and urban design office Bureau B+B together with the Viennese architects orso.pitro transformed this crowded street of pedestrians and vehicles into a metropolitan shopping boulevard fit for this thriving urban center.

Click here to read more about this new social center in the heart of Vienna.

Urban Living Room in Germany

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Town Hall Square Solingen – Scape Landschaftsarchitekten
January 21, 2016
Landezine

image courtesy of atelier2

This urban space in Solingen, Germany employs the concept of a continuous public open space; one that connects the Town Hall Square to the city’s vast network of urban parks and spaces. Located in front of the city’s municipal offices, the design aims to create a space that is welcoming and inviting to all its citizens in the industrial core.

Click here to read more about how this town uses its central district as a place for everyone to gather.

Big Betty Butia at Alameda Park

CJM::LA recently completed plans for the restoration of a small area of our local Alameda Park. The project included the relocation of an existing non-functioning well in order to bring it back into operation and provide another much-needed water source for the Santa Barbara community. As part of that restoration, our office worked closely with the City of Santa Barbara, the Historic Landmarks Commission, and the Parks and Recreation Commission to restore a small area of the park. A few existing non-specimen trees were removed and replaced with beautiful new palm trees. This park is a significant part of the open space network within our community, and historically has been home to hundreds of unique tree species. We worked with Seacrest Nursery to select and install a unique specimen known as Big Betty Butia. She is a Butia capitata, or Jelly Palm, and has a beautiful grey-green canopy. Photos below::

: Big Betty at Seacrest Nursery

: Big Betty planted at Alameda Park

Ice in Paradise | Under Construction

: Lara Cooper / Noozhawk photo

Construction has recently begun at our Ice in Paradise project in Goleta, CA. This ice rink project has been in the works since 1997, and will provide a beneficial amenity to the Goleta community as well as the Central Coast region. We worked closely with HTG Architects, who specialize in ice rink design, in order to provide outdoor plaza space with opportunities for naming rights as well as a small garden area. Our local news publication Noozhawk recently published an article with updates on the construction. To read more, click here.