PARK(ing) Day began five years ago when San Francisco art collective Rebar converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park. The project has since grown into an annual worldwide phenomenon that creates playful activism to share values and concerns about the use of urban space. Last year, 700 green spaces were installed in 140 cities, 21 countries and on 6 continents making PARK(ing) Day 2009 the biggest year in the history of the event.

For more information regarding the global movement, visit the official PARK(ing) day site.

OrchKids uses music as a vehicle to provide the children of low-income neighborhoods in Baltimore City with mentoring, encouragement and a vision for a promising future. Thanks to the support of community partners, OrchKids is able to provide a during- and after-school program devoted to music appreciation, academics, citizenship, community awareness, family and health. OrchKids is committed to changing the lives of Baltimore’s children in significant and unique ways.

FTLA hopes to give more children the opportunity to experience making music by selecting OrchKids as the August cause in its 10 Years, 10 Causes initiative celebrating the firm’s tenth anniversary.

Click here to learn more about how you can support the mission and goals of the BSO’s OrchKids.

According to The Daily Record, the VIPs were selected by its editorial board based on their “professional accomplishments, a commitment to inspiring change in their community, and their tremendous accomplishments achieved before or by age 40.” The 40 honorees will be celebrated Sept. 29, 2010, at Gertrude’s at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

You can register for the event and see the complete list of honorees by visiting the Maryland Daily Record website. And on behalf of the entire FTLA team, congratulations to Jeremy and all the Baltimore-area VIP’s.

Michele Ridge, former First Lady of Pennsylvania, speaking at the dedication.

July 28, 2010

This week, the former Hummelstown Library celebrated its grand opening as the William H. & Marion C. Alexander Family Library with a dedication ceremony held at the new facility located in Hummelstown, PA. 

As landscape architect for the project, FTLA partner Aaron Teeter attended the July 27 event which featured notable guests such as Michele Ridge, former First Lady of Pennsylvania, and other dignitaries. After the library met its $1.5 million fund-raising goal for a new facility in the spring of 2009 it began plans for a 13,000-square-foot library to accommodate its growing number of books. The new library has four times the space of the old building, includes 27 public computers, an expanded kids’ area with adjacent areas for “tweens” and young adults, public meeting rooms, reading courtyards and a 50-car parking lot. 

FTLA transformed the library’s outdoor space into a functional area designed for a community amphitheater and children’s outdoor reading area. FTLA was also responsible for a rooftop garden that covers more than a third of the building’s roof and features drought-tolerant plants for minimal maintenance.

Janet Felsten from Baltimore Green Map

FTLA staffers Nicole Reedy, Jeremy Frederick, Janet Felsten and Scott Huot

July 23rd, 2010

Baltimore Green Map uses the international Green Map^® System Icons to map Baltimore’s ecological and cultural resources in an effort to connect Baltimore area residents with “eco-opportunities” in and around the region as well as to track the city’s progress toward becoming a healthy, sustainable urban environment.

This July, FTLA is pleased to support Baltimore Green Map through a monetary contribution that will be used to fund website improvements for the organization.

Visit Baltimore Green Map online to check out green sites around Baltimore (including the FTLA-designed Community Mediation Garden and Baltimore Convention Center’s green roof). You can also nominate a site or resource for the map and find out how else you can help this worthwhile organization map the way to a greener tomorrow.

Open Space Improvements II

Floura Teeter Landscape Architects was involved in the redesign for a four acre site at the Homewood Campus of the Johns Hopkins University. Currently a mix of roads, sidewalks and utilities, the design was implemented to remove most vehicular traffic from the interior of the site and replace it with curvilinear paths, plazas and plantings. This plaza is situated in front of the college’s student union and provides generous circulation, a donor wall, and ample seating for visitors. Materials for paving include brick, granite and marble band. An allee of trees and broad sidewalks connect the plaza with the lower quad.

FTLA is in the process of developing a master plan for this 23-acre historic site that is currently owned by the local public school system.  The goal of our client is to preserve the existing buildings, land and specimen trees by converting the property to a non-profit arboretum slated to feature programs in environmental education, forestry, gardening and arts.  A key objective of the design is the historic recreation of gardens that were found on the site at the turn of the 20th century.

This garden was established by the New Holistic Ministries as a healing garden for this neighborhood in transition. Despite being constrained by its narrow size- the footprint is a demolished row home – Floura Teeter developed a design that felt organic and would be seen as the foreground for a woodland mural that was painted on the side of the remaining home. The project was completed with the help of volunteers in the fall of 2007.

Learn more here www.tkffdn.org

A 1970s office and retail complex in Crystal City Virginia is the site for this streetscape renovation. Two office towers sit upon a two story plinth, the roof of which was originally designed as pedestrian access to the towers. Service functions were at street level. While the client hired an architect to create three new lobbies within the previous service area, Floura Teeter was brought on to compliment the new entrances with a vibrant streetscape. One project challenge concerned an underground parking garage below the new streetscape, a structure that presented weight and depth constraints. Addressing these constraints, FTLA designed raised planters, crystalline in form, with carefully sculpted berms. The planters provide the necessary depth for the street trees while also incorporating benches for relaxation, lunch, and break times. Again playing off the “Crystal” City motif, the crystalline-shaped planters are carried through into the streetscape’s walkway, with pressed paving patterns that fragment into smaller and smaller crystals.