• Paul Laurence Dunbar School NRHP Nomination

    In collaboration with Poster Frost Mirto Architects and the Dunbar Coalition, Logan Simpson prepared an NRHP nomination for the Paul Laurence Dunbar School, Tucson’s first and only school constructed for African-American students. The school operated as a segregated institution from 1918 to 1951, and as an integrated school under the leadership of Arizona’s first African-American principal of an integrated school, Morgan Maxwell, from 1951 – 1978. The school is significant in the areas of education and ethnic heritage, and for its association with Tucson’s African-American community, history of local school segregation, and as the only school built for African Americans in Tucson.

  • Rancho de las Golondrinas Cultural Landscape Report

    The Rancho de las Golondrinas Museum selected Logan Simpson to complete a cultural landscape report for the Rancho de las Golondrinas Property in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The project area contains over 90 prehistoric and historic archaeological remains, historic buildings and structures, segments of Camino Rael de Tierra Adentro, several properties listed in the NRHP, and a living history museum. A cultural landscape inventory and management assessment was completed for the 400-acre area, portions of which were intensively surveyed for cultural resources, and the project area was documented with an unnamed aerial vehicle.

  • BLM Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) Strategy

    Logan Simpson recently conducted field data collection to assist the BLM Safford Field Office with a pilot project implementing the BLM’s AIM Strategy in the Southeast Arizona Focal Area. The inventory work was conducted at 50 monitoring plots. Terrestrial data was captured electronically using the Database for Inventory, Monitoring and Assessment and provided to BLM to incorporate into its nationwide database. To assure collection of the highest-quality data, Logan Simpson’s team of biologists, botanists, soil scientists, and rangeland resource specialists attended an official week-long AIM training provided by BLM. Prior to conducting field work, we printed an aerial photo of each plot to use as the plot map. To ensure the best chance of identifying unknown plants, we instituted a standard collection procedure to allow identification later. We took photos, including an object to show scale. We also collected a portion of the plant, with flowers and/or fruit when available, and mounted the specimen in our field herbarium notebook with a detailed label.

  • Transmission Line Herbicide EAs

    The Arizona Public Service Company (APS) and the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (SRP) are responsible for managing vegetation within their respective utility corridors in Arizona. To use integrated vegetation management more effectively, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM); the US Forest Service (USFS); APS; and SRP have agreed to consider using herbicide treatments alongside existing treatment methods within the authorized right-of-way corridors. Two EAs—one for the BLM, and one for USFS—are being prepared to analyze the potential impacts of using herbicides within the electrical distribution and transmission line corridors on BLM- and USFS-administered lands in Arizona. Logan Simpson was responsible for the project management, meeting facilitation, and coordination for the two separate EAs and associated processes. In addition to the meeting management, data management, and writing/editing the EAs, Logan Simpson is also responsible for managing the Forest Service project record, maintaining the file sharing system, and creating the project administrative file for USFS use.

  • New Mexico Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan

    Logan Simpson led the development of Viva New Mexico: A Statewide Plan for Outdoor Adventure, which will serve as New Mexico’s Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP) for 2016 – 2020. The SCORP provides strategies for strengthening New Mexico’s outdoor heritage.
    The SCORP evaluates supply and demand for outdoor recreation resources and facilities, identifies outdoor recreation trends and issues, and quantifies economic impacts of outdoor recreation. It documents benefits associated with existing outdoor recreation activities and lands, as well as potential benefits that could be realized with changes in programs, facilities, access to recreation, education, marketing efforts, and other actions. Benefits include tourism revenue, attracting high-quality employers, reduced crime, employee retention, reduced health care expenditures, increased property values, shifts in transportation from driving to bicycling and walking, and other factors that can be translated into real dollars. This analysis is critical to understanding the cost/benefits of investments and developing additional public support for funding capital, operations, maintenance and life-cycle replacements of facilities and infrastructure. Public involvement included public opinion surveys targeted to residents, out of state visitor, and other stakeholders, such as government agencies and recreation-oriented organizations.

  • Western Maricopa Education Center

    The Western Maricopa Education Center (West-MEC) Northwest Campus provides career and technical education to high school students and adults in the automotive, computer technology, construction, health and beauty, and medical industries. Logan Simpson provided siting and landscape architecture design for Phase I, which includes energy, STEM, administration, and IT/cyber buildings. The campus provides open and flexible spaces to allow programs to overlap, including outdoor labs/work areas; an amphitheater; and student social gathering areas. An assembly space called “The Lightbox” serves as a student gathering space and hosts staffing events and academic conferences by day. By night, the outer shell lights up and serves as a beacon for public awareness. Sustainability measures include low-water-use plants and sustainable stormwater management practices (LID), which capture rainwater where it falls, reducing the need for irrigation and capturing pollutants that would otherwise enter the stormwater system. An east-west orientation controls solar exposure while providing large expanses of shade for outdoor activities and gathering. An outdoor courtyard creates a microclimate by providing a sheltered space with native plant material while the buildings utilize energy-efficient glass and energy modeling to reduce dependency on active systems to cool interior spaces. See a video of the project here.

  • Wellspring Park Conceptual Master Plan

    The City of Goodyear has a strong commitment to its citizens’ health and welfare and intends to convert a two-mile, 120-acre strip of land adjacent to I-10 into a world-class health and wellness park. Wellspring Park is being developed through a private-public partnership (P3) made up of the City of Goodyear and the Wellness Park Conservancy, a 501(c)(3) organization.

    Bordered by three medical facilities and with few site constraints, the master plan for Wellspring Park grew organically, based on City, stakeholder, and the public input. Inspired by the emphasis on human health, Logan Simpson’s landscape architecture team developed three conceptual plan alternatives: “Mind and Body,” “Human Nature,” and “Nature/Nurture.” These alternatives drew inspiration from human life cycles, body systems, and the effect of nature on human health, leading to the final conceptual master plan: “Mind, Body, and Spirit.” The master plan approaches health holistically. It proposes a health-oriented conference center and commercial spaces as sustainable revenue generators. The outdoor opportunities are geared toward fitness, adventure, gathering, physical recuperation, meditation, remembrance, environmental education, and healthy habits, all while immersed in an enriched landscape setting. Because of the scope and scale of the project, and the anticipated build out over several years, the master plan divided the Park into “precincts,” each of which has a different wellness focus and aesthetic character suitable for individual development.

  • Cambria Hotel

    This 127-unit hotel includes meeting rooms, a restaurant, small retail opportunities, and a street-side patio space in downtown Phoenix. The hotel will offer a unique rooftop lounge/bar with outdoor seating areas and a semi-private group area surrounding a fire pit. The rooftop experience includes landscape pockets with a variety of small trees and shrubs that will enhance the overall essence of overlooking the Phoenix skyline. The rooftop landscape areas will utilize a locally blended lightweight growing media. Landscape pockets located on the roof will make use of industry-standard deck assemblies that will include a combination of monolithic membranes, hydroflex sheeting, styrofoam insulation, and filtration/drainage systems. Unique site furnishings complement and reflect both the exterior architecture and the interior spaces. The overall design maximizes pedestrian shade on the adjacent street level sidewalks via both vegetative cover and custom designed awnings and structures.

  • Handbooks, Manuals, and Field Guides

    Logan Simpson has developed many manuals related to planning, design, construction, and maintenance of public facilities. We have also developed a variety of other technical, procedural, and program guidance documents, such as best management practices, field guides, decision-support tools, and training curricula. Our in-house staff includes technical writers and editors, graphic designers, and document development specialists who work with our landscape architects and other professional staff to translate complex technical requirements into easy-to-understand text. Depending on our client’s direction, we have produced detailed “cookbook”-style manuals that prescribe specific actions; guidance manuals that mix narrative with instructive graphics and images; and even manuals that rely heavily on interactive graphics as the primary gateway to the information the manual contains.