Landscape Architecture – Logan Simpson

Jul
2020
01
2020 / Jul / 01
Veterans Reflection Circle
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Veterans Reflection Circle honors the service of US Army Sergeant First Class Brian Mancini, who was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq. After he returned to his Surprise, Arizona hometown, Brian founded the nonprofit Honor House to help service men and women to make the transition back to civilian life. The memorial includes three distinct areas that tell Brian’s story. The center of the memorial represents the internal impact of Brian’s service. It features tough desert plants that surround and protect “Brian’s Bench,” a water feature that overlooks the entire memorial. An outer circle represents the community and how it surrounded Brian with support. Benches in this area allow people to pause for reflection. The “Last Walk” represents the journey only Brian could take. It connects the inner circle to the outer reaches of the reflection space and a community lake where Brian fished as a way to find healing.
Throughout the memorial, protective concrete barriers known as Bremer walls echo the Iraqi landscape Brian experienced. The Bremer walls also provide space to display a mural about his journey, a dedication plaque, and a poem Brian wrote.
This memorial was realized as a private-public partnership. It is located on land donated by the City of Surprise. Logan Simpson collaborated with WERK Urban Design to organize nearly 40 consultants and contractors, who donated nearly $385,000 to make the memorial a reality.
Jul
2020
01
2020 / Jul / 01
Arizona National Memorial Cemetery
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Logan Simpson provided planning, design, and construction administration for a 31,000-gravesite expansion of the only national cemetery that features a desert design theme. The cemetery included 14,000 new burial plots, 7,000 in-ground cremain sites, and a 10,000-niche columbarium. Other provided improvements included storm drainage modifications, a founder’s plaza, three committal shelters, an assembly area, a new entry road and gate, a public information center, expansion of the existing maintenance building, expansion of the internal road system, new utilities, signage, native plantings, and irrigation. Desert planting themes include native revegetation along the project boundaries and road edges, a native garden in the larger public gathering spaces, and wash revegetation along the edges of the drainage ways and detention basins.
Jul
2020
01
2020 / Jul / 01
Chandler Fire Administration Building/Servicemen’s Memorial Plaza
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Logan Simpson’s landscape architecture team developed a comprehensive landscape and hardscape design for this Gold LEED-certified project. Site improvements included staff/visitor parking; a private staff courtyard; and street-front landscaping. The landscape architecture design features a memorial plaza between the fire administration building and the police headquarters. The plaza design merges two circles, symbolizing both departments. Integral colored concrete weaves through the circles toward two memorial sculptures. An arbor shade structure, the backbone of the plaza, helps blend the buildings’ architecture. Circular walls frame the views of the memorials, functioning as buffers and providing private seating. Colorful concrete banding designed within the paving helps to enhance the central focus of the space. A central lawn area softens the hardscape and provides an intimate feel when the plaza is not being used for large events. In addition, to meet CPTED requirements, plants stair-step back toward walls and building foundations to improve visibility. The Memorial Plaza is shared by the Chandler Fire and Police Departments and includes two memorials to the fallen local heroes who lost their lives in the line of duty and those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center attacks.
Jun
2020
17
2020 / Jun / 17
ECO PHX
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ECO PHX is being created to meet an under-served market of environmentally conscientious residents. This purposefully sustainable, infill development of 70 apartment homes that demonstrates what is possible with today’s technology. To accomplish this objective, we approached the design process from the inside out, with sustainability components at the heart of the building’s design. The result is an economically feasible structure integrating sustainable building systems that create a distinctive residential community.

The project integrates biomimicry by imitating the natural processes of our native Sonoran Desert: Curb cuts will bring in stormwater into the bioswales and provide a dual function of cleaning the water through vegetation as well as supplementing irrigation needs. The green wall mimics Arizona canyons and helps to cool the building. Recycled shower water from the building’s residents provides irrigation, vital in this arid climate.

ECO PHX sets the standard for future development in Phoenix. The project is being completed for Habitat Metro and the Fenix Capital Group; team members include WERK | urban design, CCBG Architecture, Ritoch Powell, and Sletten Construction.
Jun
2020
17
2020 / Jun / 17
Block 32 Utilities Administration Building
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The V-shaped roofline of the “butterfly” building sets the tone for Fort Collins, Colorado’s two-block civic campus, known as Block 32. Logan Simpson worked with the architect to develop programming, development concepts, master planning, and site design for this underutilized parcel. The project was initially proposed as a design for a new Utilities Administration Building located on the block, but was expanded into a redevelopment plan for the surrounding Civic Center area as other city departments revisited their future spatial needs. The “butterfly” building was once a lab that tested products for the nearby Poudre Valley Creamery. Now a café, the building anchors the civic campus area and offers a contrast to the new, sustainably designed government buildings that surround it, including the Utilities Administration Building.
Several concepts were developed for arranging the site, and 3-D modeling was was used so stakeholders could understand the choices and preferred design solution. The design team embraced sustainable design and is aspiring towards Net Zero classification, coordinating the use of solar energy, high efficiency building materials, and low-impact design planting strategies. The site design incorporates the preservation of a small historic building on site with elements such as rain gardens, biofiltration swales, low water landscape, a green wall, and utility themed public art formed into concrete entry walls. The site was awarded LEEDv4 New Construction (NC) Platinum status. According to the USGBC, this is the first V4 NC Platinum project in Colorado, and only the third in the U.S. In 2019, the project was awarded the City of Fort Collin Urban Design Award for Sustainable Design & Public Spaces.
Jun
2020
16
2020 / Jun / 16
Scottsdale Airport Gateway – Hayden Road, Cactus to Redfield
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This 1.3-mile roadway segment is a gateway to Scottsdale Airport. As visitors approach the airport, they pass a series of steel “wing” sculptures representing the transition from bird wings to airplane wings. The entry plaza features the stunning sculpture Icarus Falling by Dale Wright. The surrounding hardscape features compass points in the plaza walls and bollards and constellations used for navigation during flight cast into the ground surface. The project was recognized by the Arizona Chapter of the American Concrete Institute in 2006 for “Unusual Use of Concrete.” The plant palette features low-water-use, desert-adapted plants compatible with the neighborhood context. The landscape layout reflects the transition from the urban character south of the project area to the more natural desert that exists north.
Jun
2020
16
2020 / Jun / 16
CSU Football Practice Facility and Heritage Garden
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Logan Simpson led the design of a football practice facility and a heritage garden adjacent to Colorado State University’s football stadium. The 2.6-acre facility contains a full-size field, a partial-length field, and specialty training equipment. The 0.7-acre Heritage Garden incorporates a decorative arbor and plantings from CSU’s six agricultural research stations to represent the university’s agricultural heritage. Logan Simpson’s landscape architects worked closely with CSU to understand the narrative the university wanted to convey. We added an interpretive plaza and improved an existing arboretum by adding outdoor classroom space and a collection of native and naturalized plant species. The Heritage Garden was completed prior to the opening of the new stadium, and now welcomes visitors to campus as they make their way to games and stadium events.
Jun
2020
16
2020 / Jun / 16
Standin’ on the Corner Park, Performance Plaza, and Downtown Streetscape
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Thirty years after Interstate 40 bypassed historic Route 66 through Winslow, Arizona, the town took on a project to restore the historic character of its downtown core, which is largely defined by its relationship to the roadway. Improvements included Standin’ on the Corner Park, named for the Eagles song “Take it Easy,” which includes the lyrics “I’m standin’ on the corner in Winslow, Arizona/And such a fine sight to see/It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford/Slowin’ down to take a look at me.” Under a Transportation Enhancement grant, Logan Simpson designed the park, an ADA accessible performance stage using historic car front ends as for lighting, a stage cover, and provided theming and streetscape design for the sidewalk trellis, perimeter sidewalk areas, including landscape, accent paving, and street furnishings.
Dec
2019
04
2019 / Dec / 04
National Historic and Scenic Trails Methodology, Field Guide, and Training
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Logan Simpson’s landscape architects, archaeologists, historic preservationists, biologists, visual resource specialists, and recreation specialists recently worked with the BLM to develop a first-of-its-kind methodology to help inventory, assess, and monitor National Scenic and Historic Trails (NSHTs). Since National Trails often cross multiple administrative boundaries, the BLM purposefully designed the methodology so it could be used by all agencies and organizations who share management responsibilities. This integrated approach provides federal, state, and local agencies and trail organizations with a common framework as they inventory, assess, and monitor each trail’s resources, qualities, values, settings and uses.
The National Trails Methodology considers four landscape elements―natural, scenic, historic and cultural, and recreation―and how they work together to define the nature, purposes, and uses of a trail. An interdisciplinary team made up of agency decision-makers, technical professionals in each resource area, and members of trail organizations and volunteer groups implements the methodology. Together, they determine how to study the trail—from the locations from which inventory will be conducted to how data will be collected and analyzed, and eventually to how resources will be monitored. Cross-agency participation is encouraged when trails cross jurisdictional boundaries.
A companion Field Guide and training curriculum provide the step-by-step guidance needed to carry out the methodology. Both the Field Guide and training emphasize the use of existing programs, skill sets, and data standards whenever possible with simple checklists and a standardized monitoring form to ensure consistency across agencies. BLM anticipates that the NSHT Methodology, Field Guide, and Training will be rolled out in early 2020.
Mar
2019
06
2019 / Mar / 06
Greater Phoenix Metro Green Infrastructure/LID Handbook
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Low impact development (LID), or sustainable stormwater management, is a green infrastructure (GI) technique practiced widely in the US outside the Southwest. This landscape-based technique can help reduce runoff and stormwater flows in existing conveyance systems, reducing nonpoint source pollutant loads and improving conformance with first-flush requirements. LID reduces stormwater peak flows and volumes, helping mitigating flood hazards. LID can also conserve stormwater, allowing it to be used as a supplemental landscape irrigation source that can help mitigate the heat-island effect and improve quality of life by providing vegetated spaces and shade.
In Arizona, LID is routinely practiced in Pima County. In recent years, Arizona State University’s Sustainable Cities Network (SCN) has fostered dialogue between Phoenix-area communities and agencies about sustainability, including how GI techniques like LID can be more widely implemented. The result was the Greater Phoenix Metro Green Infrastructure Handbook, which provides 10 LID-based technical standardized details and specifications (TSDSs) in Maricopa Association of Governments format. The 10 details were chosen by the SCN core team (cities of Scottsdale and Phoenix and the Flood Control District of Maricopa County), with input from other local communities.
Data from more than 4,700 Pima County rainfall events and 319 Maricopa County rain gauges was analyzed to establish storm events where LID techniques can optimally mitigate pollution and flooding. The landscape architect conducted research into the geology and soils of the Phoenix area and developed plant palettes and planting concepts that support the LID approach. The landscape architect also worked closely with the engineer to develop TSDS for each LID feature and provided graphic design.
The Handbook helps agencies meet water-quality regulations and sustainable design policies. It is the only document available that contains guidance and specific techniques for implementing LID treatments in the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area’s unique environment.