WRT (Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC, formerly known as Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd (WMRT)) is an urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, and architecture firm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [1] WRT is a collaborative practice of city and regional planners, urban designers, landscape architects and architects with additional offices in San Francisco, [2] Miami, Lake Placid, and Dallas.
Founded in 1963 as Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd (WMRT) [3] [4] by David A. Wallace, [5] Ian McHarg, [6] William H. Roberts, [7] and Thomas A. Todd, the firm had over 200 employees at its peak. [8]
WRT headed the design of Abuja, the new capital of Nigeria, [9] and completed design projects for Inner Harbor in Baltimore. It has also done waterfront projects for the cities of Norfolk and Richmond in Virginia, as well as projects for Indianapolis, Indiana, Honolulu, and Dallas. [10] It redesigned Kakaako Waterfront Park in Honolulu, and designed Hale Koa Hotel and Fort DeRussy Military Reservation in the Waikiki area of Honolulu. [11] WRT has also done a study of renovating the Ocean Beach in New London County, Connecticut. [12]
WRT is drafting architectural plans for three 400-acre (1.6 km2) parks along the Floyds Fork in Louisville, Kentucky, which is believed to be the largest urban park project in the United States. [13]
In 2011, the American Planning Association named WRT as the recipient of its inaugural award, National Planning Award for Achievement in Planning, a recognition for its continual progressive and innovative planning practices. The American Association of Landscape Architects also recognized WRT in 2010 with its National Award for its influential body of work. In 1996, the United States Department of Transportation and the National Endowment for the Arts gave Wallace Roberts & Todd an Honor Award for its proposed design of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. [14] The competition for the award included 300 entries, and WRT was one of eleven who received the award. [14]
In 2000, WRT received two awards from Waterfront Center for its role in planning the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway. [15]
In 2004, WRT received an Award of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects for its design of parks near the Anacostia River. [16]
In 2008, WRT received the Charter Award from Congress for the New Urbanism for its project titled "A Civic Vision for the Central Delaware". [17]
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for construction and human use, investigation of existing social, ecological, and soil conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of other interventions that will produce desired outcomes.
Liberty State Park (LSP) is a park in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located on Upper New York Bay in Jersey City opposite Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The park opened in 1976 to coincide with bicentennial celebrations and is operated and maintained by the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry. Liberty State Park covers 1,212 acres (490 ha).
Ken Yeang is an architect, ecologist, planner and author from Malaysia, best known for his ecological architecture and ecomasterplans that have a distinctive green aesthetic. He pioneered an ecology-based architecture, working on the theory and practice of sustainable design. The Guardian newspaper (2008) named him "one of the 50 people who could save the planet". Yeang's headquarters is in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) as Hamzah & Yeang, with offices in London (UK) as Llewelyn Davies Ken Yeang Ltd. and Beijing (China) as North Hamzah Yeang Architectural and Engineering Company.
Pardisan Park is a complex covering more than 270 hectares, located in the northwest of Tehran. It is connected to Hemmat Expressway in the north, and to Sheikh Nouri Expressway in the east.
Ian L. McHarg was a Scottish landscape architect and writer on regional planning using natural systems. McHarg was one of the most influential persons in the environmental movement who brought environmental concerns into broad public awareness and ecological planning methods into the mainstream of landscape architecture, city planning and public policy. He was the founder of the department of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. His 1969 book Design with Nature pioneered the concept of ecological planning. It continues to be one of the most widely celebrated books on landscape architecture and land-use planning. In this book, he set forth the basic concepts that were to develop later in geographic information systems.
Laurie Olin is an American landscape architect. He has worked on landscape design projects at diverse scales, from private residential gardens to public parks and corporate/museum campus plans.
Landscape planning is a branch of landscape architecture. According to Erv Zube (1931–2002) landscape planning is defined as an activity concerned with developing landscaping amongst competing land uses while protecting natural processes and significant cultural and natural resources. Park systems and greenways of the type designed by Frederick Law Olmsted are key examples of landscape planning. Landscape designers tend to work for clients who wish to commission construction work. Landscape planners analyze broad issues as well as project characteristics which constrain design projects.
Michael Robert Van Valkenburgh is an American landscape architect and educator. He has worked on a wide variety of projects – including public parks, college campuses, sculpture gardens, corporate landscapes, private gardens, and urban master plans – in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. He has taught at Harvard's Graduate School of Design Since 1982 and served as chair of its Landscape Architecture Department from 1991 to 1996.
Sustainable landscape architecture is a category of sustainable design concerned with the planning and design of the built and natural environments.
James Corner is a landscape architect and theorist whose works exhibit a focus on "developing innovative approaches toward landscape architectural design and urbanism." His designs of note include Fresh Kills Park on Staten Island and the High Line in Manhattan, and Domino Park in Brooklyn, all in New York City.
David A. Wallace FAICP, AIA, PP was an urban planner and architect who co-founded, with Ian McHarg, the firm of Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT).
Walter J. Hood, is an American designer, artist, academic administrator, and educator. He is the former chair of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and principal of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. Hood has worked in a variety of settings including architecture, landscape architecture, visual art, community leadership, urban design, and in planning and research. He has spent more than 20 years living in Oakland, California. He draws on his strong connection to the Black community in his work. He has chosen to work almost exclusively in the public realm and urban environments.
The Hoover-Mason Trestle is a 1650-foot elevated linear park in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on the reclaimed industrial site of Bethlehem Steel. The trestle is 46 feet high and was originally an elevated narrow gauge rail line for raw materials, built around 1905.
Mia Lehrer, born Mía Guttfreund is a Salvadoran American landscape architect. She received a B.A. from Tufts University with a degree in environmental design and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Lehrer is one of the first professionals to incorporate both of her degrees to design sustainable landscapes.
Anne Whiston Spirn is an American landscape architect, photographer and author. Her work promotes community-oriented spaces that are functional, sustainable, meaningful, and artful. Spirn is Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. She is the 2001 winner of the International Cosmos Prize.
The City Club of New York is an independent, not-for-profit organization based in New York City.
Sasaki is a design firm specializing in Architecture, Interior Design, Urban Design, Space Planning, Landscape Architecture, Ecology, Civil Engineering, and Place Branding. The firm is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, but practices on an international scale, with offices in Shanghai, and Denver, Colorado, and clients and projects globally.
Edmund David Hollander is an American landscape architect and educator. A New York City native, he is the president of Hollander Design Landscape Architects, a New York-based firm known for environmental planning, landscape design and horticulture. The firm provides services to residential, commercial and civic clients.
Lucinda Sanders is CEO and partner at OLIN, a landscape architecture firm. She has had a leading role in many of OLIN's most recognized projects, and she shapes OLIN's goals of design and sustainability.
Megan Mary Wraight was a New Zealand landscape architect who had considerable influence on the design of public spaces. She was the founding principal of Wraight + Associates Limited, which has completed a wide variety of large-scale urban projects throughout New Zealand, including waterfront redevelopments, educational facilities, transport facilities and urban-renewal projects.