Gresham Smith Project Honored with Award of Merit From ASLA Kentucky
Gresham Smith is proud to announce for the seventh consecutive year the firm was honored in the Kentucky Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA Kentucky) annual awards program. The firm’s design for the Chattahoochee RiverLands Pilot Project, a pedestrian improvement project stemming from the award-winning Chattahoochee RiverLands Greenway Study, received an Award of Merit in the Planning and Analysis category.
“I’m proud of our team for their commitment to using landscape architecture, design and planning to connect people and spaces – reimagining sites to create a real sense of place,” said Jessica Lucyshyn, P.E., executive vice president and market vice president of Land Planning, Gresham Smith. “This project is an important first step in the larger rollout of the RiverLands project. Our team’s creative design will show the potential in one of the region’s most appreciated but underutilized landmarks.”
The Chattahoochee RiverLands Greenway Study, developed by a multidisciplinary team led by SCAPE Landscape Architecture, examined 100 miles of the Chattahoochee River, seeking to reunite the Metro Atlanta Region with the waterway and link suburban, urban and rural communities into a continuous public realm. The Pilot Project is intended to test and demonstrate design strategies that will ultimately lead to a cohesive network of public trails, water access and greenspace along the river.
The multi-phase Pilot Project will ultimately include 2.4 miles of pedestrian and bike-friendly trails, which will connect to other nearby trails and showcase both the woodlands and wetlands on the site. The multi-use trail will be separated, or “pulled apart,” to create a more comfortable experience for those on wheels and those on foot, while varied surface textures will also help delineate space for different users. The project will incorporate two “nooks,” or areas for resting, gathering, and exploring the surrounding habitat, several segments of boardwalk that traverse the wetlands and soft-surface paths that meander through vegetation in wooded areas. Additionally, the proposed “Wetland Window” will use a combination of metal mesh, railings and boardwalk-like elements to create an educational space where visitors can study the wetlands beneath the trail’s surface.