Pat Loheed Landscape Architect

808 Memorial Drive Courtyard, Juli Riemenschneider and Pat Loheed This courtyard was a dreary internal courtyard in a twenty year old 300 unit mixed rise apartment complex on the Charles River in Cambridge. Our concept was to use a brightly colored brick pattern and new planting to provide a more cheerful entrance experience and to provide an interesting view of the courtyard from the inner units. The design concept plans were generated over the existing conditions survey. This same document provided the contract document basis and format.

Because of the geometric layout and requirements for firelanes, the accuracy of the layout grid was important. We tried to utilize a paving pattern that fully utilized whole-sized bricks and minimized brick cutting. This kept installation time and materials costs down, which was an important factor in updating an occupied housing complex. We were also able to a mathematical layout for the curvilinear central islands and circular benches which was functional for the contractor and the bench fabricator. The project is almost complete and the brick looks really snazzy as Juli says.

Armstrong Historic Block, Pittsburgh, PA, Juli Riemenschneider and Pat Loheed PL/LA provided landscape design support on this proposed renovation of the old Armstrong Cork riverfront factories. These plans were developed as a more elaborate detail blow-up showing the central courtyard development and riverfront plaza that were major considerations in the City approval process.

The multi-use riverfront plaza included limited restaurant loading, outdoor eating, and plans for an easement for a riverfront pathway. Keys for details link indicate design details that were shown on other illustrative detail sheets. Another interesting artifact was that the nearby catsup factory had well rights within the project boundary that had to be kept free from contamination. Old plat maps were scanned in and scaled to approximately locate what was known about this pre-existing easement and water right to see how it could be accommodated in the rehabilitation process.

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