Mayer/Reed Associate Principal and landscape architect, Shannon Simms, ASLA, will present at the Mpact Transit & Community Conference on Tuesday October 22, 2024. The session, Community-Led Urban Design: Implementing in Sync with Transit Projects, features a panel of leaders from around the US and Canada who will demonstrate how creative approaches in urban design and landscape architecture can bring community identity into transit projects. Join Shannon and co-presenters—Krista Nightengale, Better Block Foundation; Klaudia Biala, SvN Architects + Planners; John Potter, Metrolinx; and Jeffrey A Fahs, HDR, Inc.—as they share techniques for engagement, design and placemaking that “shift perceptions about transit, limit adverse impacts and heal communities.”
Formerly known as Rail~Volution, the annual Mpact Conference focuses on building great places to live through transit, connected mobility, and land use and development.
On May 8 we put down our pencils, logged out of AutoCAD and turned our attention to Washington, D.C., for American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Advocacy Day. Representing Oregon, Mayer/Reed Principal Jeramie Shane, ASLA, and landscape architect Laura Hartzell, ASLA Oregon President-Elect, chatted with federal leaders about the importance of landscape architecture and the issues that matter to us.
They met virtually with the offices of Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and Representatives Suzanne Bonamici and Earl Blumenauer and asked them to consider cosponsoring two bills. The Freedom to Invest in Tomorrow’s Workforce Act (H.R. 1477 / S. 722) would allow the use of tax-exempt 529 savings plans to pay for professional licensure and continuing education – a change that would promote equity by reducing financial barriers in landscape architecture and other professions. Secondly, they discussed the Water Infrastructure Sustainability and Efficiency (WISE) Act (H.R. 2921), allowing more loan dollars from the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund to be used for nature-based infrastructure projects. For example: green roofs, bioswales and filtration wetlands (like those at our current Clean Water Services’ Fernhill wetlands project in Forest Grove, Oregon).
ASLA Advocacy Day helps inform national legislators about our profession and can influence policies that benefit landscape architecture professionals, and, by extension, the people and places we design for. We encourage everyone to contact their representatives about the issues that are important to them – your feedback matters.
Managing the event is Mayer/Reed’s Taylor Bowden, landscape designer and vice president of ASLA Oregon chapter services. Taylor has been working with a team of volunteers (including Mayer/Reed’s Laura Hartzell, ASLA president-elect; Michael O’Brien, ASLA; and Reece Vissia, ASLA) to program a day full of motivating, educational and inspiring content for the local design community.
Symbiosis: Better Together takes place online and at the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, April 13th. Early-bird registration is open now through March 15th. We hope to see you there!
According to Mayer/Reed’s extraordinary senior landscape designer and project manager, Teresa Chenney, FASLA, “It’s time for me to wander over to another trail. I am leaving my usual professional life behind and looking towards new adventures and endeavors in 2023.” For Teresa, this means endless artistic pursuits, time with friends, family and community and activities that make the world a better place.
Teresa first came to Portland in 1995 from New York City where she had worked for a well-known landscape architecture firm, Quennell Rothschild and Associates. Mayer/Reed seized the opportunity the following year to hire her to design and oversee the firm’s award-winning landscape architecture work on the Nike World Headquarters North Campus Expansion. Spanning a 15-year period, she ensured that design solutions at all scales were sophisticated, creative and well-informed by the architecture, natural resources and site context. The Nike projects resulted in a world-class campus that reflected the aesthetic, ecological and innovation aspirations of the company and its workforce.
In 2017, Teresa became a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in the category of Completed Works. Quoting from her nomination, “…her professionalism is characterized by maturity, patience, humor and active engagement with associated design and planning professionals, along with a deep understanding of the needs of communities and clients…Examples of her work in the Portland metropolitan area all derive their planning and design heart from Teresa’s deeply held personal values and design principles…She synthesizes art and science, seamlessly weaving the social, the aesthetic and the practical.” Teresa inspires her colleagues and clients alike as she advances social and environmental good. She remains a strong mentor for younger design professionals and leads by example by volunteering for non-profit organizations.
We at Mayer/Reed greatly value and admire Teresa’s enduring passion for her chosen path of landscape architecture; her contributions to the firm are lasting and deep. “It is a bittersweet departure for me, and I sincerely thank you all for your genuine thoughtfulness, collaboration and teachings you have so generously given to our important work…I will always treasure the many stories, visions and lessons that I’ve acquired along the way.”
What can we say? Surely, we’ll see you on many more trails ahead.
