Designing the Parks
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) is pleased to announce that they have joined the National Park Service, University of Virginia, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and the George Wright Society in co-sponsoring the national conference, Designing the Parks. To be held in Charlottesville, VA, and San Francisco, CA, in 2008. The two-part conference will examine the design of buildings and landscapes in regional, state, and national parks.
The themes for the two conferences are as follows:
Part 1: May 20-22, 2008
The History of Park Planning and Design
Charlottesville, Virginia
In Charlottesville, the meeting will be hosted by the University of Virginia and the papers presented will address the history of the planning and design of regional, state, and national parks.
Submitting Paper Abstracts:
Interested scholars, scientists, park professionals, and design practitioners are invited to submit paper abstracts of no more than 300 words for the Charlottesville meeting of Designing the Parks.
Deadline is February 16, 2008.
Part 2: December 9-11, 2008
The Present and Future of Park Planning
and Design
San Francisco, California
The San Francisco meeting, to be held at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, will explore current issues and future trends in park planning and design, building on the research presented at the Charlottesville meeting.
At both meetings, participants will include architects and landscape architects, historians, scientists, national and state park managers, partnership organizations, and others involved in park research, design, and management. Many types of landscape reservations will be the subjects of papers and presentations at both meetings of Designing the Parks, including but not limited to scenic and wilderness reservations, historical and archeological parks, ethnographic and memorial sites, national heritage areas, and protected landscapes of all types. The Charlottesville and San Francisco meetings of Designing the Parks will be linked in terms of content, themes, participants, and mutual relevance.
The purpose of the Charlottesville session is to assess lessons learned through an examination of park planning and design history. The research presented will provide a foundation for presentations and workshops addressing the unique challenges facing current park design and management, which will be the subjects of the San Francisco meeting of the conference. Following the San Francisco session, these principles will be applied to a design charrette to test and validate their conceptual application to future park design. This design charrette is planned to be offered to graduate schools of design across the country. Both meetings of Designing the Parks will also stand independently for those attending one or the other of the meetings.
A new website for the conference has been created by TCLF and resides at www.designingtheparks.com.
Conference Sponsors
Sponsored by the National Park Service, The Cultural Landscape Foundation,
University of Virginia, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and the George Wright Society.