Soul of the City is back! If you missed the kickoff event in February, then Wednesday April 25th is your next opportunity to participate in this engaging community dialogue series. This installment will follow the same interactive 'live-audience-questionnaire' format and will focus specifically on identifying special urban open spaces in our region. What do you think makes a good place to visit in our urban environment? Where are the most successful examples? Join us for this lively discussion that seeks to define where they are and what makes them great. This is the second of five planned dialogues this year which seek to bring designers and community members together to identify what qu

Please join us on Wednesday evening, August 24th beginning at 5:45pm for this month’s 4th Wednesday Design Dialogue (4WDD). “Complete Streets” is the inspiring story of the planning, re-design and transfiguration of West Sacramento’s main street area: West Capitol Avenue. The project completely transformed a portion of old highway US 40 with a wide variety of improvements including new, widened sidewalks, re-structured roads, contiguous bicycle lanes, pocket plazas, landscape plantings and iconic bus shelters which celebrate the City’s unique identity. The re-development of this area has served to foster community spirit by addressing the needs of West Sacramento’s residents and employee

Today, August 17, from Alaska to Florida and everywhere in between, landscape architects across the Country will hold events to educate the public about our profession. Locally, Capitol Park will host landscape architects who will be sketching to re-envision nearby spaces, handing out information and answering questions about what we do. The national campaign has over 150 events taking place during lunch hours coast to coast. Please come out and ask us some questions! If you can't make it, follow the events and campaign online using the links below. Where: Capitol Park, near 11th and L St When: from noon until 1pm What: Landscape architects drawing, talking and answering questions about

There's a lot more green on a tree than just its leaves! At this month's 4WDD ISA-Certified Arborist Scott Gregory will talk about assessing the economic and environmental benefits of the urban forest. In April, Scott successfully defended his master's thesis, "Quantifying Street Tree Function and Distribution: Analysis of Environmental Services, Population Characteristics, and Sidewalk Uplift in the City of Chico, California". His thesis entailed inventory of 34,950 street trees, stumps, and available planting sites within the City of Chico and subsequent data analysis to quantify environmental services provided by the City's street trees. By identifying public and private trees in adva

How can we design ‘greener’ landscapes in Sacramento?  With the growing focus on water conservation, responsible use of resources, and the impacts of the built environment on human health and well-being, the conversation about what makes a site design ‘green’ is being elevated to a higher level. From pre-design and planning through construction and operations, a new rating system, dubbed ‘SITES’, has been developed which sets the bar for what we can do to design more sustainable places.  Developed to be incorporated into future versions of the USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, SITES is currently in its pilot project phase.  Please join us on Wed