Category: Urban Planning

A landmark Olmsted park in Louisville’s West End is set for its largest restoration ever, guided by community voices and a historic $5 million gift.

Come along as Mark Roessler visits Hartford— Connecticut’s capital city and Olmsted’s birthplace— with historian Jana Colacino. 

The Olmsted Society celebrates Riverside’s 150th anniversary with a new logo and a renewed commitment to Stewardship, Education and Community Engagement.

Help bring awareness to this issue by writing a letter to Mayor Adams.

The Olmsted Network welcomed historic roads expert Dan Marriott for a deep dive into the history and modern uses of park roads.

Originally published by The Buffalo News, this article encourages Buffalo leaders and community members to continue finding inspiration in Olmsted's principles.

In this richly–illustrated program, viewers learn more about Olmsted and Vaux’s only marine park in Bridgeport, CT.

Service must precede art, since all turf, trees, flowers, fences, walks, water, paint, plaster, posts and pillars in or under which there is not a purpose of direct utility or service are inartistic if not barbarous…So long as consideration of utility are neglected or overridden by considerations of ornament, there will be no true art. […]

On Tuesday, September 28, 2021, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama visited historic Jackson Park (Project No. 01902) in Chicago, IL for the Obama Presidential Center’s (OPC) ceremonial groundbreaking.  This groundbreaking took place weeks after construction crews began demolishing the site— a plot of parkland along the South Side’s sublime Lake […]

In this episode of Cream City Windy City, podcast host Wendy Bright discusses Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture. Olmsted had an outsize impact on Milwaukee and Chicago, designing some of the cities’ most exquisitely conceived parks in the early 1890s. Listen to the podcast now: https://cream-city-windy-city.simplecast.com/episodes/frederick-law-olmsted

Olmsted believed public parks would serve as a democratizing force, bringing many communities together to forge a new American society.

A light breeze, the first splash of tree canopy green and a forest floor dotted with spring’s early wildflowers, it was a perfect afternoon for my walk with Dan Jones, one of the country’s great 21st-century park thinkers and makers. Dan is the visionary behind The Parklands of Floyds Fork, an Olmsted-inspired four-park system on […]

The environments in which we live, learn, work and play significantly impact our health. Having access to safe, quality parks can lead to beneficial health impacts, from increased physical activity to improved social cohesion and better mental health to reduced water, air and noise pollution. Yet lack of park access, availability, size, safety, recreational facilities […]

Frederick Law Olmsted created hundreds of works of landscape architecture. While they were all different, they embodied a set of design principles that Olmsted developed in his writing and “on the ground.”  What were Olmsted’s design concerns? And what should one look for when walking through an Olmsted design? Key principles shaped Olmsted’s designs and serve […]