Well that was quick!

The AZA met this year in Baltimore. It was earlier than most years, just before the labor day weekend and for a day shorter than previous years. While this was the first year back together since COVID shut down face-to-face meetings, this one took many precautions to make sure this was as safe as possible for 2500 of your best friends to gather INDOORS and in packed conference rooms. Every attendee had to show a negative test, uploaded to a central website and we had to print-out a QR code that needed to be handed in at Security before allowing access to the registration lobby of the Commercial vendor exhibits hall. There were QR codes to get your conference schedule on your phone, volunteer-less name-tag printing and gathering of the donated bag and re-useable aluminum water bottle - then once inside, anything goes! Read More...

Ursa in the HOUSE!!! True that! Looks like after 25 years in the AZA, I'm finally going to experience the great unknown! What it's like to be "in the booth"! I usually spend a lot of time in the exhibit hall, talking to vendors, designers and other commercial members, but like a grandparent - I can leave! This year I talked the Epsten Group into doing a booth, then they turned around and talked me into sitting in it. So - this year I get to experience the cold shoulders of "i'm not interested" and the "how do you design a zoo" questions from the 1st timers and the great homecoming greetings from friends that I haven't seen in three years. I am looking forward to it - but i'm also quite curious how it feels to watch the parade of attendees walk by and see if I can grab their attention for just a minute as they zoom by on their way to an important talk or meeting. Read More...

by Nevin Lash



This photo taken by John Bierlein ended up in my inbox recently. John was part of the design team from Woodland Park, when I worked with CLR in Philadelphia in the 1980's. Seems like a long time ago - and it was. The project started in 1988 and opened in 1994 as Northern Trail. This was one of five or six major projects taken on during the second wave of ground breaking Woodland Park Zoo project outlined in the Long-Range Plan by David Hancocks/Jones and Jones (J&J) approved in 1976. But when you think back before the 1976 plan, there wasn't anything like it in the world. All zoos were made by Architects - who know how to handle a buildings program, but the site is insignificant in most cases, and that was the case in most zoos prior to 1976. It really came to light, that a zoo project must to managed by a multi-disciplinary team including and sometimes led by Landscape Architects.
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