Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center Wins 2021 AIANY Honor Award

We are excited to share that the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center, a collaboration with nARCHITECTS for NYS Parks, has received a 2021 AIANY Honor Award in the Architecture category. Starr Whitehouse served as Landscape Architect for this project, reclaiming a large concrete parking area for native plantings, pathways, and outdoor educational programming.

“Active recreation is integral to all public space.” The Architect’s Newspaper interviews the Starr Whitehouse team on their recent reconstruction of historic Jones Beach West Games.

A deep dive into the new Jones Beach Energy and Nature Center, an innovative museum, exhibition hub, and sustainability center highlighting the unique coastal ecologies and energy systems of western Long Island. Starr Whitehouse’s landscape design converts 10 acres of paved parking lot to restored native dune ecology, creating new pollinator habitat and supporting educational programming for students and visitors.

New York YIMBY reports on renderings and design documents for 2500 Jerome Avenue, a new affordable and supportive housing development in the Bronx on the grounds of The Episcopal St. James Church Fordham. Starr Whitehouse’s courtyard and green roof design will help promote healthy community living at the complex.

At a Downtown Revitalization Initiative open house, Gail Wittwer-Laird discusses the importance of community involvement in the design process, as well as how DRI funds will be used to make accessibility and other improvements to Hudson’s Promenade Hill Park while respecting the character of the country’s oldest public park.

Buffalo Rising gives a nice overview of the recently completed Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Gateway in Buffalo, NY, one of seven gateways Starr Whitehouse is designing for the Governor’s Empire State Trail initiative.

The Brownstoner reports on plans for the Clarkson Estates, a new affordable and supportive housing complex planned for Brooklyn’s Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood. With landscape design to be led by Starr Whitehouse, the development will bring new housing options and a hub of social and community services to an underserved section of the borough.

Good reviews in the local press are a sign that a project is off to a good start! The Gossips of Rivertown blog — a Hudson, NY staple — gives an overview of Starr Whitehouse’s presentation to the local DRI committee, as well as the first socially-distanced community meeting to discuss the reconstruction of Hudson’s historic Promenade Hill Park, the oldest public park in the United States. Led by Principal Gail Wittwer-Laird out of our new Hudson branch office and guided by the park’s original design vision, Starr Whitehouse will be revitalizing plantings, designing plaza improvements to allow a broader range of programming, and making the park’s iconic promenade accessible to all.

With art museums shuttered across the world, art historian Alex Kitnick reflects on how the Irish Hunger Memorial and other public art in Lower Manhattan mirrors the challenges and complexities of our time in the July/August 2020 issue of Artforum.

Landscape Architecture Magazine quotes Laura Starr and principals across the country on how COVID-19 is impacting project pipelines and office workflow.