NEWS

Two DC&E projects have received statewide APA awards!

The awards will be presented this fall at the CCAPA conference in Hollywood.

DC&E helps celebrate the Carter Gilmore Sport Complex Grand Re-opening

On Saturday, August 9, 2008, the City of Oakland recently sponsored the grand re-opening of the Carter Gilmore Sports Complex near the Oakland Coliseum. Over 200 guests attended including the wife, children and grandchildren of Carter Gilmore. The park was named in his honor to commemorate his numerous contributions to the City of Oakland, including his tenure as the first black councilman for the City.

DC&E prepared the design and construction documents for the renovation of the seven-acre park. Improvements to the existing ball fields included new subsurface drainage and irrigation, a new score booth, with restroom and bleachers for the ballfields. DC&E also crafted a new one-acre neighborhood park with two play areas, picnic tables, open lawn area and informal seating. DC&E worked with nationally recognized artist Mildred Howard to develop a community park concept that incorporates unique interpretive design features that draw upon a variety of artistic expressions of East African heritage including kuba cloth patterns in the paving
and vegetated greenwalls, as well as adinkra symbols adorning the entry gate, sandblasted throughout the park and in custom tilework.

DC&E MERGES WITH SOLIMAR RESEARCH GROUP

DC&E has merged with the Ventura planning practice of Bill Fulton’s Solimar Research Group, Inc., providing planning services to government agencies, land conservation organizations and developers in urban planning, transfer of development rights and metropolitan growth trends documentation. Solimar’s Southern California presence will strengthen DC&E and will allow us to serve a broader range of clients.

DC&E PROJECT ON FOX NEWS

DC&E is currently working on the BART to Livermore for BART project as a subconsultant to Wilbur Smith Associates. View Fox News clip. Contact Ian Moore for more information on this project or DC&E’s Transportation services.

DC&E PROJECTS WIN AWARDS

DC&E recently won several awards through local sections of the California Chapter of the APA and through the American Society of Landscape Architects/Northern California Chapter.  Learn more by clicking on the projects and association names listed below.

• California Avenue Master Plan for the Fresno Housing Authority: Central California APA First Place Award in Outstanding Neighborhood Planning, 2008.
• Sacramento Railyards Specific Plan and Design Guidelines for Thomas Enterprises: Sacramento Valley APA Award in the Comprehensive Planning/Large Jurisdiction category, 2008.
• Rooftop Resources Assessment for Bay Localize in Oakland: The American Society of Landscape Architects/Northern California Chapter Merit Award, 2008 and the Northern California APA Award in the Innovation for Green Community Planning, 2008.
• Downtown San Leandro Transit-Oriented Development Strategy EIR for the City of San Leandro, as a subconsultant to BMS Design
  Group: Northern California APA Award for Focused Issue Planning, 2008.
• Santa Rosa Station Area Specific Plan for the City of Santa Rosa: Northern California APA Award of Merit for Focused Issue Planning, 2008.
• 23rd Street Specific Plan for the City of San Pablo: Northern California APA Award for Best Practices for Planning Implementation, 2008.
  
  
  

LATEST IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

The 66th Avenue Gateway to the Waterfront Trail Project for the City of Oakland celebrated its grand opening and dedication ceremony in May 2008. DC&E collaborated with artists Valerie Otani and Fernanda D'Agostino, through the Oakland Cultural Affairs Commission, to develop a unique concept for this gateway site, located at the western terminus of 66th Avenue along the Oakland Estuary. The gateway design provides a respite from the Interstate 880 highway corridor immediately to the east, focusing visitors instead on the site’s unique waterfront setting and taking inspiration from migratory bird patterns, tidal fluctuations, and views of Arrowhead Marsh. DC&E’s design incorporates fluid, rolling shapes, a boardwalk connecting to the existing Bay Trail segment, and a public plaza. In addition, twelve foot nesting poles for native bird species repeat the undulating pattern of paving and plantings. Contact Sarah Sutton for more information on Landscape Architecture services.

Update! DC&E’s 66th Avenue Gateway Project for the City of Oakland is in the news!
Read more at : http://www.oaklandmagazine.com/media/Oakland-Magazine/August-2008/In-the-Mix/

"Roadside Respite

For those zooming along Interstate 880 on their way to an A’s or Raiders game or back from the airport, there’s a treat of a detour just off the route. From the 66th Avenue exit, head west, away from the Coliseum, to where Zhone Way dead-ends into a loop of Oakport Street, and take a breather in Oakland’s newest pocket park—the 66th Avenue Gateway Park on the Oakland Waterfront Trail in the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline Park.

It’s easy to find: Look for the gleaming swoop of stainless steel that resembles a wave suspended atop a modern bus shelter. That’s Pacific Current, one of the public-art pieces dreamed up for the park by the Portland, Ore.–based team of Fernanda D’Agostino and Valerie Otani, who also created the carved-stone sculptures that stud the hardscape of curving crushed-oyster-shell paths merging into a boardwalk that extends into the mudflats.

From just about any spot in this tiny park (a joint project of Oakland’s Measure DD Program and the East Bay Regional Parks District, and built by contractor John Clay), visitors get spectacular views of the panorama from Arrowhead Marsh and Alameda just across the glistening water of San Leandro Bay to the San Mateo foothills, San Francisco and Mount Tamalpais. “Our goal was to get people out of the going-fast, pick-up-friends-at-the-airport mentality to this very contemplative spot,” says Otani. “We also wanted to create a site that had a very flowing organic feel.”

To that end, D’Agostino explains, the principles of fluid dynamics—the study of flow in everything from bird flight and weather patterns to ocean currents and shoreline shapes—informed both the overall design, a collaboration with Sarah Sutton and John Hykes of Berkeley-based Design, Community & Environment, and such details as the shapes of the viewing shelter and the stone work.

“We also wanted to get people as close as possible to the water,” Otani adds. “One of the strong motivations in our work is stewardship. By being more attuned to the fascinating places that you normally just go whizzing by—like this incredibly peaceful wetlands area that’s home to endangered species and on the pacific flyway with thousands of migrating birds—you take care of them.”

—By Derk Richardson"