Land and Community Design Case Study Series Launched


The LAF Board of Directors held a reception at LAF headquarters in Washington, DC on April 24 to celebrate the launch of the Land and Community Design Case Study Series.

The launch will be marked by the publication of the first three cases in the series:

The publication of the case studies, scheduled for August of this year through a publishing partnership with Island Press, is the culmination of five years of research and development, marking a major advancement for the landscape architecture and planning professions and landscapes across the country.

Gary Hack, dean, Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, stated, “The case study launch is a landmark for the landscape planning professions. The result of the series will be greater rigor in landscape architectural thinking, placing it on a level with disciplines such as engineering, law, and medicine.”

The Land and Community Design Case Study Series will demonstrate how design delivers holistic solutions to economic, social and environmental problems and will provide a legacy of critical thinking that will advance enlightened planning and innovative development—in the classroom, in practice and in policy.

The case studies can be ordered at www.islandpress.org. Island Press will also market LAF’s case studies through their Sourcebook, which reaches 100,000 decision-makers nationwide. It will come out on May 11, 2003 and an electronic version will be available on the website at a future date.

Following publication of the first three case studies, LAF and Island Press will explore a series partnership in which Island Press would provide the services of publishing, marketing, publicity and dissemination. This would allow future LAF investments to be targeted primarily to case study research, which will result in more case studies and, in turn, provide momentum to the series.