Events | 2008 Oregon Design Awards Jury

Andrew Moore, RLA
Signe Nielsen, FASLA
Len Hopper, FASLA
Marcha Johnson, ASLA
Thomas Paulo, Commissioner NYC DPR Staten Island
Fred Schwartz, FAIA
Mark Strauss, FAIA, AICP

Andrew Moore, RLA*
Andrew Moore, a partner at Quennell Rothschild & Partners LLP, is a landscape architect with over 25 years experience in New York City. He has designed a broad selection of the firm’s notable work, including the master plan for Hudson River Park, multiple projects on the campus of Princeton University, restoration of historic parks and landscapes in the northeast and residences in New York, Connecticut, Florida and New Mexico. Current projects include collaborations with architects Frank Gehry, Toshiko Mori, Rafael Vinoly and Thomas Phifer.

He has taught at Parsons School of Design, University of Pennsylvania and Washington University. Several of his office projects have won awards including ASLA merit award for Hudson River Park master plan, Historic Preservation Award for Monument Drive, Princeton New Jersey and the International Masonry Institute award for Scudder Plaza, Princeton University.

Mr. Moore holds a BLA from University of Oregon and is a registered landscape architect in New York and New Jersey.

*Andrew Moore will also be participating in the April 2008 Oregon Design Awards Celebration, as the Awards MC and jury representative.

Signe Nielsen, FASLA
Signe Nielsen, principal of Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects has 30 years of professional experience. For 26 years she has been a Professor in both the graduate and undergraduate Schools of Architecture at Pratt Institute.

A Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Ms. Nielsen’s design work has received more than two dozen major awards. In 2003, Ms. Nielsen was appointed to the New York City Art Commission. Her work has been published extensively in professional journals. Exhibits of her work have been shown in New York, Washington DC and Chicago.

Born in Paris, Ms. Nielsen holds degrees in Urban Planning from Smith College; in Landscape Architecture from City College of New York; and in and in Construction Management from Pratt Institute.

Len Hopper, FASLA
Leonard Hopper is currently a Senior Associate with Mark K. Morrison Associates LTD in New York City.  For over 20 years, MKMA has taken the lead on a wide range of projects in site planning and design, urban design, land development planning and interior landscape architecture.  A participatory design approach provides meaningful participation for the client and other stakeholders as well as inspires residents to become active partners in the design of their communities. 

Previously Len was the Chief Landscape Architect for the New York City Housing.  The Housing Authority has approximately 2600 acres of open space at over 350 housing developments throughout the five boroughs.  Since the early 1980’s, Len has developed concepts and design guidelines that associate site design with social concerns and resident security.  During a time when other housing authorities were boarding up or demolishing their high-rise buildings, the implementation of Len’s ideas for humanizing the spaces around these buildings in a scale, texture and richness that encouraged residents to reclaim their open spaces became the standard for site improvements at the Housing Authority’s developments.  A highlight of Len’s efforts, has been the recognition of the Housing Authority for “Outstanding Leadership on Issues Affecting Urban Design, Rehabilitation and Policy” by the Landscape Architecture Foundation in 1993.

Len is currently focusing on site designs that enhance the security of public buildings and urban spaces.  In the aftermath of 9/11, there has been a great deal of focus surrounding security design.  There has been a particular emphasis on the design of open spaces, urban plazas and access to public buildings, the areas of responsibility of the Landscape Architect.  Len has been very active locally and nationally in the debate around legitimate questions about the nature of our security responses, the process that determines it and the forms that it takes.  He was a key participant in the first Security Design Symposium, a national inter-disciplinary security focused event, held in New York City in September of 2002.  He has contributed to a number of magazine and newspaper articles as well as given many presentations throughout the country on security design.  Len was interviewed by over 20 stations as part of a national radio tour on site security design on September 9, 2003.  His book, “Security and Site Design – A Landscape Architectural Approach to Analysis, Assessment and Design Implementation” was published by John Wiley and Sons, in 2005.  He is a Building Security Certified Professional, an advanced certification granted by the Building Security Council that stresses a comprehensive, multidisciplinary focus on security.  He served as the Editor-In-Chief of the first edition of Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards, published by Wiley and Sons 2006.

Len is also a faculty member at The City College School of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture.  He teaches and coordinates the Masters in Landscape Architecture Technology Sequence courses.  Len also teaches the technology sequence of courses in Columbia University’s Master of  Science in Landscape Design Program. 

Len Hopper is an active member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, serving as National President for 2000-2001.  He served as President of the Landscape Architecture Foundation for 2005-2006. In recognition of his accomplishments and contributions, Len was elected to ASLA’s Council of Fellows in 1994 and was recipient of the President’s Medal in 2005.

Marcha Johnson, ASLA
Dr. Marcha Johnson, ASLA is a registered landscape architect with NYC Parks & Recreation, specializing in ecological restoration and the design of post-industrial urban waterfront parks. She has been an Adjunct professor in the Urban Landscape Program at City College of NY for over fifteen years, teaching regional ecology, ecological restoration design, plant identification and planting design.   Marcha’s recent work, “Designing the Edge” uses Harlem R. Park as a prototype to explore innovative solutions for urban shorelines, blending ecology, community involvement, access and environmental education. She is currently designing parks in the Bronx, including a greenway along Pugsley Creek, and the restoration of a natural rocky shore in Pelham Bay Park.  On the pro-bono side, Marcha is a long-standing executive board member of ASLA’s NY Chapter and serves on Accreditation Teams evaluating landscape architectural programs throughout the US.  She also serves on the executive board of The River Project, an oceanographic research station in Tribeca focused on the Hudson R. Estuary.

Education:

• University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D., 1991.  Department of City and Regional Planning;  Dissertation: The Opportunity to Design Post Industrial Waterfronts in Response to Their Ecological Context. 
• Louisiana State University,  Master of Landscape Architecture, 1979.  Thesis: Attitude Assessment:  Kudzu in the Rural South.
• University of Illinois at Chicago Circle Campus; Bachelor of Science in Biology, 1976.
• Rockford College, Rockford Ill. Biology major, 1972-1974.

Thomas Paulo, Commissioner NYC DPR Staten Island
Thomas A. Paulo has been Staten Island’s Parks Commissioner since 1993.  Prior to becoming Borough Commissioner, he served as Greenbelt Administrator overseeing the implementation of the plan to create the largest park on Staten Island. 

In his current position, Commissioner Paulo has been active in the acquisition of over 1000 acres of new parks for the Island.  In addition, he has implemented a major capital program aimed at the reconstruction of existing parks and the construction of new parks.  This program, funded by elected officials, exceeds 50 million dollars.

Prior to joining parks, Commissioner Paulo worked as a Senior Planner at the Department of City Planning and an assistant professor at the College of Forestry at Syracuse.  He holds degrees in law and in landscape architecture from the SUNY College of Forestry at Syracuse and from New York University.

Frederic Schwartz, FAIA
Frederic Schwartz Architects is an internationally recognized, award-winning design firm with a wealth of experience working on complex national and international architecture, urban revitalization and master planning projects in the USA, China and India, where they have recently won two competitions for new airports. Last year principal, Frederic Schwartz led a team for the Recovery Plan for one-third of the post-Katrina neighborhoods of New Orleans. He was the founding principal of the internationally popular THINK team for the World Trade Master Plan. The firm is continually invited to participate in major national and international architectural and planning competitions, including the Shanghai 2010 World Expo and Singapore Harbor Master Plans (both with George Hargreaves Associates) and the San Diego Harbor and the Santa Fe Railyard Park Master Plans (both with Ken Smith). Schwartz is a winner of the Rome Prize in Architecture and 20 AIA Awards. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Penn and has given over 100 lectures in China, India, Europe and the USA.

Mark Strauss, FAIA, AICP
Architect, planner, and urban designer Mark Strauss, FAIA, AICP, leads FXFOWLE’s Planning/Urban Design Studio. The studio consists of architects, planners, and landscape architects. As Immediate Past President of the AIA New York Chapter, Mark has been an advocate of bringing a greater appreciation for architectural and urban design excellence as public policy. A key aspect of Mark’s interests and talents lie in developing strategic approaches to assist communities, institutions, and developers to redefine properties in response to urban design, economic, technical, and political concerns. Mark recently contributed to the development of guidelines for both Manhattan’s Eastern and Western Rail Yards for Hudson Yards Development Corporation, and his current work includes a new master plan for Hunter’s Point South in New York planning and urban design services for the city of Philadelphia, Transit Oriented Development strategies for Metro-North Railroad, and a new master plan for Baruch College in New York.