An Expanding Role in Urban Projects : Design: The work of landscape architects takes on ever greater significance.

Urban projects are showing a new sensitivity to their sites and surroundings and much of the credit goes to landscape architects. Especially on the West Coast, landscape architects often used to be relegated to the status of plant people who added trees, shrubs and lawns after a building had been completed.

But, during the 1980s, with local governments and community planning groups demanding developments that are sensitive to their environments, landscape architects, with their training in land use and planning, have emerged to take the lead on many projects.

Nearly 4,000 landscape architects are expected to attend the annual meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architects at the San Diego Convention Center tomorrow through Tuesday. The conference theme is “Puzzles Into Patterns,” a reference, in part, to the expanded role of landscape architects in ordering the urban landscape.

“The role of the landscape architect has evolved,” said Max Schmidt, vice president of planning and engineering at the Centre City Development Corp., the city of San Diego’s downtown redevelopment branch. “Landscape architects have reasserted their traditional role, which is to deal comprehensively, on a macro scale, with the landscape.”

In recent years, landscape architects have played significant roles in the design of important San Diego projects including the linear park downtown, now under development, the 2-year-old Le Meridien hotel in Coronado and a Chula Vista trolley stop.

“With respect to the linear park, our concept has been that we want to integrate architecture, landscape architecture and art,” Schmidt said of the improvement plan for Harbor Drive across from the San Diego Convention Center. Already, the linear park, now under construction and designed by San Francisco landscape architect Peter Walker in collaboration with artists Martha Schwartz, Andrea Blum and Dennis Adams (the artists are no longer part of the design team), is influencing the design of nearby projects, Schmidt said.

For example, One Pacific Plaza, a luxury condominium-retail development planned for a site between Union and Front Streets overlooking the park, has been carefully designed so that its base and landscaping will connect it to the park. And Roger Morris Plaza, a 50-story hotel/apartment high-rise that will be built on the edge of a large reflecting pool in the park, has been re-sited and re-designed several times to achieve the best possible relationship with the park.

Landscape architects readily acknowledge their improved status in development:

“The landscape architect is trained as part architect, part civil engineer, part planner, part horticulturist, part geologist. With all the sensitive land issues doing on, what it takes to get a project approved is a broad-based knowledge of things,” San Diego landscape architect Steve Estrada said. He specializes in large-scale development planning. “Because of that training, the landscape architect is the best suited to take the lead.

“Most architects tend to look at projects in a very focused way--a building is a monument, and the goal is to win an award. Most landscape architects have kind of a reverse feeling. They try to integrate the design into the natural environment, working with cities and various agencies. That’s a key, to try to minimize impact: visual, biological, environmental.”

Estrada was hired by county transportation officials to supervise the planning and design of the bayfront trolley station on E Street in Chula Vista.

“The project was really a site planning problem rather than a building problem,” he said. “Rather than bringing us in after that fact and saying, ‘Plant some trees,’ we were in charge of the whole thing.” After planning the project, Estrada hired the architect and other subcontractors to complete design work under his direction.

The phenomenon of landscape architects like Estrada acting as head honchos is relatively new. San Diego landscape architect Frank Kawasaki, president of the large local landscape firm KTU&A; and program committee co-chairman for this weekend’s conference, recalls the old days:

“I can remember when I started in 1959 in Los Angeles,” Kawasaki said. “In those days, we were brought in at the very last minute to ‘shrub up’ or ‘tree up’ a project to complement the architecture. It was a hit-or-miss proposition. If the spaces for the landscape were already determined, we couldn’t assist the architect in improving the project.”

Now, Kawasaki and his company often take the lead, starting work before an architect is hired. Case in point, he said, is the 300-room Le Meridien hotel in Coronado, which opened two years ago.

Aside from the hotel building itself, which was designed by Mosher/Drew/ Watson/Ferguson of San Diego, KTU&A; played a major role in making key design and planning decisions. The San Diego Unified Port District wanted parking concealed, so the landscape architects suggested placing the parking lots beneath the hotel and tennis courts. They used large magnolia trees to tie the hotel to the neighborhood, which is lined with magnolias. KTU&A; also helped the architects site the building for maximum views through the site from surrounding areas, as well as views of the bay from hotel rooms.

The rise of the landscape architect rubs some architects the wrong way, but the debate is healthy.

“Maybe architects have looked at their architecture in an insular manner, and have not relied sufficiently on a comprehensive view of a building,” Schmidt said. “They don’t look at a building contextually, but as pieces of sculpture, as opposed to how the work fits into the contextual whole, which is the city.”

DESIGN NOTES: Last week’s column should have included the fact that, when Irving Gill designed the Marston house, he was a partner of San Diego architect William Hebbard. The house’s design details and Marston family letters indicate that Gill was the designer, so Hebbard’s contribution probably was minimal. . . . The chapter of the local American Society of Landscape Architects has taken the lead on a pilot project which could result in a visitors information center in the Cleveland National Forest in East County, designation of Interstate 8 as a State Scenic Route and a public awareness campaign to let people know the aesthetic and environmental value of trees. The group will present its recommendations Saturday afternoon from 2 to 2:30 at the San Diego Convention Center. The public is welcome.