General Growth Properties (GGP) hosted a series of Community Forums to introduce GGP’s world-class design and planning team working on the master plan for downtown Columbia.
Wednesday, March 5: Evening with Alan Ward
More than 250 people turned out to meet Alan Ward, a principal with Sasaki Associates, Inc. Ward, a landscape architect and urban planner, was responsible for winning the international design competition to develop the master plan for the site of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and for the development of Reston Town Center in Virginia.
Trained as both an architect and landscape architect , Alan takes a balanced and comprehensive view of the built environment. He has taught in both architecture and landscape architecture, and is the author and photographer of the book American Designed Landscapes: A Photographic Interpretation and editor of Reston Town Center: A Downtown for the 21st Century. Alan was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome in both 2006 and 2002.
On Wednesday, March 19, 2008, joined Columbia General Manager Greg Hamm and the General Growth Properties team for an Evening with Gail Dexter Lord, the second in a series of four community forums featuring GGPs world-class design and planning team working on the master plan for Columbia Town Center.
Gail Dexter Lord is President of Lord Cultural Resources, which she co-founded in 1981 with her husband Barry Lord. Lord Cultural Resources has grown to become the largest cultural planning firm in the world with offices in Canada, the United States, France, Spain, and China.
With over 30 years of experience in the museum and cultural sector, Gail is committed to assisting institutions, communities, and their leaders worldwide develop their cultural resources including: The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco; The World Trade Center Memorial Museum in New York; Peabody Museum, Harvard University in Boston; Museo Guggenheim Bilbao; The National African American Museum of History and Culture, the new branch of the Smithsonian Institution on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.; Tate Modern; The Lowry in Salford; The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg; City of Toronto’s Museum Project; and Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Gail has been instrumental in developing museum planning having co-authored, with Barry Lord, The Manual of Museum Exhibitions (2001), The Manual of Museum Management (1999), and The Manual of Museum Planning (1997). Gail co-authored with Kate Markert, The Manual of Strategic Planning (2007). She also wrote numerous articles on a wide range of topics.
Keith Bowers is the founder and president of Biohabitats, an ecological restoration design, planning and assessment firm whose mission is to Restore the Earth and Inspire Ecological Stewardship. Keith has a broad and comprehensive background in restoration ecology, ecological planning, and landscape architecture, which he has applied to hundreds of projects throughout North America. These projects have involved tidal and non-tidal wetlands, deciduous woodlands, streams and rivers, meadows and prairies, and coastal habitats.
Keith is also the president and founder of Ecological Restoration and Management, Inc., a restoration construction and land management firm that complements the talents of Biohabitats by providing professional installation and management services for restoration projects.
Keith actively volunteers for organizations supporting ecological restoration. He is currently Chair of the Society for Ecological Restoration International, has been appointed by the Governor of Maryland to the State of Maryland Wetlands Restoration Steering Committee, and is currently on the board of several local and regional environmental organizations. Keith is a registered Landscape Architect and a Professional Wetland Scientist. He holds a B.S. in Landscape Architecture from the West Virginia University.
With more than 24 years of experience and innovation in the ecological restoration field, Keith has been instrumental in integrating conservation planning, ecological restoration and regenerative design initiatives throughout the country.
On Wednesday, April 9, 2008, join Columbia General Manager Greg Hamm and the General Growth Properties team for an Evening with Jaquelin T. Robertson, the first in a series of four community forums featuring GGPs world-class design and planning team working on the master plan for Columbia Town Center.
Jaque Robertson, founding partner of the architecture and urban design firm Cooper, Robertson & Partners, has led the firm's design work on many award-winning architectural and planning projects. These include new communities at Daniel Island, South Carolina; New Albany, Ohio; Celebration and WaterColor, Florida; and Val d’Europe, France; a waterfront park, county courthouse, and the Visitor Reception and Transportation Center in Charleston, South Carolina; the Henry Moore Sculpture Garden in Kansas City; the Institute for the Arts & Humanities at the University of North Carolina; and Sony’s Imageworks offices in Culver City, California. He also prepared master plans for Monticello, Virginia and the Battlefield Museum and Visitor Center at Gettysburg and has designed many award-winning private houses.
Mr. Robertson was a founder of the New York City Urban Design Group, the first Director of the Mayor's Office of Midtown Planning and Development, and a City Planning Commissioner. Beginning in 1975, he spent three years in Iran, directing the planning and design of the country’s new capitol center Shahestan Pahlavi. Throughout his career he has lectured widely and taught at many respected institutions including Yale. He received the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture in 1998, the Seaside Institute Prize in 2002, and the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture in 2007. He has a Bachelor of Arts (1954) and a Master of Architecture (1961) degree from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.
