For immediate release: December 9, 2005

Design Workshop accepts “Project of the Year” award
on behalf of NDOT team

LAS VEGAS—A plan that guides landscape and aesthetics along 900 miles of Nevada highways was honored Saturday (December 3) by the Nevada chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects as Project of the Year at the annual NASLA awards banquet. Design Workshop, leader of the 18-month effort, accepted the award, which recognizes the year’s most innovative and unparalleled accomplishment on a Nevada project. The project was chosen from among 27 entries.

The award commended the team for its landmark achievement and called the corridor plan an unprecedented state approach to addressing the aesthetics of the roadway environment.

“This is the first time anyone in the U.S. has designed the entire highway environment for whole corridors,” says Design Workshop’s Richard Shaw, who served as partner-in-charge on the project. “This plan establishes design standards for highways that stretch across the entire state, eliminating the piecemeal look of the past.”

In creating the Landscape and Aesthetics Corridor Plan, Design Workshop led a team that included Mackay and Somps (PLACES Inc.); JW Zunino & Associates; Sand County Studios, and CH2M Hill. The team worked from a 2002 master plan prepared by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Landscape Architecture and Planning Research Office for the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT). The plan covers Interstate 80 and Interstate 15, as well U.S. Highway 95. The design guidelines are intended to guide day-to-day planning decisions for the state’s transportation projects.

The project got its start after a Carson City roadway infrastructure project got sidelined in mid-design by strenuous community objections. To ensure that future projects would not meet the same fate, Gov. Kenny C. Guinn set in motion a process to create a master plan so that communities have input into the impact of roadway projects and highway projects would have fiscal viability. The subsequent corridor plan has been lauded by Gov. Guinn as “a major accomplishment for the future of Nevada highways.”

The plan is already bearing fruit, supported by NDOT’s decision to set aside up to 3 percent of all new highway construction funds to improve the roadway environment. These 25-year design standards are guiding how those monies are spent on several projects now under way as well as some that are already complete, including highway landscape improvements at the intersection of Interstate 15 and U.S. Highway 95 in Las Vegas known to locals as the Spaghetti Bowl.

The plan was informed by research on history, settlement patterns, anticipated urban changes, tourism and environmental resources and by view-shed analyses. The team tailored the design to different landscape types along each corridor but established a visual design unity among all highway structures, including color palette. The design creates a total highway environment, including the road itself, the features within the right of way, the interface with communities and the framing of the larger landscape. It includes a signage program to connect people to scenic areas, points of interest, historical sites and local attractions, as well as to new road services such as rest areas, interpretive history and geography, and access to information on activities and communities. It sets guidelines for community and state gateways, rest areas, signage, transportation art, sound walls, retaining walls, lighting, concrete barriers, grading, rock cut, irrigation and bridges and includes a database of detailed cost estimates for different treatments that can be applied to individual projects.

Design Workshop led the project, which used extensive input from NDOT staff, key stakeholders and representatives of public agencies and organizations. Leaders in key communities along the I-15 and I-80 corridors have embraced the four-step corridor planning process and are touting its potential for increasing tourism.

Founded in 1969, Design Workshop is an urban design, community planning and landscape architecture firm that practices sustainable design and planning on sites ranging from urban infill, parks and open space to brownfield redevelopment and resorts. The firm has offices in the United States and Latin America and has received more than 90 awards for design and planning.