For immediate release: November 6, 2006
Design Workshop accepts award for green designed golf course
DENVER, CO — Landscape architects recognized Design Workshop last week with an Honor Award for the firm’s innovative golf course design for the Glacier Club, near Durango, Colorado. The Colorado chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (CCASLA) presented the award to Design Workshop at its Nov. 3 banquet.
CCASLA’s Professional Design Awards Program recognizes Colorado and Wyoming landscape architecture professionals in their pursuit to lead, to educate, and to participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of our cultural and natural environments. Honor awards recognize superior professional accomplishment.
“We are grateful to be recognized for our work,” says Principal Todd Schoeder of Design Workshop. “Celebrating these projects is a healthy reminder to us all that what we do as landscape architects is critical to ensuring that development is responsive and our environment remains sustainable for the generations to come.”
Three years in preparation, the new course seats a new nine holes, new clubhouse, new golf community and 18 redesigned holes in the magnificent mountain landscape of the former Tamarron Resort north of Durango, Colorado.
Set in the stunning environs of the southern San Juan Mountains, the course sets new standards in playability and risk-and-reward strategies. At 3,500 yards long, the new par-35 Glacier Nine takes the golfer through an elevation change of 400 feet, with eight holes playing downhill. The designers used the existing topography and natural features to enhance the strategy of the course, with carries over wetlands off the tee box and conifer forest-lined fairways with generous landing areas. With five sets of tee boxes and the surroundings of the Hermosa Cliffs and Engineer Peak, the course offers picture-postcard views to golfers of all abilities at every turn.
The mountainous site offered many challenges to Design Workshop course designers Todd Schoeder and Jeff Zimmermann, not the least of which were ecological constraints. Both for environmental and aesthetic reasons, the designers rejected conventional culverts and piping for surface-water management, structuring the course instead with an underlayment of six inches of sand and a natural filtration system of constructed wetlands that actually increased the site’s wetlands. The course is irrigated by reclaimed water and less than one-half acre of wetlands was disturbed in its making.
Schoeder and Zimmermann were commissioned to design the course by Tamarron Development Corporation. Schoeder has been involved in all phases of golf course development, including design, construction, maintenance and operations, working alongside top designers in the industry such as Bob Cupp, Tom Lehman, John Fought and Mike Morley on award-winning courses in Maryland, Minnesota and throughout the West, including the renowned Gallery Golf Club in Tucson, Arizona. Zimmermann has participated in more than 75 golf-related projects in Mexico, Brazil, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.
Schoeder and Zimmermann worked to match the former Tamarron 18 holes, originally designed by Arthur Hills, to fit the style and strategy of the new Glacier Nine. The re-designed 18 holes will be open for resort play, while play of the Glacier Nine requires equity membership in The Glacier Club. The club will encompass a resort village of 170 luxury town homes and 170 custom homes, as well as a system of hiking trails, swimming and access to clubhouse restaurants.
Founded in 1969, Design Workshop practices sustainable design and planning on sites ranging from urban infill, parks and open-space projects to brownfield redevelopment and resorts. The firm, which has been honored with more than 120 awards for design and planning, has offices in Aspen, Denver, Santa Fe, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, South Lake Tahoe and Asheville.
Project credits
Master plan, golf course design, landscape architecture:
Design Workshop, Inc.
Principal in charge: Jeff Zimmermann
Golf architect: Todd Schoeder
Landscape architect: Jamie Fogle
Client: Tamarron Development Corporation/Mal Dunlevie
Golf course contractor: Golf Works, Inc.
Irrigation design: Harvey Mills Design
Golf course superintendent: Mark Hanson
Director of golf: Patric Flinn
Management company: Troon Golf
Engineering: Russell Engineering
Environmental engineering: Sugnet Environmental
Water engineering: Wright Water Engineering
Site construction: Rathjen Construction
Landscape contractor: High Country
Land-use attorneys: Shand, Newbold, Chapman
