SAT-C08: How Green Infrastructure Captured the Heart of Lexington: Town Branch Commons

Saturday, October 28, 2023

3:45pm – 5:00pm CT

1.25 PDH, LA CES/HSW, AICP, FL, NY/HSW

Lead Speaker(s)

Kate Orff, FASLA (she/her/hers)

Founder
SCAPE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE D.P.C.
New York, New York

Speaker(s)

Jeff Fugate (he/him/his)

Associate Professor of Extension
University of Kentucky College of Design
Lexington, Kentucky
Patrick L. Henry, ASLA

Studio Design Leader
Gresham Smith
Louisville, Kentucky

Weaving 2.5 miles of green infrastructure and multi-modal transit through Lexington, Town Branch Commons represents a decade of public-private partnership, investment, and painstaking coordination. Hear from project leaders, including the designer behind the concept, a former agency lead behind its realization, and a local landscape architect who worked on its implementation.

Learning Outcomes:

Dive into the behind-the-scenes process underpinning large-scale urban transformations and green infrastructure projects—including the complexities of interagency and public-private partnerships extended over a decade.
Learn project-specific tactics to preserve the essence of a visionary design concept through rigorous funding requirements and other procedural challenges.
Examine stewardship for longer-term design team collaborations—especially in the context of changing firms, business models, and regional markets.
Learn about navigating public and private properties at a downtown scale, applicable especially to those working on public landscapes and planning initiatives in mid-sized cities.