Image Credit: University of Maryland Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture
When officials at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg wanted to turn an underutilized courtyard located next to the NIST Research Library into an inviting space for employees, they turned to students in the University of Maryland’s landscape architecture program.
“I mentioned to someone from another agency that I’d like to have a landscape architect take a look at that area, and he suggested that he could put me in touch with the landscape architecture department at the University of Maryland, which could do a design project featuring the area,” says NIST architect/planner Susan Cantilli.
A class of sophomore landscape architecture students from UMD stepped up to take on the challenge. They visited NIST twice in the fall, talked with NIST staff members who care for the grounds or work near the courtyard in question, and came up with plans to redesign it into more of a destination space.
The students then returned to NIST in December to display and talk about their 20 different designs. The drawings feature fountains, pools, shaded arbors, comfortable chairs and tables in sheltered spaces, a 30-foot-long piece of a twisted World Trade Center steel girder as a commemorative object and sculptural element, and ground plants and shrubbery that deer don’t like to eat.
“This NIST courtyard doesn’t invite people now. People are just walking through it, getting from point A to point B,” says Kelly Cook, an adjunct assistant professor who teaches the course for UMD’s Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA). “There was a desire to have someone rethink what this space could be—to come up with ways to make it more comfortable, to create sheltered places in it where people can get out of the lab and read a book. There’s also the opportunity to redesign the more formal outdoor space right outside the library to make it a more inviting place to work or congregate.”
The students’ work is generating interest among NIST employees in creating a more inviting space, says Cantilli. “Clearly people see the need for these kinds of enhancements. I’m hoping that we might be able to do something in the future.”
