Charles Morris Anderson (born 1957) is a landscape architect and fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, He is a Principal of the Phoenix-based landscape architecture firm, Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture, which is the continuation of his practice of the Seattle-based firm Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture.

Anderson is recognized by the American Society of Landscape Architects for combining nature, community needs, and art into his designs, emphasizing sustainability, indigenous plants and urban ecology.

Influences

Anderson's influences and contemporaries include Peter Walker, affiliated with the team involved in the World Trade Center Memorial project; Richard Haag, famous for his Gas Works Park project in Seattle; and Cornelia Oberlander, a Canadian landscape architect renown for the creative use of native plants on landmark projects like the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, BC.

Anderson also had a special interest in the work of Robert Smithson, an influential artist of the 1960s and 1970s, James Turrell, a contemporary artist who focuses on light and space, and Julie Bargmann, who focuses on regenerative landscapes.

Charles Anderson

Charles Anderson, a prominent landscape architect, has made significant contributions to both national and international projects. One notable project in his portfolio is The Ellinikon Project in Athens, Greece. This massive project encompasses a Metropolitan Park spanning 500 acres, an additional 200 acres of open space, and a mile of coastline. Projects are national and international projects as well, including, Haiti and Vietnam.

Other notable projects by Charles Anderson include providing landscape design for the Anchorage Museum expansion, as well as Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, and Manhattan's Arthur Ross Terrace.

Some neighborhood park projects include the Roxhill Wetland and Bog Park in West Seattle and the restoration of the 500 Area of Discovery Park, both of which received Merit Awards from the Washington Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Recognition

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) awarded Anderson for his designs in the Tables of Water in Lake Washington (Washington State), the Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument project, the Trillium Projects in Seattle, and the Arthur Ross Terrace design in Manhattan, New York and the Olympic Sculpture Park (4), Seattle, WA.

The Washington State Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects inducted Anderson into the Council of Fellows in 2006.

Urbanature

Anderson defines the practice of Emo Urbanism as “urbanature.” In practice, he differentiates between the wilderness and wildness. Henry David Thoreau held that “in wildness is the preservation of the world.” Urbanature implements wildness—the authentic landscape—within the urban environment. Urbanature demonstrates that nature does not exist solely in an untouched wilderness. Ashton Nichols, a professor of English Language and Literature at Dickinson College, first developed the term in relation to ecocriticism and how people perceive the world around them. He states that “the interconnectedness demanded by urbanature insists that human beings are not out of nature when they stand in the streets of Manhattan any more than they are in nature when they stand in the mountain above tree-line in Montana." Urbanature provides the tangible benefits of nature in an environment not traditionally thought of as appropriate. A clear example can be seen in Project Phoenix, an in progress soccer stadium in Haiti. Here Charles has composed a landscape entirely of edibles and a lake containing tilapia for consumption. Composting and recycling facilities are also integrated. the Olympic Sculpture Park, and Trillium Projects

References

  • http://design.asu.edu/events/lectures_archive.php
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20140811090550/http://www.monolab.nl/en/projects.php?p=residential&id=75