Chrysothemi Kouloumenta

Local Office Landscape and Urban Design

Local Office Landscape & Urban Design seeks to ameliorate the impact of cities on the sea. Long before resiliency became a popular buzz word, the members of our team were planning and implementing projects that embody resilient practices, with proven, measurable results. Walter Meyer cofounded Local Office in 2006. From residential gardens on the dunes to coastal parks that employ sustainable technologies at the scale of urbanism, the firm has garnered accolades from across the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, public policy, science and art. The firm's recent built work includes the Parque del Litoral, in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. The 2.5 km long beachfront park was the site of the 2010 Central American Games. With Ponce architect Javier Bonnin, Local Office created a natural water filtration membrane of dunes and wetlands. Situated at the edge of the city, the entire park functions as a living stormwater treatment facility. Since its opening, the park has served to restore a decaying coral reef in the Caribbean Sea by filtering, cooling and slowing the city's stormwater, using the emerging science of phytoremediation. In April 2013, The White House recognized the firm's partners' initiatives for rebuilding a more resilient Rockaway Beach with the Hurricane Sandy "Champions of Change" award. In September 2010, they were recognized for their ‘leadership and innovation in the green economy' by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The New York State Council of the Arts awarded a 2009 research grant to Local Office to develop a modular, mobile and immediately-deployable solution to New York Harbor's Combined Sewer Overflow pollution. In 2008, Local Office received a Merit Award from the New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects for the project "Garden between City and Sea," a realization of the principles of sustainable coastal landscape architecture at a very small scale.