Four Vermont landscape architects talk about the state?s devastating floods and how its unique culture and topography could be both a limitation and a strength in a climate-plagued future.
Interview by Jennifer Reut
Emily Lewis, ASLA, working on-site; at DuBois & King, she focuses on community planning and design for small towns in New England. Photo courtesy DuBois & King.
Last July, Vermont experienced catastrophic flooding the likes of which had not been seen since Hurricane Irene hit the state in 2011. Over just 48 hours, Vermont received between three and nine inches of rain. In central Vermont, where the state?s capital, Montpelier, is located, the tally of rainfall at nearby North Calais was 9.2 inches.

Shortly after, I spoke with four landscape architects based in Vermont: Bonnie Kirn Donahue, a landscape architect for the Vermont Agency of Transportation who lives in Northfield, Vermont; Tom Hand, ASLA, the founder of SiteForm Studio Landscape Architecture, based in Stowe, Vermont; Emily Lewis, ASLA, a project manager and senior landscape architect with DuBois & King in Randolph, Vermont; and Stephen Plunkard, FASLA, a lecturer at Norwich University and senior principal at Q4! Associates in Cavendish, Vermont. [Editor?s note: We are saddened to report that Stephen Plunkard died while this interview was being prepared for publication.] We spoke about the confluence of factors that contributed to the flooding, and the way Vermont?s unique culture and top...