conway school student projects

Through a ten-month master of arts program in Sustainable Landscape Design and Planning, the Conway School teaches design of the land that is ecologically and socially sustainable. The experiential learning program gave Tom the opportunity to work with real clients on projects of various scale and scope. Click on the images below to view a brief project summary.

National graduate school of quality management - center and institute for sustainability

The National Graduate School of Quality Management (NGS/U), a distance-learning institution based in Falmouth, Massachusetts, purchased a property that they plan to redevelop as a new Center and Institute for Sustainability. The school will hold events and host students and visitors to the campus. NGS/U teaches systems and quality management to professionals in a range of different disciplines. Over the past several years, more and more NGS/U students have requested to do environmental quality-related projects, and the school’s curriculum is expanding to encompass this area of study with a new master’s degree program in Environmental Quality Management. NGS/U wants to document changes on the site and use the site as an evolving case study. The school hopes to communicate lessons learned in displays at the visitor center, signs throughout the campus, and other graphic and written materials. Some visitors to the site will come for a single event or site tour. Other visitors will stay overnight or for more extended periods of time to learn about sustainability.

feed northampton - first steps toward a local food system

Almost all food consumed in the United States moves through a large-scale, industrial agriculture system, where an average meal can travel 1,500 miles and change hands half a dozen times before reaching the dinner table. This global system supplies a tremendous amount of food and has remained affordable to Americans for over fifty years; but, it is wrought with unseen costs such as environmental degradation and dependence on precarious fossil fuel availability. The global supply of non-renewable fossil fuels cannot last forever, and higher fuel prices will jeopardize food supplies. Communities across the globe are seeking solutions to the pressing question: What does it take for a community to grow food locally and sustainably, relying less on fossil fuel inputs? A team of students from the Conway School of Landscape Design investigated this question for the city of Northampton, Massachusetts. This report outlines the social, political, economic, and environmental challenges to creating a local food system, and goes on to recommend a model that responds to these challenges. Tools are offered for inventorying land and community assets, and for envisioning what is possible in Northampton. 

Residential landscape plan - Greenfield, MA

Donna Johnson hired the Conway School of Landscape Design because she was seeking a creative, alternative solution to the typical sprawling, suburban lawn. When Donna moved into her home, she was looking forward to developing the wild appearance of her backyard and having less lawn to mow and rake. She was unsure of exactly what she wanted, but she requested the design to be low maintenance and include a small vegetable garden. Through further conversation and analyses of the property, the goals of this project emerged. The final landscape design proposes an alternative to the conventional suburban lawn. A majority of turf grass is replaced with drought-tolerant ground covers, herbaceous perennials and shrubs. In turn, there is a reduction in water, gas and fertilizer consumption and time devoted to mowing and raking. Once established, the low-maintenance perennial gardens and annually mown meadow requires less time and money than a traditional turf lawn.