The literature of cultural landscapes contains abundant road studies by Jackson, Clay, and others. However, the actual preservation of transportation corridors poses numerous challenges, most of which stem from their long and narrow character: although preservation of a road's structures(roadbed, curbs and culverts) may be straightforward due to their relative simplicity and the road's jurisdiction under a single agency, preservation of the corridor context is usually more difficult, due to its vast expanse, myriad stakeholders, and rapid change. Situated in larger social and environmental networks of communication and transportation and affected by rapid technology change, roads are "fast change" landscapes, their use, experience and character evolving over time. Given such changes how can preservation be accomplished—or justified—over the long distances of transportation corridors? Four case studies from the United States explicate preservation challenges at local, regional and national scales. Discussion of parkways, scenic byways, and highways describes preservation approaches that permit ongoing transformation and evolution of these resources.

Everyone is Impressed when This Old House transforms a tired bungalow into an elegant new residence, and that's the way oslund.and.assoc. has reinvented the competent Modernism of the General Mills Corporate Headquarters. With fine materials and design elan, the new addition updates and improves the sit's old vocabulary of rolling green lawns, minimalist buildings, scattered abstract sculptures, and amoeba-shaped ponds, making Modernism relevant again for a whole new era of corporate citizens.

Although I lack the financial resources to fund a hundred parks across America, I, like Richard Bloch, am a cancer survivor. I am a member (Lymphoma, Class of 1999) of a large and growing club that Bloch has undertaken to represent in his ambitious and laudable campaign to use parks to make the struggles of cancer patients both visible and less daunting to members of the public who may also be stricken by the disease. As a result, i approached the cancer survivors park in Minneapolis as both cancer survivor and landscape architect, with both a sense of ownership and a critical eye, with hope that the park would embody some aspect of my experiences-and apprehension that it wouldn't be.

The Federal Courthouse Plaza in Minneapolis might be considered a 'run-of-the-mill' project for Martha Schwartz. Critically acclaimed, it uses a minimalist design vocabulary, innovates with new materials, and expands on theoretical ideas she has previously explored. Designed and constructed for the Government Services Administration (GSA), the plaza comprises half a block at the bases of the Federal Courthouse designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

The Common Cry of Urban Development, "if you want to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs," definitely applies to Boston's Big Dig, which has been an eggbeater in the heart of Boston for the past 20 years. Today the benefits of the demolition are clearly apparent in the open spaces of the Rose Kennedy Greenway that now stands in place of the elevated Central Artery.

If the River Returns Project were a new design, its greatest weakness-the artificiality of the water system - would be clear. Some critics would decry the ersatz river as a pale shadow of a real, functioning riverine system, while others would complain that the mechanized nature of the park should be revealed, rather than hidden under a thin veneer of "ecological design." As new design, the project would, critically, be dead in the water.

The Federal Courthouse Plaza (FCP) in Minneapolis is a typical Martha Schwartz project. Critically acclaimed, it uses a minimalist design vocabulary, innovates with new materials, and expands on theoretical ideas she has previously explored. Located between the late modernist federal courthouse by Kohn Pedersen Fox to the north and the Richardsonian Romanesque city hall to the south, the half-block plaza was designed and constructed fo the Government Services Administration.

Late last year, two faculty members at Iowa State University circulated a manifesto to other departments of landscape architecture, charging that the field has outlived its historic purpose. Read excerpts from the manifest below, then read what Gary Hilderbrand, FASLA; Peter Jacobs, FASLA; Elizabeth Meyer, FASLA; Patrick A. Miller, FASLA; James Palmer, FASLA; Steven Velegrinis; and Peter Walker, FASLA, and Jane Gillette had to say in response.

A Terminal Case? At the start of the 21st century, landscape architecture is a troubled profession, more distinguished by what it lacks than the qualities that it actually possesses. It has no historiography, no formal theory, no definition, direction, or focus. A vast schism currently exists between its academics and professional practitioners. In universities across the nation, researchers poach methodologies from other, more vibrant disciplines. Meanwhile, in professional offices, designers yoked to the bottom line crank out pedestrian design.

We believe these problems are pervasive and chronic. They indicate that landscape architecture is not just troubled, but sick. The condition of the patient is critical, requiring immediate attention.

Everything's bigger in Texas. Perhaps that's why Williams Square in Las Colinas near Dallas has always seemed to be larger than life. The project made a big splash in 1985, when it won an ASLA honor award for its designers, Jim Reeves and Dan Mock of the SWA Group, and its sculptor, Rob Green.