Over the past year, work at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park has shifted from conceptual design toward more technical design documentation.

It’s been two years since Cate joined the Assemblage team. Get to know our landscape designer better!

Originally hailing from Chicago, Cate brings to her work a deep commitment to ecological repair, community engagement, and the transformative potential of design.

Her path to landscape architecture began with interest in ecological restoration and an early background in environmental science. A formative studio project set in the Colombian mountains crystalized her interest in the field. The project demonstrated how design can strengthen social and ecological connections through thoughtful, community-oriented urbanism. This inspiring case study revealed the power of design to bridge environmental understanding with creative problem-solving, shaping her belief that landscapes can simultaneously support ecological systems and enrich everyday human life.

Assemblage is excited to introduce our newest team member!

Lucienne Snyder-Robertson, from Ithaca, New York, is in her final year of SUNY-ESF's BLA program. She has served as a guest critic for Graphic Communications courses in the Cornell Landscape Architecture Department, contributing her design perspective to student work and reviews. She draws design inspiration from personal experience, admiration of other designers and artists, and from time spent outdoors.

Laura brings a commitment for creating accessible and resilient urban public space to Assemblage…

Assemblage is providing planning support services to the Seatuck Environmental Association and its partners to develop a conceptual design for improving the connectivity, ecological health, sustainability and resiliency of Beaver Brook, a coastal stream that flows for more than two miles through the Village of Mill Neck and the Hamlet of Locust Valley into the Mill Neck Creek Marsh complex in Oyster Bay, NY.

Together with Labella Associates, we’ve completed our site investigations phase and refined the park design with a strong focus on sustainability. Our permit strategy and the park’s environmental conditions, including its ongoing monitoring status from past environmental remediation, are influencing factors for our approach. In 2022, we created a waterfront vision plan through community and stakeholder engagement. In this phase, we have taken a more granular look at the site to confirm the best climate-adaptive approach that fits within all our site and project timeline conditions yet still holds true to our waterfront vision plan.

Assemblage has partnered with the Village of Mamaroneck to design a Greenway along the Sheldrake River in a low-lying neighborhood that endures frequent flooding. Together with eDesignDynamics, our goal is to transform the village’s riverfront into a resilient "third space"—an inviting public realm where people can gather, connect, and strengthen community ties to the river.

On Saturday, January 25th, Wendy spoke at the Flood Solutions Fair in Brooklyn on the power of green infrastructure in building flood resilience. Addressing solutions from city-wide parks to community-driven rain gardens, the discussion highlighted how design, planning, and education form a “green infrastructure dream team” to protect our cities.

Hosted by The City Sponge at Van Alen Institute, the event brought together a diverse group of contributors, including experts from Pratt Institute, Gowanus Canal Conservancy, Rebuild by Design, Center for NYC Neighborhoods, NYC DEP, Insure Before, and Waterfront Alliance, as well as local elected officials and community leaders. Their insights and solutions emphasized how integrating nature-based strategies at every scale can reduce flood risks and create healthier, more adaptable urban spaces.

Principal Wendy Andringa will be speaking on a panel about circular design for landscape architects on Monday at 3:45pm at the annual ASLA conference in DC - come join us if you are attending this year in 2024!
Wendy will be joined by landscape architect ilana cohen of Atelier Roberta and Alexander Bender, cofounder and managing partner of Tri-Lox!

Assemblage is honored to have our work shared in the Architect’s Newspaper alongside the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell (with Felix Heisel) and San Antonio's Material Innovation Center (with Stephanie Phillips).
Last month, Principal Wendy Andringa was interviewed to discuss methods that integrate material reuse into landscape design. As a carbon-conscious practice, Assemblage is excited to contribute our approach to sustainable design to the larger conversation on circular economies.
Check out the full article by Jes Deaver, AIA
check out the article here: https://lnkd.in/dk4vE_EH

We are pleased to announce that Assemblage has achieved prequalification for NYCEDC offshore wind and waterfront projects…

Assemblage Landscape Architecture is delighted to be featured in Dezeen, the global architecture and design publication. The article features the vision and design for the Art Omi Pavilions, located in upstate New York, as an art exhibition space. The article highlights several of 18 proposed pavilion designs that will make up AOP, a unique approach in which each pavilion reflects a collaboration between artist and architect.

We are pleased to announce that we have been awarded $200K from NEIWPCC, NYS DEC, and HREP to continue our climate-adaptive waterfront work with the City of Hudson. Together with LaBella Associates, we will advance our design to enhance three acres of underutilized open space for community use and habitat enhancement.

Welcome summer intern Noelle LaDue! Noelle comes to the profession through understanding how we move through the environment by studying the sociology of agriculture at Cornell, and brings her background in education and community engagement into her work with Assemblage!

Happy to announce that both Cate Meersman and Wendy Andringa are WEDG Associates! We’re excited to help raise the design standard of NYC’s waterfront for all species … every linear foot matters! Thanks to the Waterfront Alliance for developing solid guidelines and leading this national initiative.

WEDG (Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines) is a national rating system and guidelines to create resilient, ecological, and accessible waterfronts.

We are happy to announce a new team member! Cate recently arrived in NYC from the west coast where she studied and taught at UC Berkeley. Her knowledge of both landscape architecture and environmental planning bridges scales with interests in mapping, ecological systems, and design engagement. Cate received an ASLA honor award for a bird-safe glass design and installation with a student team in 2021.

Wendy Andringa, founder of Assemblage Landscape Architecture, digs into the complex layers of New York’s urban landscape with curiosity and technical know-how. A professional landscape architect with 20 years of experience at renowned New York firms like Scape and Starr Whitehouse and teaching appointments at Columbia and the Spitzer School of Architecture, Andringa is building a practice on her own terms, informed by a deep commitment to community and ecological invention.

We spoke about the power of “assemblage”, rooting into the community, her inventive urban soil research, and her new large-scale climate-adaptation projects.

At Assemblage, we see every project as an opportunity to advance climate-positive design and enhance or restore the site’s ecology, and we are excited to take this approach for a comprehensive park design at the Pavilions at Art Omi. The park will showcase art and architecture in a unique pastoral setting, situated on a hilltop location encompassing a diverse character of open fields, woodlands and wetlands.

In our changing climate, municipalities are hyper-focused on issues related to flooding, while a powerful nature-based solution to these problems is hidden in our buried urban waterways. As municipalities seek solutions to mounting stormwater issues, reclaiming buried water systems through a solution referred to as “daylighting” is gaining attention, and Assemblage is excited to be involved in this work with our Rahway Streambank Restoration Project.