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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT HIDEO
Sasaki (1919-2000) created the master
plan for the Sea Pines Plantation
development, bringing to it his signature
interdisciplinary approach as well
as his philosophy of respecting the
natural environment - both revolutionary
ideas of his time.
 Developer Charles E. Fraser
shared many of these ideas with Sasaki,
which made them an ideal team.
When Fraser commissioned Sasaki-s
newly emerging firm to devise a land
plan for his seaside property, history
was being made. With an impressive
resume and background already established,
Sasaki had served as professor
and then chairman of the department
of Landscape Architecture of the Harvard
School of Design for 18 years.
He created a master plan for a resort
that still serves as a model worldwide.
Unlike most other housing and
resort developments of the time, Sasaki
didn-t force a grid pattern on the
seaside property. Instead, his layout of
the neighborhood lots and roads was
sensitive to the island-s topography,
environment and residents- needs.
This was a broad step away from
the regular grid street network that
dominated contemporary beach communities
in the United States. Instead
of plotting out a single row of houses
running between the main road and
the ocean, Sasaki planned a community
where homes were clustered,
putting as many as six rows of lots on
the ocean side of the main road. Culde-
sacs and dead-end roads branch
off from the main thoroughfare. And
between the houses, there are 50-footwide
walkways leading from the row
of lots farthest from the beach.
 "We call it an interlocking finger
plan," Sasaki once said of how the
beach front lots were created. "Actually
it-s very similar to the cluster plan
used in Radburn, New Jersey, 32 years
ago."
Radburn was designed in 1928 by
Frederick Law Olmsted and was the
first garden city in the United States.
Olmsted-s plan was to combine the
best of the city and the countryside
into his design. He focused on using
three critical elements: the public
realm (streets, sidewalks and small
parks), individually owned house lots
and open space owned and shared by
neighboring residents.
Sasaki cleverly took the ideas from
Radburn and expanded on them to
increase the number of valuable lots.
A home didn-t have to be situated on
the ocean front to enjoy sea breezes,
sweeping views and quick access to
the beach.
Instead of allowing the man-made
environment of a resort to dominate
Sea Pines, Sasaki let the natural coastal
ecology take center stage. In fact, the
plan called for a low density of houses.
These homes were designed to be clustered
on half of the Sea Pines property
while setting aside acres for beaches,
golf courses, parks, wildlife preserves,
tidal marshes and other open spaces.
About 1,400 acres were protected
through open space covenants, including
the more than 600 acres that
became the Sea Pines Forest Preserve.
The plan Charles Fraser and Hideo
Sasaki developed for Sea Pines Plantation
served as the seed that grew into a
world-class destination resort, the first
of its kind in the United States.
Even before its completion, the
2nd International Urban Design Conference
cited it for exceptional merit in
1957. And in 1959 it won an award
for excellence in design by the American
Society of Landscape Architects.
Sasaki went on to design many
other noteworthy projects, including
Euro Disneyland in Paris France, Boston
Waterfront Park in Massachusetts
and the Denver Skyline Urban Renewal
Project.
Throughout his career, Sasaki insisted
that his profession not imitate or
follow its sister arts but instead form a
dynamic bridge with architecture, civil
engineering and urban planning. His
approach in creating balanced urban
designs revolutionized and brought
a modern approach to not only the
projects he worked on but also to his
profession, leading and shaping the
future of landscape architecture. |
