John Amodeo
Principal, Arcadis IBI Group
Age: 65
Industry experience: 41 years
John Amodeo has decades of experience reshaping landscapes from urban Boston buildings to college campuses and Cambridge parks in his career at IBI Group. Amodeo led IBI Group’s project team on its recent redesign and restoration of Boston’s largest privately-owned public space, Christian Science Plaza. As a 25-year member of the Boston Landmarks Commission, Amodeo has weighed in on proposed designs to historic and architecturally significant properties, including a decision to protect Kenmore Square’s Citgo sign during the Beacon Building’s redevelopment. In September, IBI Group was acquired by Amsterdam-based Arcadis, creating a combined architecture and environmental planning practice with 33,000 employees globally.
Q: As a member of the Boston Landmarks Commission, what have been some of the most difficult reviews you’ve participated in?
A: In the past there have been examples of applicants who have wanted to add floors to an existing building, and we worked very hard with the architects to make sure that the original building is well-preserved and that the addition respects the historic building but doesn’t try to mimic it. In fact, we encourage the addition to be as contemporary as possible so there’s no confusion. We asked [Related Beal’s Congress Square development project] not to make the walls of the new addition parallel, and they changed the angles of the walls so it would further separate those walls from the walls below it. That was successful but it was very difficult during the hearing process because we were pushing the envelope: literally pushing the envelope of the building.
Q: How is the role of landscape architects changing as developers incorporate biophilic elements such as green roofs directly into buildings?
A: We try to get ourselves at the table from day one on every project, specifically to help the developer and the rest of the team develop integrated solutions. Landscape architecture is one of the important layers. Those roles aren’t always separate. When you have a green roof, it involves all the disciplines. Saturated soil weight has to be handled by the structure. One of the first decisions is whether the green roof is just to be viewed, or is it going to be occupied by people?
Q: What are some of the most frequent questions you’re hearing from clients about new sustainability regulations and climate change?
A: We are often asked to help mitigate environmental impacts on new projects and renovation projects. First, we try to minimize the amount of development to a smaller footprint to allow the rest of the landscape to develop naturally. We try to minimize hardscape such as parking and paving. When you have large expanses of parking and things spread out very far on a site, you end up increasing the heat island impact. When we can’t reduce the amount of paving, we try to incorporate pervious and permeable pavement types. We’re doing that on a project right now, a new office-lab building at 560 Pleasant St. in Watertown. We’re using permeable pavers and also reinforced turf, which is a system of lawn that is reinforced to allow vehicles to drive over it. We’re doing that in a service area to increase green space. We’ve used it periodically on projects to allow for fire truck access around buildings where we don’t want to pave a driveway. If we’re doing it right, you don’t even know it’s there.
Q: How is the push to limit embodied carbon in development affecting the selection of materials in projects?
A: When it’s possible to reclaim materials that are on a site, we do it. The founder of our Boston practice, Carol Johnson, started that back in the 1970s when a building was being demolished, the Cambridge High and Latin School. There was a granite water course that ran along the perimeter, and a new school was being built on an adjacent parcel. When the old building was demolished, Carol ensured we would keep the granite watercourse and used it to line the park as a seatwall element. The front door had this beautiful frame that Carol thought would make a great gateway into the park. At Fresh Pond Reservation, we were taking an area that was being used by the DPW and restoring it to a natural landscape. We found all kinds of materials that we ended up reusing: slabs of bluestone and chunks of granite and just reconstructed them into park benches. We reused trees that we took down on the site and created log benches. We even used the trunks of trees that we took down to stake into a steep hillside that was eroding.
Amodeo’s Five Favorite Books
- “Howards End” by E. M. Forster
- “Tales of the City” by Armistead Maupin
- “Lord of the Rings Trilogy” by J.R.R. Tolkien
- “The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier & Clay” by Michael Chabon
- “Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy
