40 Years of Combining Form and Function

SARATOGA SPRIINGS, NY (07/01/2008)(readMedia)--

For 40 years Saratoga Associates has been bringing sustainable design to projects and municipalities throughout the Capital Region, across the country and around the world. The firm, of more than 60 employees, is celebrating its fourth decade in business as it continues to grow. Saratoga Associates is a landscape architecture, planning, engineering and architecture firm with offices in Saratoga Springs and New York City.

The firm was created on July 1, 1968 as the Robert F. Bristol Landscape Architect a firm in Diamond Point, New York. A few years later on a snowy Thanksgiving evening Bristol and a friend, Jack Litynski, decided to join forces. Two years later the partnership expanded into The Saratoga Associates and several individuals joined shareholders at that time. “From the beginning, our approach was to be a multi-disciplinary firm and to bring the most talented people in each field, under one roof,” said Bristol, CEO and Senior Principal of Saratoga Associates. “In being a client focused firm, our first goal is to meet and then exceed their needs, but what makes us unique is that we have always advocated for sustainable and environmentally friendly designs.”

In 1973, Saratoga Associates designed the box office at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, “it was a ‘green’ design, although we did not call it ‘green’ at the time,” said Bristol. The firm designed the box office and surrounded it on three sides with earth, trees and shrubs for two reasons: first to “hide” it from the main entrance in an effort to make it fit conceptually with the parks natural setting on site and also to keep the building cool in the hot summer setting sun.

The firm has also a significant amount of design and planning work on college campuses throughout the northeast and even as far away as Alaska and Saudi Arabia. “When we first walk onto a campus our goal is to create a compelling destination,” says Don Minnery, Senior Principal. “In recent years it has been refreshing to watch as colleges and universities across the country are looking more and more to ‘go green’. We used to have to try to sell our clients on why they should move towards sustainable design and the positive impacts it would have, now most of our clients are coming to the table with the desire be more environmentally friendly.” Saratoga Associates has incorporated a geo-thermal heating system for The Massry Center for the arts being built at The College of Saint Rose. An initial system was installed at the NYRA Saratoga Racetrack a few years ago. In addition, the firm recently completed work on a green roof at Cornell University and the Mohonk Mountain House.

Of the many projects that Saratoga Associates has been involved with over the past four decades some of their most noteworthy work in recent years has taken place at: Massry Center for the Arts, Mohonk Mountain House Spa and Skating facilities, Arts Center of Old Forge, Saratoga Race Course Gateways and Jockey House, The New York State Bar Association, National Museum of Dance, Saratoga Retirement Center, to name a few.

Saratoga Associates has enjoyed long-term working relationships with many clients including the New York State Racing Association, the College of Saint Rose, Hamilton College, Mount Saint Mary College and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, particularly at SPAC.

Saratoga Associates has been creating compelling destinations, enriching communities and safeguarding special places for 40 years. For more information go to: www.saratogaassociates.com

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