2015 ASLA Student Awards

Because of the global sea-level rise, many old port cities are threatened by high tide and storm floods. The rich littoral culture and historical buildings also are in danger. Traditional seawalls or dikes will cut down the connection between urban activities and the coastal environment.

This design draws on Boston, Massachusetts, as an example of how to make use of the existing piers to develop a stormproof structure and to relieve the height of the structure to keep the expanding fo

Cultural landscapes are too often stewarded in ways that privilege their visual appearance as a static character rather than a dynamic response to shifting systems. Dumbarton Oaks Park in Washington, DC is a powerful illustration of the conflict between a site’s evolving ecology and federal landscape preservation guidelines that favor a lack of change over time. The c. 1921 Beatrix Farrand-designed valley, now a national park unit, has been endangered by stormwater runoff for decades, but man

The airport landscape from its early pastoral scenes has evolved through its various wildlife and human security measures to become one of the most regulated and unparalleled landscape typologies. Today, with the advancement of monitoring and surveillance technology, the airport has also become a pivotal case study in the reconceptualization of the contemporary border as it shifts from mere concrete demarcations into multidimensional landscapes of control.

Addressing the conflicting l

Historically, in the U.S. burial grounds served as public spaces. They were spots for contemplation and reflection as well as recreation and celebration. In fact, the practice of landscape architecture grew out of increasing demand for well-designed cemeteries. Eventually, a myriad of forces pushed cemeteries outside of city centers, into the suburbs. This shift both reflected and contributed to a widespread “denial of death”, which has broad ramifications for the way we relate to our bodies

Within The Frame identifies the issues of the city through the investigation and redefinition of the connection between its architecture and its landscape. A multiplicity of scalar relationships is created through the use of housing as a framing device for a diverse landscape. From the personal spaces of the interior gardens, to the communal spaces of the corn fields, there exists a relationship between the dwelling, landscape and every day activities. By learning about the history and the do

Our design of an infill settlement for Crownpoint, NM on the Navajo Nation provides housing options for growing families within a dynamic landscape, while embracing the cultural traditions that have sustained the Navajo on this land for centuries. The design links the realm of family with the domain of community through clustered housing units, a cyclical planting scheme, and a necklace of catch basins that mitigate flash floods and provide much-needed public space.

This project responds to the problematic exclusionary and capitalist nature of post-war reconstruction in Beirut and the implications of such development on the public realm. Through rigorous and refined site specific research, opportunity is found in the vernacular manifestations of public space that occur despite a lack of designated public space in the post-war city. The multivalent potential of the urban landscape is embraced by drawing on these types of spaces to project a new prototype

How can we transform private land through public means? “Airborne“, is an exploration of the capacities of aerially transmissive plants to infiltrate and cross-pollinate beyond bureaucratic boundaries, jurisdictional delimitations, euclidian land-use policies, and easement embankments.

Our team proposed a re-design of the existing easements beneath transmission lines as a way of answering this question. Abiding by the hard constraints of easement design regulations, we re-designed the

Many cities are defined by and built upon the success of a single industry. When a defining local industry is lost, there can be complex issues that arise related to place identity. Such is the case in Hamilton, Ontario, where the collapse of the steel industry on the former Stelco site, after over 100 years of productivity, brings into question the identity of “Steeltown” after steel.

With the end of steel production comes the opportunity to rethink how we address culturally charged b

Fallow Ground | Future city proposes tangible and innovative landscape strategies that respond to the challenging opportunity that is the ‘vacant’ land of New Orleans. We take on, not just ‘vacant’ lots, but also the gamut of underutilized land from a pothole in Gentilly to an infrastructural edge in Algiers from a concrete slab in Central City to a toxic piece of ground in the Lower Ninth. Our strategies can be applied at the small or large scale, and implemented by the DIY individual, the c

Agriculture today has evolved into the most resource consumptive and environmentally disruptive human activity. With the advent of precision farming, agriculture has also become a highly monitored and digitized activity. Our design strategy harnesses the potential of future agricultural tools to expand the ecological potential of productive landscapes on a regional scale and design precise planting / management patterns to design 4-dimensional spatial experiences.
A site that sits at the

The annual landscape architecture journal PLOT is curated, edited, and produced by a team of graduate students in their second year of the Master of Landscape Architecture program. The journal is conceived as a thematic platform for critical texts and design explorations encouraging collaborative discussion, reflection, and conversation around a contemporary theme selected each year by the student editors.
PLOT aims to explore emerging landscape phenomena as well as consider design thinkin

The procedures and protocols that make up a city’s maintenance regime have profound spatial implications. This project retools and reimagines maintenance as a generative, rather than suppressive, force for at risk urban ecologies. Through the proposal of networked test sites along the rail corridor in Somerville, Massachusetts, the examination of these practices will aim to expand habitat for a target population (pollinator species), while testing the bounds of acceptability for wildness in p

Plants alter and create the spaces that surround them; different species respond to the ground in different ways. This work reconsiders the role of tree roots in the landscape and the way urban spaces are designed. As landscape architects, the ground is our medium. Recently, we’ve begun to understand the ground as something that is alive, something with depth and a certain quality of being. This research will serves as a practical guide to what is happening below ground, but also as a catalys

Reverse Engineering is a collaborative design project between the students of Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Agricultural & Consumer Economics. The title Reverse Engineering is multifaceted, making reference to not only the highly engineered drainage and flood control conduit that is the Boneyard Creek flowing through the Engineering Campus of the University, but to a greater paradigm shift in design practice that is beginning to embrace the neces

The objective of our design-build studio was to integrate a community gathering area into the existing context of Goose Island State Park. Our site was the Youth Group Area, a large clearing in a coastal live oak grove where a variety of organizations engage in educational activities. The arrangement of the seating around the fire circle developed from a close analysis of how a person perceives the proximity of another person and how that relates to a larger group. The desire for a flexible s

The Ghana International Design Studio’s mission was collaborative design of play experiences for adolescents and families in a fast growing city that has few urban open spaces. The interdisciplinary studio included students from landscape architecture, architecture, industrial design, graphic design, and art+design. The project is unique because of interdisciplinary and collaborative work engaging American students and Ghanaians. Immersive field study across Ghana familiarized students with G

The “read” sculpture is a simple, yet powerful installation that has transformed the image and identity of a small town’s public library. Consisting of four, wood letters in a 20’x100’ garden, the installation has become a widely identifiable landmark in the community. It helps citizens to identify the library on a busy intersection; contributes to the burgeoning art scene in downtown; creates a playful backdrop for the children’s reading room; and most importantly, expresses the importance o

The Kintsugi Garden serves this Seattle community with a healing garden that offers recognition and solace for those who endured Japanese American Internment Camps. The garden enhances the capacity of the JCCCW to fulfill its mission and to bring diverse communities together for celebrations. Incorporating an urban ecological approach the garden treats storm water on site. The design team collaborated closely with the community to develop a functional, versatile, spiritually meaningful, ecolo