For the 13th annual HALS Challenge competition, the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) invites you to document Olmsted Landscapes.

2022 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, social reformer and founder of American landscape architecture. By documenting Olmsted landscapes for HALS, you will increase public awareness of historic landscapes and illuminate Olmsted’s living legacy. Any site designed or planned in part or in full by Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., his firm, and the firm continued by his sons, John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted Junior, is eligible (see Master List of Design Projects).

The Olmsted Research Guide Online (ORGO) and Olmsted Online are helpful research tools. You may search for records held at the Olmsted National Historic Site and the Olmsted collections at the Library of Congress. The copyright status of some of these materials is uncertain, so please do not reproduce the graphics in your HALS documentation. You may analytically write about and cite them instead.

Please contact your state ASLA Chapter’s volunteer HALS Liaison if possible when you have selected a site to document for the HALS Challenge to be sure no one else is already preparing a HALS historic report for it. If your chapter’s volunteer HALS Liaison position is vacant, please consider volunteering yourself or suggesting it to a colleague who may be interested.

Short format histories should be submitted no later than July 31, 2022 (c/o Chris Stevens, 202-354-2146, Chris_Stevens@nps.gov ).

The HALS Short Format History guidelines and digital template may be downloaded from either the National Park Service’s HALS or ASLA’s HALS websites. NOTE: Any updates to HALS Challenge rules and to the MS Word digital HALS Short Format Historical Report Template are reflected within the template itself. Please download and read it thoroughly before entering the competition. If you like to learn by example, you may view or download the HALS Challenge Winners from 2018 and before.

Sponsored by HALS, cash prizes will again be awarded to the top three submissions. This year the National Association for Olmsted Parks (NAOP) will also award three framed certificate prizes for the best entries in the following categories:

• Submission by a college or graduate student.
• Work of the Olmsted Firm in Ohio.
• Non-park work of the Olmsted Firm.

See The Field for more on the 2022 HALS Challenge, and stay tuned for additional Field posts and virtual events highlighting this year’s competition theme.