ASLA is pleased to offer the DREAM BIG with Minecraft Design Event Guide for ASLA Chapters.

In June 2021, ASLA launched its first virtual design event, a competition for high school students using Minecraft, the popular game played by millions of youth and adult gamers around the world.

The competition brought together a diverse range of students from Washington, DC, Miami, FL and New York, NY.

Winning design created by high school students from the Design and Architecture Senior High School (DASH) in Miami, Florida. Photo provided by: Park University

Building on the success of the 2021 Design Competition, ASLA launched Minecraft Design Camps in June 2022, which were held in Washington, DC and Sacramento, CA.

Both events required student to participate in a landscape architecture orientation led by ASLA mentors, as well as design charettes leading up to the Minecraft build. Mentors included Brad Holzer, ASLA Jennifer Nitsky, ASLA and Skip Mezger, ASLA. Approximately 200 students participated in the programs.

Student design teams led by Skip Mezger, ASLA in Sacramento, CA

Launch of the DREAM BIG with Minecraft Design Event Guide at the ASLA 2023 Conference on Landscape Architecture

About the ASLA Minecraft Design Event Guide

The guide provides a framework for ASLA chapters to host a DREAM BIG with Minecraft Design event with their local school or community group.

Download the guide and access recordings from the DREAM BIG with Minecraft Webinar Series.

Here’s what ASLA Mentors to the student design teams had to say:

• “The students were excited, ambitious, competitive, and wonderfully skilled at the game, so from a mentor role, they made my job very easy. As we went through the process to determine a design, I would speak at a high level of design, and they understood it and how to apply it in the game. They taught me just as much as I was teaching them. We were able to utilize each of our knowledge bases to create a really cool finished project.” 


• “You never know what skills the next generation of students will bring, so perhaps there is an opportunity to harness their skills with popular games like Minecraft and apply them to the work of landscape architecture.” 


• “Being creative can take so many forms, it doesn’t need to be traditional forms like painting or sculpting. Untraditional mediums like Minecraft can be inspiring tools for kids to be expressive and creative, and with continued fostering could be directed into academics or a career like landscape architecture.” 


• “I got to see first-hand how Minecraft parallels real life landscape architectural practices. The design competition gave these students a leg up on other students interested in a design career.” 


• “The Minecraft Design Competition allowed students to think like a landscape architect and produce a design and graphics, just like a landscape architect!” 


• “The student’s park designs exceeded my expectations!” 

Please direct questions about DREAM BIG with Minecraft activities and other Career Discovery resources to Lisa J. Jennings, Senior Manager, Career Discovery and Diversity.