2009 ASLA Student Awards

This project reinterprets an outdoor swimming hole. It uses ecological processes coupled with an elegant use of ancient, low-tech hydraulics to purify the polluted water of the Potomac River for use in a bathing pool set amidst a restored natural forest. This project demonstrates the potential for restoring a degraded landscape for use by urban dwellers without overly civilizing nature and thereby destroying that which attracts us to it in the first place.

The site is closed by a highway which is connected to the Avenida Diagonal, one of the most important streets in Barcelona. The site is isolated by sectional difference from existing infrastructure such as a highway. New loops created from the existing pedestrian path on the site would strengthen accessibility into the site and bring cohesion between nature and neighborhood while providing a variety of experiences. Loops of circulation can also maximize land-use.

"Fighting with Water" is a proverb for the past hundreds of years. It reveals human's fear of nature. High embankments are built to provide people the feeling of safety. Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan, is now encircled by concretes. Along with the weather change globally, it's critical to rethink the living philosophy toward nature. This project proposes the concept of "living with floods" and returns the flood plain to river. It's a challenge to a dense ci

Regionally appropriate and locally sustainable affordable housing for adults with developmental disabilities in Phoenix, Arizona is in short supply. This project combines those elements and socially, economically, and ecologically extends into the city to integrate marginalized populations with the community. Sensitive site planning, rainwater and greywater management practices, regionally appropriate “green roofs”, and urban agriculture make this project a meaningful addition to the conversation of social justice and sustainable development in the urban environment.

The usage of Gowanus Canal, located just off New York City's East River Estuary, has declined over time due to development of alternate shipping methods. Today the Canal suffers from environmental contamination, economic obstacles, and social indecision. This project looks to develop a remediation infrastructure using economic, environmental, and social determinants to generate a variety of multi-scale apparatus as remediation tactics implementing a system of networks to generate a comprehensive development strategy for the Canal.

This design envisions a new northern port that uses a circular formation to reframe the dialogue between public and private port functions. As the spatial backbone for both water and land functions, my alternative port design invents a circular spatial backbone to connect port spaces with habitat nodes, to provide various forms of local recreation and occupation, and to mitigate ballast water pollution. This dynamic infrastructure allows for the pairing of hyper-optimized port functions

Optimizing infrastructure as an urban resource, each component of the proposed water capture system is also a civic space and is strategically located along the existing network of streets, paths and plazas that run between the abandoned quarry and the wetlands. These new urban spaces connect fragmented parts of the existing path network and serve a host of civic, recreational, commercial and social functions while supplying domestic and commercial water for 25,000 people.

Wanquan stream, which is a straightened, concrete covered and spatially constrained urban channel, flows 8 km through an historically meaningful, while quickly urbanizing area in northwest Beijing. Facing with the complicated ecological, historical and urban issues, the regenerative design approach goes beyond stream restoration to address the varied and interweaving problems of the stream channel within a larger context in light of green infrastructure and landscap

An investigation of inherent site conditions prompted a design intervention where fire was the major implementation near the former Stapleton International Airport in Denver, CO. Fire, as a natural element, can be embraced as a cultural means to shape a landscape and give it form, function, familiarity and flux.

Because of the convenience and affordability of automobile transportation, abundance of cheap fuel supply, and available land use, an ever-growing problem of urban and suburban sprawl have created a negative growth pattern in Oklahoma and across the nation. This project focuses on initiatives to create a more environmentally friendly transportation model including pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, alternative methods of mass transportation focusing on passenger rail, and connecting major metropolitan areas devoid of the automobile.  

Industrial economies are changing globally, shifting job availability and land occupation while generating opportunities to re-envision past city planning efforts. As the iconic oil fields and pumps transition out of production, the City of Signal Hill has new opportunities to connect people to their environment and community through sustainable planning practices.  This project introduces approaches to repurposing these lands balanci

Using birds as a biodiversity indicator, this project develops a methodology for integrating viable ecosystems and habitats into marginalized urban spaces to augment quality and connectivity across scales. Road rights of way in Surrey, Canada are used as case studies to explore the integration of avian habitat, ecological function, and human programming as connective conduits. This project demonstrates the role of landscape architects in finer grained design within

Steep Sloped Green Roof research is virtually non-existent. This study will influence the development of green roof design and implementation nationally by describing the ecological succession that we might expect among twelve varieties of sedum in a steep green roof system.

As a collective body, the public can significantly change the face of our urban environments by supporting and increasing habitat in their own neighborhoods. The Tucson Urban Wildlife Walk is an interpretive website that communicates the importance of urban wildlife habitat to Tucson residents and tourists. Developed in conjunction with a self-guided walking tour, the website hosts a virtual tour of potential habitats downtown and inspires residents to create their own backyard habitat.

Women in the Dirt: Landscape Architects Shaping California is a documentary film based on interviews with seven of the most talented female designers in California today. The purpose of the film is to promote the profession of landscape architecture while demonstrating the wide variety of work done by these women; from private gardens to large public projects, and political involvement resulting in changes of public policy, these women are shaping California.

The publication, in conjunction with a design conference, investigated systems that create or maintain inequity within societies and how these systems interrelate. The publication, edited by two MLA students, reflects the underlying conviction of the conference that race, class and cultural issues lie at the heart of good design and that these issues are still under-examined within the design disciplines. The publication and conference were student-led from initial concept to implementation,

The International Student Center Rain-Garden educates students, faculty, staff, administrators, and campus visitors about low-impact stormwater management solutions by revealing how designed landscapes can elegantly capture and use rooftop and surface water runoff. This rain-garden strategically addresses a significant hurdle to integrating natural stormwater management systems within the urban fabric- namely, the lack of public knowledge of and appreciation for the function and design of these systems- by integrating art, architecture, ecology, hydrology, and people. 

Bus patrons must stand or steal crates to be used as makeshift seats while waiting for the bus. A utilitarian, sculptural, and regenerative system is developed based on the byproducts of the local economy to provide dynamic seating and allow bus patrons to take back and claim ownership of unused public space.

The project entails the revitalization of the local productive landscapes in order to sustain the restoration and controlled development of Choroni, a community pushed to its limits by tourism. As a seamless interdisciplinary collaboration between students in landscape architecture and architecture, all scales of design are considered. It indeed addresses economic and environmental problems, preservation of historical and cultural patrimony, education, while emphasizing phenomenolog