2010 ASLA Student Awards

Upon its founding in 1736, Wormsloe has exhibited a diverse ethnographic and environmental history. The site’s environmental stewardship sets a precedent for post-wilderness conservation, revealing a close partnership between human and environmental interaction. Consequently, Wormsloe is poised to become a leading contributor in the study, interpretation, and outreach of environmental history. The project mission focuses on establishing infrastructure and program improvements, spearheading an

This project addresses an unprecedented tangle of environmental, climatic and cultural issues presented by the city of Yatutsk, in the Russian northeast. The coldest city on earth, built on continuous permafrost, Yakutsk, is faced with an environmental crisis stemming from inadequate planning, pollution, and poor building practices. The design proposal applies concepts of sustainability to this extreme environment, combining basic practices and unique technological solutions to resolve ecolog

This thesis attempts to ameliorate vital tourism development in Tobago with the sensitive coral reef ecology at its centre. Buccoo Reef, the region’s only marine protected area and largest fringing coral reef, is the site of focus. The project aims to evolve area reef recreation while supporting reef ecology via a combination of zoning and sustainable infrastructure. A key component is an artificial reef technology that improves the ability of coral to resist environmental stress.

Fathomed as a phenomenological space, the conceptual objective encouraged a natural system brought back to life in order to educate and represent. A reflection of sprawl throughout the site signals engagement. The strategy of implementing boundaries as ephemeral and fluctuating was utilized in the captivating and sustainable ecosystem of the South Florida Everglades.

Biophones serves as an environmental measuring device and also trains the human ear to notice the subtle nuances in our soundscapes. It connects people to the natural habitat through sound as animal calls become an indicator of environmental health. Biophones trains people to be advocates of natural soundscape awareness and preservation by teaching observers how to listen.

Expanses of flat, vacant land make the Lower Ninth Ward look like a wet meadow. This project proposes a transformation of the landscape matrix that allows the Lower Ninth Ward to regain its vibrant neighborhood density while appreciating the water and plants as valuable resources. From sidewalks to ponds, the ground is demonstrated to perform as a sponge and a reservoir across multiple scales and materials, revealing the presence, movement, poetry, and productivity of water.

Our project transforms the Continental Bridge into a dynamic connection between the Dallas downtown urban edge and new Trinity River Park. We reimagine the bridge as a layered experience that accentuates contextual datums intrinsic to the site. The project creates a living scaffold which synthesizes the energy and vivacity of the city with the rhythms, cycles, and seasons of the Trinity River.

This project examines the potential for urban residences to become self-sustaining and productive environments using a ¼ acre lot in Muncie, Indiana as an example. It explores how society has grown further from nature, creating a gap that has resulted in the underutilization of the environment. This project reconnects humans to nature while creating more sustainable environments to live in, benefiting nature as well as the health, wealth, and happiness of people and their communities.

This project tackles economic and spatial constraints in low-cost housing sites by generating “arable land” from under-utilized end walls. Through analyzing how villagers cultivate plants in unimaginable spots, this wall farming system integrates the villagers’ creativity as an essential component in unlocking the full potential of end-walls. In addition to aesthetical improvement, the productive end walls will serve to provide food for the table, generate economic returns, and ultimately enh

This project uses landscape to re-envision the future of rural Newfoundland by capitalizing on its unique geographic location and existing infrastructure. Newfoundland is a province that has been plagued by outmigration and population loss due to the collapse of the traditional fishery. New renewable industries, driven by landscape, can be implemented to maximize productivity for both the people and the local ecology, regenerating these rural outport settlements: saving a people and their pla

This project will uncover the underplayed link between water-diversion for urbanization and agriculture and the resulting desertification in one of the world’s most disputed and symbolic border-river regions.  It is a proposal for a regional landscape planning scheme that necessitates an understanding of the landscape’s limitations and potentials to create a new agro-urbanization regime for the Jordan Valley; One that is based on more receptive, de-engineered, and decentralized infrastru

Canada’s oil sands are called the “dirtiest oil on earth”, which come with a deleterious environmental impact. This thesis uses landscape ecology to reorganize the oil sands’ surface mining operations and reclamation processes. It aims to redeem Canada’s damaged environmental reputation while searching for a place for landscape architecture within this contemporary industrial process.

This is a proposal to address New Orleans’ problem of coastal erosion to prevent storm surge and its threat existing ever since the construction of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO). It expands the land building program of Louisiana to include habitat, specifically alligators to re-populate the new wetland area and encourage the establishment of vegetation. Essentially, this project will add 20 miles of new wetland area to the MRGO site, reducing the effects of a 20 foot storm surge, c

This thesis project tests the use of landscape architecture as an agent to combine resource-extraction infrastructure with a community’s social and economic development. The strategies developed in this project imagine Inuvik in 2091. When assembled, they are a strategy for growth that changes the Southern-Canadian urban form into one based on fixed nodes and flexible connections. Inuvik’s function as a hub city translates into a coast-based fabric of barge ports, clustered development, and a

With climate change and changes in energy structure, the Netherlands is witnessing major challenges with its low lands and rising water level. Through de-engineering the Dutch water management, this project explores the effect on the urban landscape from the reuse of sediment for soil economies, diversification of energy resources and the potential for reducing on energy-intensive pumping systems that dangerously contribute to land subsidence and increased flood hazards. The ecology of estuar

This collective project — one studio, twelve participants — forced us to speculate on the nature of design and democracy in an ecological age. The Washington Mall, the most heavily visited national park and our most important public forum for democratic life, cannot be sustained in its present condition. Our analytical work and design speculations create a platform for the next generation of change at Union Square, the Us Botanical Garden, the Mall, and the adjoining city fabric.

Riparian Urbanism is a new urban model that illustrates how landscape can become the armature of our future cities. As the world develops, ecological systems become evermore threatened. In Mumbai, India rapid developments are a threat, but also a necessity. However, Riparian Urbanism provides a mechanism for protecting these systems, while allowing development to proceed more intelligently. This model achieves this by incentivizing development, while also providing valuable open space and pro

NativeSpec™ is a custom seed specification tool for landscape architects to create seed mixes adapted to specific project criteria.Site environmental characteristics produce a list of viable plants which can be adjusted for species percentages with dynamic feedback on cost implications.This efficiency of information delivery gives designers flexibility and confidence when specifying ecological restoration projects.

The inspiration for the San Jose earthquake fault project arose from the large amount of high magnitude earthquakes that have been on the rise around the world. The temporary land art installation was designed to bring awareness to a student community about the actual fault lines that run through their Southern California college campus. By revealing the literal fault through a representational structure; the out of sight became a reality.

The Interactive Ecoregional Management Plan (I.E.M.P.) is an interactive tool to assist Tohono O’odham Nation community members in the exploration of historical and cultural attributes within their Sonoran desert landscape. This website addresses cultural stressors by creating journeys of opportunity into empowerment and problem-solving for various types of visitors. Features of the website promote physical and social activities outside of the website while being an interactive educational re

The Grand Canal of China is the longest and oldest man-made canal in the world. However, due to lack of identification, valuation, and preservation, the canal heritage is in crisis. Combining the application of historical literature, historical maps, GIS, and field study, we tried to develop an integrated heritage identification method of the Grand Canal taking the case of Jining section, which features the highest hydro-engineering difficulty of the canal.

The daily lives and livelihoods of an estimated 500 million people worldwide are affected by the alteration of river flows downstream of large dams.  Flood, Flow, Flux is a case study that combines qualitative, context-driven, community participant methodologies with quantitative data to create fresh understandings of the complex ecological, economic and social repercussions of a dam on a dynamic floodplain environment in Zambia.  The project begins a re-valuing of the seas

Today, public parks are designed as though they are given a blank canvas to work from. However, many park sites already contain existing users, mostly undesirable. Salvage Park conversely, embraces these cultures and encourages users to build upon the established space instead of destroying it. Through salvaging elements such as graffiti, abandoned highway panels, existing vegetation, and infrastructure, Salvage Park sustains and connects to the people around it, while acting as a successful

More tangible conditions of the city of Caracas, is the vast difference that lives and perceives between formal and informal city. Thinking about integrating both seem almost intractable problem, so we propose to achieve conditions that approximate both realities through the public space, including parks as the place of representation of equity, covering the integration of art and Landscape quality economically feasible with a response to the needs of communities.

Create an interactive learning environment that integrates different colleges within the university through local food production while contributing to the university’s goal of achieving climate neutrality. Use the garden as a living laboratory for new curriculum that teaches skills to students for continued garden maintenance and meal preparation within the restaurant.

This project transforms mono-functional infrastructure into multi-functional systems, addressing storm water issues and creating an identity for the largely uninhabited corridor that bisects Baltimore. The unique space proposed is comprised of a series of wetland parks, formed through revealing and adapting the layered history of the Jones Falls River and expressway. The once buried and problematic infrastructure is re-interpreted as regenerative space that supports ecological and cultural fu