The American Society of Landscape Architects (ALSA) has announced its 2015 professional and student awards, with several Harvard Graduate School of Design professors, students, and alumni recognized for recent work.
GSDers received the ASLA Award of Excellence in the both professional and student general design categories. Professor in practice of landscape architecture Gary Hilderbrand (MLA ’85) and firm Reed Hilderbrand earned the award for transforming a postindustrial site on New York’s Hudson River into a popular park, completed for the Scenic Hudson Land Trust.
The firm also received two other recognitions this year: a general design Honor Award for renewal of the Clark Art Institute campus, and a research Honor Award for a comparative study of urban soil performance in Boston.
Other GSD professors and alumni appeared throughout the professional awards’ residential design, analysis & planning, communications, and research categories.
In the student field, Zheming (Taro) Cai (MLA ’15) won the general design Award of Excellence for Imagine the Barracks of Pion: Developing the Edge of the Park of Versailles. Cai’s project attempts to provide critical conservation in urban development, from a landscape perspective, at a site of historical significance.
Cai’s GSD faculty advisors on the project were Peter Louis Hornbeck Design Critic in Landscape Architecture Michel Desvigne and design critic in landscape architecture Inessa Hansch.
For the 2015 professional awards, more than 450 entries were considered and 34 projects were selected. For the student awards, more than 320 entries were considered and 23 projects selected.
Of the 23 student teams recognized, six are from the GSD.
Awards will be presented at the ASLA’s 2015 annual meeting in Chicago, with an awards ceremony scheduled for Monday, November 9.
Full lists of winners of the 2015 ASLA Professional Awards and the 2015 ASLA Student Awards are available via the ASLA’s website.
Photo: an image of Reed Hilderbrand’s Scenic Hudson Land Trust project. Photo credit: James Ewing Photography.