CONGRATULATIONS TO the 2023 award winners!
The ASLA Oregon Design Awards program celebrates professional and student excellence by recognizing the firms, individuals, and agencies responsible for outstanding works of landscape architecture and environmental planning in Oregon and beyond. The 2023 winners were announced on November 17, 2023, at the ASLA Oregon Design Awards Soirée.
Of the eighteen submissions, four projects received Honor Awards and one project received the Award of Excellence, a designation reserved by the jury for only the most outstanding projects. In addition, two student projects received Honor Awards. New this year, four projects received the ASLA Oregon Climate Action Committee Green Ribbon Award.
For the professional awards, we had an exceptional jury- Story Wiggins, partner at Terremoto, Taber Caton, principal at FORA Landscape Architects in Seattle, and Keith McPeters, principal at GGN. Thank you to our jurors for their time commitment and the rigor with which they approached this effort.
Below are the 2023 award winners:
Project Statement: The overgrown plot of land that was slated to become Woodmont Natural Park presented a unique and restrictive design challenge: the site deed prohibited the use of any hard materials or built features. There would be no pavilions, no play structures, not even a paved pathway. Rather than viewing these constraints as limitations, the design team found creative strategies and natural expressions of beauty and art to elevate the park experience. The result is a park that combines walking trails, a flexible lawn, nature play, and native habitat restoration to provide a choreographed experience that brings people closer to the natural environment. The success of this project is made apparent by the thriving native plantings, abundant wildlife, and regular use by community members. The creative integration of sustainable design, functionality, and ecological restoration make Woodmont Natural Park deserving of recognition. One juror noted: "...I love this project; simple, subtle, and understated; low on resource use; embrace how public spaces should be designed; preserving, keeping carbon in the ground; … just enough human touch moments without including complicated paving systems”
Project Statement: At Wade Creek Park in Estacada, Oregon, an undeveloped artificial pond has transformed into a beautiful riparian habitat. For this third and last section of the park to be developed, the city needed safer, more effective outfalls and greater access to nature. Our firm’s interdisciplinary design philosophy is guided by natural processes, and rehabilitating urban habitats is deeply important to us. With our architectural sub-consultant, our team of landscape architects and architects, hydraulic and civil engineers, interpretive designers, and environmental consultants presented the winning design concept: to reshape the pond back into a riparian environment, with a daylit creek at its heart. Now, a new community center hosts public gatherings and draws people to newly biodiverse habitats of creek, wetland, riparian, and upland. A boardwalk overlook, trails, and interpretive elements connect people to these natural spaces and flows. The Wade Creek Park project embodies how we link nature, urban environments, and people. We celebrated with the City of Estacada the moment this section of Wade Creek flowed free again.
Los Angeles Countywide Parks and Recreation Needs Assessment Plus (PNA+)
honor AWARD IN ANALYSIS AND PLANNING/RESEARCH AND GREEN RIBBON AWARD
MIG
Project Statement: LA County Parks Needs Assessment Plus (PNA+) serves as a national model, going beyond planning as usual. It focuses on environmental conservation and restoration, regional and rural recreation, but flips the emphasis to people and areas in need. It highlights the needs of the most vulnerable residents living in park- and tree-poor urban and rural areas with limited access to park facilities. PNA+ reimagines conservation through an equity lens, expanding to include restoration of degraded lands, such as brownfields, landfills, and oil fields. People of color account for 84% of residents living in priority areas for restoration. Traditional conservation has left these communities out of policy and funding decisions making PNA+ a critical step towards environmental justice. PNA+ identifies priority areas for regional and rural recreation based on population vulnerability, access, availability, and amenities. LA County has a million acres of open space but there are access challenges given their location, distribution, and lack of public transit. While some areas have significant amounts of parkland, they often lack amenities. PNA+ is a call to action.
Oregon Experience Laboratory
honor AWARD IN Small Budget/Big Impact and/or Pro Bono and green ribbon award
Fuller initiative for productive landscapes
Project Statement: In July of 2022, the World Athletics Championships (Oregon22) were held in Eugene. In preparation for the event, the city had recently completed a new riverfront park and bike path making the University of Oregon Riverfront the “front door” to campus for guests walking or biking from downtown. To activate this space, the design team received a sponsorship from Travel Oregon to create seven interactive landscape installations, each representing a different landscape of Oregon. The “Oregon Experience Laboratory” included an embedded challenge within each installation, that when solved, opened a panorama of its specified region using a mixed-reality app. This game-based overlay allowed international guests to view the diversity of Oregon’s landscapes and was accessible to those who speak English as a second language. These landscape installations were complimented by a wildflower display along the riverfront bike path, composed of native, pollinator supporting annuals. Following the success of the exhibition, one installation remained standing throughout the following academic year and was again framed by wildflowers when the second-generation emerged during spring term. Jurors agreed that: “you don’t need a big budget to make an interesting place”
Project Statement: Rockwood Village is an innovative model of community development. The vision for Rockwood Village is the creation of a shared landscape embraced by the residential community and at the same time is connected to a district-wide network linking regional transit to nature. Unlike traditional multifamily developments that cluster units in deep blocks interspersed with surface parking, Rockwood Village takes a different strategy, expanding the public realm by moving the main residential buildings to the site's perimeter and creating a park and civic gathering space in the heart of the complex. The design draws inspiration from the flexibility and activated public space of historic town squares within dense urban centers. Communal gathering center, shared flexible outdoor spaces, and amenities become vital resources without private yards and serve as a place of connection and community for residents of all ages. Flexible outdoor spaces and a community garden were incorporated in the design.
Project Statement: The Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) Roosevelt Operations Center is a 107,000 square foot facility developed on a 52-acre parcel which includes 32 acres of jurisdictional wetlands. The site is typical of many tracts in west Eugene where in the early twentieth century industrial and timber operations migrated and developed. This development laid within what was eventually understood to be a large and extensive wetland prairie. These industrial operations were developed with little to no regard for the impact to this sensitive environment. The site design revolves around the challenge of not only providing an industrial-scale real estate development for a local utility provider, but also healing a degraded environment through a sustainable systems-based performance landscape. It showcases the idea that an industrial real estate project can include significant impervious surface areas and, yet at the same time, do no harm and contribute to the quality of a regional wetland system through a performing environmental system. The project was certified as a LEED Gold project by the US Green Building Council in 2011.
Honoring Old Camp: A Community-Driven Conceptual Master Plan for the Burns Paiute Tribe
honor AWARD (STUDENT PROJECT)
University of Oregon- Cameron Coronado, Tressa Cummings, Grace Graham, Sarah Phillips, Candi Rosario, Jenna Witzleben
Project Statement: Honoring Old Camp is a project that demonstrates the power of partnerships between Tribal governments, academic institutions, state ASLA chapters, federal agencies, and community members. This community-driven project frames the visions and considerations of the Burns Paiute Tribe for developing an essential historical and cultural site. Under the leadership and guidance of the Tribe, students created a conceptual master plan for Old Camp to synthesize the history, values, and goals of the Burns Paiute Tribe into a spatial form. Recommendations for expansion focus on increasing recreation facilities, including trails, bi-lingual interpretive signs, Powwow grounds, and the potential adaptive reuse of the casino structure. Efforts to protect and restore Old Camp will preserve the historic orchard and house, seek historic landmark designation, and grow cultural programming for the Tribe and visitors, especially engaging the existing Youth Program. This planning process brought together the Tribal community and leadership to form a vision with community-wide support. This project highlights ways in which landscape designers can work in service towards Indigenous justice through partnerships with Tribal governments.
Willamette River Overlook
honor AWARD (student project)
Dorae hankin
Project Statement: In 2021 the Willamette River Natural Area (WRNA) designated 24 acres of open space along University of Oregon North Campus Riverfront for permanent habitat, ecological preservation, and compatible educational and recreational uses, including an identified viewpoint. Once the floodplain of a shifting, braided river system, the riverfront has undergone dramatic transformations since settler colonialism, industrialization, and urban growth. This project seeks to expand visual access to the river while simultaneously enhancing habitat and species diversity over time, drawing inspiration from the site’s history as a floodplain. Improved circulation and a universally accessible viewing platform allow visitors to experience the riverfront riparian zone up close, while a light-on-the-land approach to grading and planting design helps to restore ecological health and showcase the region’s flora. As urban growth continues adjacent to the Riverfront and visitor traffic inevitably grows in coming years, improving visual access and visitor experience will help inspire continuing public support for the protection of this important natural area.
2023 Recognition Awards
The ASLA Oregon Recognition Awards program celebrates the spirit of the landscape architecture profession in Oregon by recognizing people and organizations for their outstanding service to the profession, design excellence, community leadership, and careful stewardship.
ASLA Oregon is please to announce this year's Recognition Awards:
Outstanding Firm: PLACE
PLACE is a design studio committed to landscape architecture, planning, art, and urban design in a collaborative atmosphere. Recognized for design excellence regionally, nationally, and internationally, PLACE has been part of Oregon's landscape architecture community for many years. PLACE's work has been recognized by many, including the 2021 ASLA Landmark Award. They are also committed to diversity and inclusion and give back to their employees - through benefits that go beyond the standard consulting package such as sabbatical leaves - as well as their community - through participation in 1% for Planet, Shadow Mentor Day, Architects in Schools, amongst other efforts.
Distinguished Practitioner: ALLISON ROUSE
This award is given to an outstanding landscape architecture professional to recognize a career that has made a profound impact on the profession. Contributions that may be recognized include: design excellence, protection of our natural, historic or cultural landscapes, community service, supporting emerging professionals, diversity leadership and service to the profession. Her practice covers a broad range of public and private work and she has worked as a consultant and as a client - she worked with Portland Parks and Recreation for over 12 years. She is known for being highly creative, able to ferret out details, smoothly navigate complexities of stakeholders, visions, regulatory pressures, and requirements. Currently a Principal at ZGF Architects, Allison continues to mentor incoming professionals while advancing the design. Allison has also volunteered for the Chapter for years including serving as President-Elect, President, and Past-President. She makes us better.
OUTSTANDING EMERGING PROFESSIONAL: TAYLOR BOWDEN
This award is given to an emerging professional in their first ten years of practice who exceeds expectations and shows promise in making contributions to landscape architecture. Starting in grad school, Taylor has been actively involved in ASLA. She was the 2020 UO ASLA Student President and involved in a range of activities including orchestrating Shadow Mentor Day. After graduating with her MLA, she spent a year working for NPS aiding grassroots land conservation and recreation projects in the PNW before joining Mayer/Reed where she is a landscape designer. Currently in the middle of her term as Vice President of Chapter Services, she is responsible for organizing ASLA Oregon's Symposium. She is already making a mark on the profession.
TOM MCCALL AWARD: DEPAVE
In recognition of the legacy created by Governor Tom McCall’s vision and values, Oregon ASLA has established this award to recognize the significant contributions of an individual, group, firm, or organization who has been a consistent champion of the natural world, who has led by example in their stewardship of Oregon’s natural environment, and helped cultivate healthy cultural relationships with Oregon landscapes. As a non-profit whose mission is rooted in social justice and environmental stewardship, Depave empowers disenfranchised communities to overcome social and environmental injustices and adapt to climate change through urban re-greening. Depave transforms over-paved places, creates resilient community greenspaces, promotes workforce development and education, and advocates for policy change to undo manifestations of systemic racism.
Thank you to our Sponsors for the Design Awards:
