Awards People

2018 BSLA Design Awards Announced

2018 BSLA Design Awards

Boston – The Awards Committee of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects recently announced the winners of the 2018 BSLA Design Awards Program. From over 100 entries, 19 projects were selected to recognize excellence in the diverse practices of landscape architecture.

Recipients were:

Honor Awards  in Analysis and Planning:

  • Sasaki Associates for Denver Airport Strategic Development Plan (Denver, Colo.)
  • Sasaki Associates for Hoosic River Revitalization -The North Branch (North Adams, Mass.)
  • Stephen Stimson Associates for Tower Hill Botanic Garden Master Plan (Boylston, Mass.)

Honor Award in Design:

  • Stephen Stimson Associates for Pulaski Park (Northampton, Mass.)

Merit Awards in Analysis and Planning:

  • Sasaki Associates for Seaside State Park Master Plan (Waterford, Conn.)
  • Stantec for Swimming in the Charles (Boston and Cambridge, Mass.)

Merit Award in Communications:

  • Ground, Inc. for Central Park (Boston)

Merit Awards in Design:

  • CRJA – IBI Group for the Innovation and Design Building(Boston)
  • Klopfer Martin Design Group for Roemer Plaza Suffolk University (Boston)
  • Klopfer Martin Design Group for Fisher Hill Reservoir Park (Brookline, Mass.)
  • Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design for Berkshire Residence (Great Barrington, Mass.)
  • OJB Landscape Architecture for Partners HealthCare Administrative Campus (Somerville, Mass.)
  • Reed Hilderbrand Associates for Duke West Campus Student Life Precinct (Durham, N.C.)
  • Richardson Associates for Woodside Retreat (Camden, Maine)
  • Stephen Stimson Associates for John Olver Design Building at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst, Mass.)
  • Stephen Stimson Associates for Crotty Hall at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst, Mass.)
  • Stoss Landscape Urbanism for Eda U. Gerstacker Grove (Ann Arbor, Mich.)

Merit Awards in Student Work:

  • Christin Hu from Harvard Graduate School of Design for “Futurama: (De)Constructing the Adaptive City”  
  • Xiwei Shen from Harvard Graduate School of Design for “Play with Power”  

This year’s submissions also show a strong focus on issues of sustainability, climate resilience, and adapting to rising seas, as more public and private entities, from homeowners to institutions to municipalities, start to think differently about the additional work their landscapes can do, and as the role of landscape architecture in dealing with climate change continues to grow.

Awarded projects reflect careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of the cultural and natural environment.  The program was open to work by landscape architectural practitioners and professional landscape architecture students based in Massachusetts or Maine (the Boston Society of Landscape Architects’ chapter area), or to projects built in Massachusetts or Maine regardless of where the designers are based.

This is the fourth year in a row with 100 or more submissions. With sites from California to Bangladesh to Brookline, this year’s submissions again reflect the extraordinary reach of the Boston-area design community.

“It’s encouraging to see so much attention to detail in creating spaces for clients, owners, and the public to enjoy,” reports Joseph Strayer, ASLA, BSLA Awards Committee Chair. “There isn’t one singular style of landscape architecture that the jury awarded.  The recognized projects are truly a mix — simple and highly detailed, public and private, active and quiet, urban and rural — and celebrate the unique mix of Boston’s design leadership.”