GSD students, faculty receive awards from ASLA

The American Society for Landscape Architects (ASLA) honored faculty and students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) with its highest awards at the society’s annual meeting last month in Minneapolis.

Faculty winners include Michael Van Valkenburgh, the Charles Eliot Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture and lead principal of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., and Michael Blier, design critic in landscape architecture at GSD and founding principal and director of design of Landworks Studio, Inc.

Van Valkenburgh received an award of excellence for “From Brownfield to Greenfield: A New Working Landscape for Wellesley College Wrenched from Its Toxic Past” and an award of honor for “Small Is Beautifu” (for the Tahari Courtyards in Milford, N.J.). Both awards were in the general design category. For his Court Square Press Courtyards in Boston, Blier received an award of excellence.

GDS student award winners include Seh-gyung Kang for general design of Two Islands Park; Rachel Laszlo and Laura Gornowski in planning and analysis for “The Social Life of Water in Villa Tranquila”; and James B. Lounsbury in communications for “Trail Strategies for the Golden Horseshoe.”

Founded in 1899, ASLA is the national professional organization for landscape architects. The jury considered more than 500 entries and selected 32 projects to receive this year’s awards.