2019 LAF Symposium and Awards Dinner

This powerful event showcases leading-edge thinking in landscape architecture to address a breadth of pressing issues.

The symposium is the culmination of the year-long LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership, a unique program and $25,000 award that supports mid-career, senior-level, and emerging professionals as they develop and test new ideas that will drive the future of the landscape architecture discipline. Presentations were followed by a cocktail reception where guests could mingle and meet the Fellows.

Presentations

Between Neighbors
Karl Krause, Senior Landscape Architect, OLIN, Philadelphia, PA
Across the US, public housing communities are being rebuilt as revitalized, mixed-income developments. Through interviews with residents, designers, developers, community leaders, and housing authority administrators, Karl's work examines the effects of public housing transformation on existing and new mixed-income communities and the valuable role landscape plays in providing common ground for new neighbors.

Community-based Storytelling: Los Angeles' Neighborhood Design
Daví de la Cruz (2017 LAF National Olmsted Scholar, Graduate), Project Manager, Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, Los Angeles, CA
In Pueblo del Río, a housing project in LA, 1,275 youth (nearly 1/3 of residents) are under the age of 14. These youth hold neighborhood stories which shape the program Davíd developed to center neighborhood design and facilitate peer-to-peer mentorship opportunities, promoting an ethic of just sustainability. 

Immersive Technology and Landscape Architecture
Andrew Sargeant (2016 LAF Olmsted Scholar), Landscape Designer, Lionheart Places, Austin, TX
Communication of landscape design through immersive media embraces the fluidity and openness of the living world as it related to one's physical self. Andrew examines how these new tools of visualization will give landscape architects a new competitive edge in project communication and realization. 

Belonging: Identity and Landscape Narrative
Maisie Hughes, Owner, Design Virtue, Washington, DC
Through in-depth research and interviews, Maisie has created a web documentary film series that explores nature, identity, belonging, and exploration in sublime urban landscapes nestled in five distinct DC neighborhoods. Her project demonstrates how a variety of people interpret the same landscapes to provide new insights into the design and programming for nature in the city.

Volume for Water: Rethinking Regulatory Frameworks for Urban Coastal Resilience
Sanjukta Sen, Senior Associate, James Corner Field Operations, New York, NY
The last decade has seen major disasters and storm events, followed by a wide array of creative design-led solutions and proposals. But the regulatory frameworks to enable these solutions have remained somewhat tentative and toothless, especially in the context of American cities. Sanjukta asks the urgent question: Do these frameworks that govern urban waterfront development need a major rethink?

Rethinking Wastescapes
Lauren Delbridge (2017 LAF National Olmsted Scholar, Undergraduate), Designer, LandDesign, Charlotte, NC
Coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal, has historically been stored in unlined pits and allowed to seep pollutants into the surrounding environment. Lauren advocates that, as coal ash ponds are forced to close nationally, these wastescapes should be transformed, re-envisioned, and given back to the communities they have damaged for decades.

Climate Positive Design: Going Beyond Neutral
Pamela Conrad, Principal, CMG Landscape Architecture, San Francisco, CA
Pamela's research rethinks our climate impact as landscape architects. She is working to build alliances within the profession to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing in tackling climate change. With a challenge and a tool, she will illuminate a way forward for the profession of landscape architecture to have the greatest impact together in a changing world. 

The LAF Awards Dinner recognized the 2019 recipients of the LAF Medal and Founders’ Award.

These awards are LAF's highest honors for individuals and organizations that have made a significant and sustained contribution to the LAF mission of supporting the preservation, improvement and enhancement of the environment.

Honorees

2019 LAF Medal

The LAF Medal is conveyed to a landscape architect for distinguished work over a career in applying the principles of sustainability to landscapes. 

Joseph E. Brown, FASLA

As CEO of EDAW, Joe Brown guided the firm to international prominence and brought landscape architecture to global audiences and scales. As a writer and thought leader, Brown has encouraged the profession to think big and take a leadership role on built environment projects, no matter how large or complex. 

2019 LAF Founders' Award

The LAF Founders’ Award is conveyed to a firm, agency, or organization that demonstrates a significant commitment to preserving, creating, or enhancing landscapes over a sustained period of time.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

With a long-standing commitment to sustainable landscape design, conservation, and restoration, the Center shares its accumulated knowledge with everyone from visitors to design professionals. The Center took a driving role in developing SITES®, the most comprehensive rating system for creating sustainable and resilient land development projects.