2025 Deb Mitchell Research Grant Awarded
The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) is pleased to announce the 2025 recipient of our $25,000 research grant.
The LAF Research Grant in Honor of Deb Mitchell is awarded annually to support a research project that is relevant and impactful for the professional practice of landscape architecture.
This year's winning proposal is Keeping Up: Maintenance and Management of Ecologically Vibrant Landscapes. Principal Investigators Brenna Castro Carlson and Haven Kiers will investigate the maintenance-related challenges to creating habitat and increasing biodiversity in large-scale public and institutional landscapes, which typically face limited maintenance budgets yet serve diverse and often disadvantaged communities. Through case studies and surveys of landscape professionals across the United States, the researchers will catalog current management approaches, identify systemic obstacles, and explore successful strategies that support biodiversity including alternative funding models, staff training programs, community stewardship programs, and innovative maintenance practices.
Large, naturalistic and other designed landscapes have the potential to support rich ecosystems, with higher plant species diversity creating complex habitats for other species. But there is a void in our understanding of how to maintain and steward these landscapes over time. This is especially true in large public landscapes where managers are reluctant to deviate from familiar, conventional design and maintenance approaches that prioritize predictability over ecological complexity.
Bridging the current disconnect between ecological research and applied landscape management, this research project seeks to develop actionable, practical guidance for landscape professionals. Ultimately, the researchers aim to empower landscape architects and land managers to catalyze fundamental shifts in how landscape maintenance is conceptualized, researched, and practiced to support high-biodiversity landscapes over the long-term.
“This much-needed research gets at the heart of the ability of landscape architects to deliver biodiversity gains in their work. It may not be the flashiest of topics, but the connection between design and maintenance of biodiverse landscapes is essential, unfortunately understudied, and highly relevant to all landscape architects,” said Emily McCoy, FASLA, a member of the LAF Board of Directors and Research Committee, Principal at Design Workshop, and Associate Professor of Practice at North Carolina State University. "We look forward to seeing this impressive team’s process and results."
Project Abstract
The biodiversity crisis is a top priority among landscape architects. Yet there is a critical knowledge gap between the design of high-biodiversity landscapes and the successful management and maintenance of these landscapes for long-term performance. This problem is especially acute in large-scale landscapes such as education campuses, institutional campuses, and public parks, where maintenance budgets are limited and conventional mow-and-blow practices dominate. Through interviews and surveys of landscape management professionals and landscape architects across the United States, this research will investigate and catalog the challenges that prevent widespread adoption of high-biodiversity landscapes. It will also critically examine success stories, extracting transferable lessons and cost-effective strategies that can be adapted to broader contexts. This project seeks to provide actionable, practical guidance and resources that will empower landscape architects, as well as maintenance and management professionals, to advocate for, design, and sustain ecologically vibrant public and institutional landscapes.
Principal Investigators
Brenna Castro Carlson, PLA, is a Senior Associate at Atlas Lab. Her work focuses on sustainable, resilient design that is grounded in the principles of urban ecology and fueled by curiosity about the plants and ecosystems of California.
A. Haven Kiers is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on urban/suburban green infrastructure projects and their design effectiveness at both the practical (construction and maintenance) and psychological (aesthetic and therapeutic) levels.
