Awards & Honors

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) named 2018 MLA graduates Kate Jirasiritham and Sarah Toth winners of ASLA 2018 Student Awards. Their exemplary work was selected out of 332 entries representing 17 schools for two of only 27 awards.

Jirasiritham’s work, Songs from the Ocean, Dancers from the Land: Rendering an Ecological Choreography of Coastal Habitats in Phuket, Thailand, which examined strategies and tools for creating a new synergistic landscape around Phuket Bay, won an Honor Award in General Design. Of her project, the jury commented, “We tend to reward minimalism, but sometime in cases like this, richness can be good. The drawings are classic. There is an eye and intelligence about this project that I really appreciated.”

Toth’s work, Pyro-Diversion: Planning for Fire in the San Gabriel Valley, Glendora, California, which plans solutions for mitigating the effects of forest fires before, during and after an event, won an Honor Award in Analysis and Planning. The jury commented, “It’s proactive and understands the challenges and does a really good job of communicating this challenge in a proactive way, treating it as an opportunity.”

Professors Catherine Seavitt Nordenson and Matthew Seibert were advisors for the two projects, which were completed in spring 2018.

Awards will be presented at the ASLA 2018 Annual Meeting and EXPO in Philadelphia on Monday, October 22. The September issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine (LAM) also features the award-winning projects and can be viewed here. Toth’s project is also published in a round-up in LAM online.