2023 WASLA Professional Awards

The Awards Reception is SOLD OUT

The Annual Awards Reception will be held on April 20, 2023, from 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm
at Wisteria Hall at the WA Park Arboretum, located at:
2300 Arboretum Drive E
Seattle WA, 98112

Join us in celebrating our colleagues at the beautiful Wisteria Hall at the Washington Park Arboretum. There will be food, libations, and an opportunity to win 2 tickets to the MLB All Star Game in Seattle on July 11th, compliments of our friends at Pacific Earth Works!

Award Descriptions

Award of Excellence may be presented to a single entry in each category for a project that truly stands far and above all other entries and embodies the spirit and understanding that best reflects the Vision and Mission of ASLA.
Honor Award is presented for superior professional accomplishment and a higher level of excellence recognized in the work presented.
Merit Award is presented for superior professional accomplishment.

Award Categories

General Design | Public Ownership

Recognizes: Built, site-speciﬁc works of landscape architectural design completed for a publicly owned project.
Criteria:The jury will consider quality of design and execution; design context; environmental sensitivity and sustainability; and design value to the client and to other designers.
Typical Entries Include: Public landscapes of all kinds, such as parks, plazas, campuses, streetscapes, trails, historic preservation, reclamation, conservation; stormwater management, sustainable design; design for transportation or infrastructure; landscape art or installation; and more.

General Design | Private Ownership

Recognizes: Built, site-specific works of landscape architectural design completed for a privately owned project
Criteria: The jury will consider the quality of design and execution; design context; environmental sensitivity and sustainability; and design value to the client and to other designers.
Typical Entries Include: Private landscapes of all kinds (except residential) such as cultural and institutional landscapes, campuses, historic preservation, reclamation, conservation; green roofs and walls, stormwater management, sustainable design; landscape art or installation; interior landscape design; and more.

Residential Design

Recognizes: Built, site-specific works of landscape architectural design for residential use.
Criteria: The jury will consider the quality of design and execution; design context; environmental sensitivity and sustainability; and design value to the client and to other designers.
Typical Entries Include:Single family homes; high rise, multi-family and custom home developments; transit oriented development; historic preservation, renovation or conservation projects; senior or assisted living developments; private or small gardens; new urbanism projects with multifamily development; projects located in Opportunity Zones; and more.

Analysis and Planning

Recognizes: The wide variety of professional activities that lead to, guide, or evaluate landscape architecture design and/or works that investigate challenges posed in landscape architecture, providing results that advance the body of knowledge for the profession. Entries in this category are not required to be built or implemented.
Criteria:The jury will consider the quality of the research, analysis and/or planning effort; context; environmental sensitivity and sustainability; likelihood of successful implementation; and value to the client, the public, and other designers.
Typical Entries Include:Urban, suburban, rural, or regional planning efforts; development guidelines; transportation, town, or campus planning; plans for reclamation of brownﬁeld sites; environmental planning in relation to legislative or policy initiatives or regulatory controls; cultural resource reports; natural resources protection; historic preservation planning; and more.

Urban Design

Recognizes: Projects built or currently under construction that activate networks of spaces that mediate between social equity, economic viability, infrastructure, environmental stewardship, and beautiful place-making in the public and private realm.
Criteria: The jury will consider the quality of design and execution; urban design context; planning context; contribution of project to a broader urban landscape; environmental sensitivity and sustainability; and attention to social justice, equity, and inclusion.
Typical Entries Include: Constructed or partially constructed urban projects spatially greater than one block in the realm of public, institutional, or private landscapes; streetscapes, waterfronts, mixed-use developments, neighborhoods, districts, cities, placemaking interventions and civic improvements that may include elements of reclamation, stormwater management, transportation or infrastructure studies, art, and more.

Community Stewardship

Recognizes: An individual landscape architect, group of landscape architects, landscape architecture ﬁrm, or landscape architecture education program who has provided sustained service to the community demonstrating sound principles or values of landscape architecture, or who have developed a working partnership with a community organization to enhance the community and advance the presence of landscape architecture, or who have made signiﬁcant contributions to the profession and/or to the Washington Chapter of ASLA.
Criteria: The jury will consider the nominee’s sustained value to the community they/it serves and the quality and sustainability of the partnership between the landscape architect/ﬁrm/program with the community organization(s); the nominee must be in good standing with WASLA.
Typical Entrants include: Local leaders that have established strong partnerships with local or regional community organizations; landscape architects that have served in a leadership capacity in the local chapter, furthering the mission of ASLA and the profession; or local ﬁrms that have partnered with an organization that has impacted the local community in a meaningful way.

Outstanding Emerging Professional

Recognizes: An individual showing promise of making contributions to the profession of landscape architecture through exceptional leadership, design, communication, service, and/or vision. ASLA Washington Chapter involvement, participation, and Board of Directors position(s) will be considered.
Criteria: Nominee must be an emerging professional in their ﬁrst ﬁve years of practice that exceeds expectations and shows promise in making contributions to landscape architecture.
Typical Qualities Include: Demonstrated leadership, design excellence, fluency with clients, community engagement, and service to the profession.

Eligibility

Projects must be completed by an ASLA Fellow, an ASLA Full Member, or an ASLA Associate Member; or eligible to join ASLA in one of those membership categories.

All entries become the property of ASLA Washington and will be retained in its Archives. Entrants are responsible for clearing photographs with photographers for publication and reproduction by ASLA Washington. ASLA Washington will provide proper photography and other project credits when using photos, but will not assume responsibility for any copyrights or photography fees. ASLA retains the right to publish photos submitted in winning entries on the ASLA Washington website, in promoting the awards program, and in other products in conjunction with promoting landscape architecture.

The project must not have previously won a WASLA award. The project must meet all requirements set forth in this Call for Entries.

While location of the project can be nationwide, the design work must be substantially completed by individuals licensed in the state of Washington or ﬁrms with a work address in the State of Washington.

The Jury

The Jury will be comprised of a group from ASLA Maryland that represent the breadth of the profession, including private, public, and academic practice, and exemplify diversity in professional experience, geography, gender, and ethnicity.

The jury awards will be by majority vote and not by full consensus. The jury process is “blind”. In other words, the identities of the entrant and creative team are not revealed to the jury. Members of the professional awards jury, as well as the ﬁrms, organizations, agencies, or employers they represent, are not eligible to enter the professional awards program. ASLA Washington retains the right to disqualify any entry that does not meet the program requirements or that presents a conflict of interest. In such cases, refunds will not be issued.

Submission

General Design, Research/Analysis/Planning, Urban Design, and Residential Categories

Entry Category
Project Title (Name): A submission must have a short, specific presentation title (containing no abbreviations) that indicates the nature of the presentation. (Maximum 15 words)
Project Location: City and State only
Project Statement: In 175 words or less, describe the project and why it’s award-worthy. This statement may be used in promotional materials if the project is selected for an award. NOTE: failure to submit this statement will lead to disqualification of entry.
Project Narrative: Describe in 1200 words or less how the project addresses each component of the category’s criteria.
Project Images: Project images must include at least one (1) site plan and five (5) but no more than fifteen (15) total drawings and/or photographs in a single PDF file not to exceed 15MB and 15 pages. Format of the file to be 11”x17”, landscape. Brief caption is to be placed at the bottom of each image. We highly recommend using just one image per sheet with a simple caption. Label the PDF file with the project Title (do not label using your name).
NOTE: Failure to submit images/drawings will lead to disqualification of entry. The PDF files will be utilized to present your project at the Awards Reception.
Photo Credits: On a separate sheet, provide proper attribution to all photographers or other creators of Images in your Entry. This sheet will not be shared with the jury.
Client authorization Letter: All entrants must include a PDF of either a letter or email correspondence from the client giving authorization to submit the project or work. The letter shall be dated and shall state at a minimum, “I have reviewed this Entry and have no objections to its submission, judging, or publication.”
Representations and Warranties: You represent and warrant to ASLA that:
You are the sole and original owner of all written text in your Entry and all intellectual property rights therein. If your Entry contains any photography, graphics, renderings, drawings, and/or images (collectively, “Images”), you either are the sole and original creator of the Images, or you possess the right from the photographers or other creators to grant the license to WASLA described above. Any required privacy rights of persons appearing in the Images have been obtained.The Entry does not and will not infringe the copyright, intellectual property rights, privacy rights or other rights of anythird party, person, or entity, and is not defamatory or contrary to law.

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless WASLA, its officers, directors, employees and agents from and against any damages, liabilities, costs and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, it may sustain as a result of any breach of the foregoing representations.

*By submitting your entry, you hereby grant WASLA a non-exclusive irrevocable, perpetual, transferable, royalty-free and worldwide license and right to use, reproduce, distribute, transfer, license, sub-license, reprint, publish and display your Entry, or any part thereof, either alone or as part of a compilation with other works, electronically or otherwise, on social media platforms, on WASLA’s websites; emails, and newsletters.
Entry Form: Download the entry form. This form will be used in the judging process to ensure the jury is blind to the identities of the entrants.

Community Stewardship and Outstanding Emerging Professional Categories

Entry Category
A letter of nomination: A letter describing the nominee’s qualiﬁcations for the award; the letter may be no more than ﬁve (5) pages in length. Include three (3) to four (4) images representing the nominee’s work (in high resolution, .jpg format). Images should be at least 2000x1500px at 300ppi (pixels/ inch). Letter should respond directly to award category criteria.
A minimum of one (1), and up to five (5) letters of endorsement.
Unless the applicant is self-nominating, provide a PDF of either an email or dated letter of acknowledgment from the nominee that they accept the nomination.
Entry Form: Download the entry form. This form will be used in the judging process to ensure the jury is blind to the identities of the entrants.