Award winning work

The Landscape Architecture | Regional & Community Planning Department has undertaken a year full of collaboration, learning, innovation and creativity. With this came recognition for our work both regionally and nationally.

Ranked #2 Landscape Architecture Department in the nation

The Landscape Architecture program was ranked second in the nation in the DesignIntelligence’s America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools lists. America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools is conducted annually by DesignIntelligence on behalf of the Design Futures Council. The research ranks undergraduate and graduate programs from the perspective of leading practitioners.

Along with our overall national ranking, our Landscape Architecture program also ranked:
#1 in the Midwest
#3-Communication
#3-Computer Applications
#2-Cross-Disciplinary Teamwork
#2-Design
#4-Research & Theory
#3-Sustainable Design Practices & Principles

Special congratulations to LA | RCP Professor Howard Hahn for being named in the 30 Most Admired Educators for 2014 list, which was released from DesignIntelligence as well.

DesignIntelligence also surveys students, asking how they grade the quality of their program overall. 76% of K-State students consider our program to be excellent and 24% believe it is above average. 97% of K-State landscape architecture students indicated that they believe they are well prepared for their profession after graduation.

The Armory – National Award Winning Project

The 2013 year started with a group of graduate students led by Dr. Jason Brody becoming one of four finalists in the Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. Led by Kevin Cunningham, MLA ‘13, the multi-disciplinary team included Kylie Harper, MLA ‘13; Derek Hoetmer, MLA ’13; architecture student Lauren Brown from the University of Kansas; and, real estate student Tyler Knott from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The team’s entry, “The Armory”, went up against 149 other entries from 70 different universities in both the U.S. and Canada. The other finalist schools were Harvard, Purdue/Ball State and Yale. The KSU/KU/UMKC team took first place and came away with a $50,000 prize.

The collaborative project also received an American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Honor Award at the ASLA Annual Meeting and Expo in Boston on Nov. 18.

You will find more information about The Armory project and design team and awards they have received in the January issue of the APDesign Magazine.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Campus RainWorks Challenge Award

Our department, along with more than 200 other teams around the nation, took part in the first-ever EPA Campus RainWorks Challenge Competition. Students from Planting Design (LAR 410) were paired with students from Advanced Ecological Engineering Design (BAE 865) to form four interdisciplinary teams. Each team, comprised of 7-10 students, was co-advised by Associate Professor Lee Skabelund and Assistant Professor Jessica Canfield from Landscape Architecture, and Dr. Stacy Hutchinson, Associate Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering.

“For one of our four K-State teams to be nationally recognized was not only a fantastic honor, but a true testament to the high-caliber, creative, evidence-based design work that our students produce,” Canfield said. “This award also shows the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the value of solid teamwork.”

The award-winning team was comprised of students from the departments of Landscape Architecture (Ross DeVault, Cydnie Jones, and Abigail Glastetter), Civil Engineering, Biological & Agricultural Engineering, Agronomy and Biology.

“The design submitted by Kansas State University modifies the university’s master plan in order to create an environmentally sound stormwater system and improve water quality and stormwater runoff,” EPA stated. “The design includes a garden that revives the site’s natural native prairie wetland, a series of ponds with wetland terraces, and an amphitheater constructed with regional limestone.”

For the competition each team had to submit two design boards, seen above, and a project narrative and supporting video. Click here to view the team’s video narrative.

More information about the EPA Award can be found at the following sites:

2012 Campus RainWorks Challenge Winners
Honorable Mention: Kansas State University (Runner Up)

K-State Today, Published April 25, 2013
K-State Team receives honorable mention in the EPA Challenge competition

American Planning Association Awards

For the third year in a row the LA | RCP Department received Kansas APA Chapter’s New Horizon Awards, which recognize a student or student group that pushed the boundaries of planning in creative and innovative ways. The chapter named two New Horizon Award recipients this year, both for projects by Kansas State University Landscape Architecture | Regional & Community Planning classes.

Class projects receiving the honor included the Planning and Pop Culture class radio show, led by La Barabra Wigfall, RCP associate professor, and Huston Gibson and Kate Nesse, RCP assistant professors; and the LAR 442 Spring 2013 Wichita Metropolitan Studio project, led by Blake Belanger, LA associate professor, and Jon Hunt, LA assistant professor.

Click here to read more about the Wichita Metropolitan Studio project.

Click here to read more about the Planning and Pop Culture radio show.

ASLA Central States Awards

Three students in the St Louis Metropolitan 2012 studio, taught by Professors Alpa Nawre and Jon D. Hunt won awards in the ASLA 2013 Central States Awards. Wesley Haid, MLA 3rd year, won a 2013 ASLA Central States Honor award, the highest award in a category, for his project ‘Under the Bridge: Transforming Forgotten Space’. Two other students, one Ashley Schwemmer, MLA 5th year, and Alyssa Butler, MLA 3rd year, won ASLA Central States Merit awards for their projects titled ‘Ignored Landscapes: Affordable Ecologies’ and ”Gateway Revitalization’ respectively.

“The studio pushed students to conceive of landscape design as a series of systems and design interventions, operational at the metropolitan region in a site north of downtown St. Louis,” Nawre said. “This was the first time the students were working at an urban scale and with a professional office, HOK, as sponsors of the studio.”

Students worked closely with HOK professionals, Mark Vogl, BLA ’93, Chip Crawford, MLA ‘81 and Dhaval Bharbhaya to craft urban revitalization proposals at different scales. The ASLA Central States awards honors outstanding contributions to the practice of landscape architecture in both professional and student category.

Participating Chapters encompass:

Arkansas, Great Plains, Iowa, Oklahoma, Prairie Gateway and St. Louis and the US States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas.

Winners were honored at a luncheon ceremony during the ASLA Central States Conference on March 20-22, 2013 at the Millennium Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri.

PHOTO CAPTIONS

1. LA student working in studio. Photo by Brianna Sprague
2. The Armory. Image by Kevin Cunningham, Kylie Harper, Derek Hoetmer, Lauren Brown and Tyler Knott.
3. 150 Shades of Green. Image by students from Landscape Architecture (Ross DeVault, Cydnie Jones, and Abigail Glastetter), Civil Engineering, Biological & Agricultural Engineering, Agronomy and Biology.
3. KS APA Award Winning Projects. Photos by Jon Hunt and La Barbara James Wigfall