Congratulations to Phoebe (Xiao) Cheng on Her ASLA Award Win!
Congratulations to Phoebe (Xiao) Cheng for her award-winning Breaking Barriers project, selected as an Honor Award, General Design winner for this year’s ASLA Student Awards! The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) recognizes the best work done by landscape architecture students across the country and around the world. This year, ASLA received 560 eligible entries, of which only 35 received an award.
According to the jury:
“The work of Frederick Law Olmsted is often considered canonical in the landscape architecture field, yet his design for Franklin Park deserves revisiting with a contemporary lens. Walled off from neighborhoods along its eastern edge, the park effectively turns its back on the socially vulnerable residents. By opening up entrances along this edge, the park would nurture neighborly relationships and invite daily use, creating a vast, public backyard for residents who may not have their own. By rethinking Franklin Park in its current context, and modifying the park to allow more equitable access to it, this project fulfills Olmsted’s welcoming vision with updated design.”
Phoebe’s work was part of a design studio called A Feminist Lens on Franklin, co-taught by assistant professor Maggie Hansen and Agency’s Gina Ford at the University of Texas at Austin last Spring. Along the way, the students engaged with members of the design team currently leading the Franklin Park Action Plan including friends at Reed Hildebrand, MASS Design, Grayscale Collaborative, Agency and David Buckley Borden.
We will be celebrating tonight at 7pm as part of the ASLA’s free and online awards ceremony. Join us!
And congratulations, Phoebe!