Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, FASLA, a groundbreaking designer known for her innovative rooftop gardens and playgrounds, will receive the ASLA Medal—the highest honor awarded to a landscape architect, the Society announced on Tuesday. Oberlander founded her firm in Vancouver in 1953, when the profession was dominated by men. Her playground for Expo ’67, which included a rowboat, inspired a national task force on play in Canada and continues to inspire designers around the world. She has also been an important voice on sustainable design.
PWP Landscape Architecture—whose innovative minimalist work has won 35 national ASLA awards—has won ASLA’s Firm Award, and its founding partner, Peter Walker, FASLA, will receive the ASLA Design Medal.
The awards will be presented at ASLA’s Annual Meeting and EXPO in Phoenix, which begins September 28. Other individuals, groups, and programs recognized by ASLA include the educator Herrick Smith, FASLA; Mary Hughes, FASLA, the campus landscape architect at the University of Virginia; the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Hon. ASLA; Design Workshop’s Design Week; and the ASLA Potomac Chapter/ACE Mentor Legacy Program.
For more information on the winners, check out LAND. And to learn more about Oberlander and her work, read an oral history prepared by the Cultural Landscape Foundation.
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