LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AWARD WINNERS ARCHIVE
TEXAS CHAPTER AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS

 

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It is important that one of ASLA’s largest chapters have a legacy of the highest quality work done by its members.  As an organization relying upon volunteer leadership at the local level, the chapter needed a consistent record of achievement.  The Texas ASLA Design Award Archive is a major component in creating a demonstrable legacy of excellence. The remarkable breadth of expertise and geographic influence exerted by Texas ASLA members at state, national and international scales is evident from the archived projects.   

The archive has served as the basis for research in healing garden design by researchers.  Specific views of winning health facility designs were selected from the archive and the design characteristics visible are being tested for their efficacy producing a restorative state in hospital patients.

Archive and research are presented in various scholarly venues:

  • Woodfin, T. and Ozdil, T.R. "Teaching from an Archive of Excellence", Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA), Conference Presentation, 2006 
  • Ozdil, Taner R. "Design Award Archive as a Teaching and Research Tool", Research on the Built & Virtual Environments: Global Symposia Presentations, Poster, Texas A&M University, 2000
  • Used as the basis for assessing landscape architecture students’ learning styles (Myers-Briggs), the use of the award archive as a teaching tool was presented at the 1998 CELA Conference.Woodfin, T. and Ozdil, T.R. "Design Award Archive as a Teaching and Research Tool", Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA), Conference Presentation, Arlington, TX, 1998
  • Students of landscape architecture in Texas need to be able to identify the best design projects.  Learning about the variety and scope of landscape architects’ roles in designing and planning the environment is one of the major functions performed by the archive.  Students also are able to witness the maturation of projects over time, compare the state goals by the designers with their own experience of the places and understand the complexities confronting the achievement of excellence.

    Sample Student Case Studies:

    CURRENT STATUS  

    The archive now contains 361 award-winning projects judged as the best between 1986 and 2006. What  began in a large file cabinet had by the mid-1990’s  outgrown its physical space and was increasingly difficult to manage. The dream was to make the best of Texas landscape architectural design and planning available to students, professionals and the public via the World Wide Web.  Advances in hardware and software and clever utilization of available student labor made this possible beginning in 1997. At present 250 projects are viewable via the website: http://aslatx.tamu.edu.  Scanning started with the most current years and earlier years are added as opportunity and time allow.   

    OTHER RESEARCH RELATED LINKS:

    Quick Statistics

    About the Awards

    Image Archive Related Links

     
         

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