The annual program honors excellence in landscape architecture, recognizing the innovative and impactful work of local landscape architects across nine (9) different categories. This year, the jury has selected one (1) Award of Excellence, nine (9) Honor and fifteen (15) Merit award winners. In addition, the ASLA-NCC Biodiversity and Climate Action Committee has awarded the Chapter’s first Biodiversity and Climate Action Award to two (2) entries.
Selected for this year’s Award of Excellence is the Presidio Tunnel Tops by Field Operations. The ASLA-NCC Chapter last named an Award of Excellence in 2022, and has not awarded this designation since, which emphasizes how distinguished this achievement is in the field of landscape architecture. Built atop seven lanes of the Presidio Parkway tunnels in the Presidio National Park, this 14-acre site reclaims a once-elevated highway as a new public open space. The new landscape stitches together historic national parklands with the San Francisco Bay, transforming infrastructure into an immersive experience using topography and ecology. Locals and tourists alike visit the space, which has become a central place for the community featuring a network of trails, bluff landscapes, meadows, dynamic overlooks, and spaces for gathering.
The 2025 Awards include the chapter’s first ever Biodiversity and Climate Action Award, celebrating projects that align with the ASLA Climate Action Plan and objectives: – Achieve zero embodied and operational emissions and increase carbon sequestration; – Provide measurable ecosystem benefits in the form of health co-benefits, sequestration, and green jobs; – Address climate injustices, empower communities, and increase equitable distribution of climate investments; – Restore ecosystems and increase and protect biodiversity.
Award winners in this category include a plan and manual titled Building Resilience: Implementing a Practical Climate Action Plan by SWA Group. This guide is the first of its kind by a landscape architecture firm to tackle a complex subject and lead the way by building a company culture and creating new operational processes that support decarbonization in both practice and project work. Also selected for this inaugural category is Gilead Park: From Gray to Gold by Carducci Associates, which transforms a parking lot into a park focused on employee wellness. This project highlights the importance of Climate Positive Design in our urban environments, implementing strategies such as carbon sequestration methods, water conservation methods, sediment loading reductions, and organic maintenance practices.
TLS Landscape Architecture is the recipient of three Honor Awards in the International awards category. Jingzhang Railway Park is a 15-kilometer historic transit corridor crossing through Beijing, where a replacement high-speed rail was undergrounded and the above open space transformed for public use. Lantern is a permanent public garden installation that creates interest in light and perception while reflecting on cultural traditions specific to its location in Chengdu, China. Finally, Lion Mountain Park which is based on the concept of “Shan-shui” – the union of mountain and lake – includes restored trails, forested slopes, and the creation of new wetlands.
Receiving an Honor Award in General Design, the China Basin Park: A New Public Realm by SCAPE Landscape Architecture is a 5-acre waterfront park and cultural centerpiece of San Francisco’s new Mission Rock neighborhood. Each piece of China Basin Park magnifies local environs such as the region’s headlands, coastal edges, and wetland ecologies, which are echoed throughout the design to create an iconic destination for San Francisco.
Heartwood, designed by Meyer Studio Land Architects, is winning an Honor Award in the General Design category. Located in Omaha, Nebraska, Heartwood is a 500-acre mixed use development that includes a corporate campus, regional park, connective greenways, residential neighborhoods, a commercial corridor and an underpinning of small parks. The project is distinguished by its 14 limestone-clad stormwater infrastructure basins, which are featured in the design in order to bring forward natural phenomena and foster appreciation for our changing planet.
In the Research and Communication category, Chip Sullivan and Elizabeth Boults are receiving an Honor Award for Wisdom of Place: Elemental Landscapes. Using the allegorical framework of the tarot, the authors associate traditional tarot figures with ideas, concepts and manifestations of the genius loci to expand the context of environmental consciousness in an original and captivating way.
The City and County of San Francisco-Public Works, Bureau of Landscape Architecture is the recipient of an Honor Award in the Community Impact, Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) category, for their work on the San Francisco Street Tree Nursery. Nestled between two freeway ramps, the project transformed a neglected lot into a 14,000 square foot state-of-the-art tree nursery and climate education center in the heart of the city. The nursery supports a local tree propagation system for up to 2,000 trees as well as volunteer, education and workforce development opportunities.
Three University of California Berkeley students are recipients of Student Awards for 2025. Receiving an Honor Award for Recovered Wetland is Jie Han, whose proposal in Panjin, China restores an existing wetland ecosystem by improving water circulation, purifying water quality through multi-layered buffer zones, and utilizing phytoremeidation to remove contaminants. Stitching: More Than Human by Chenyi Wang and Kexin Zhang is the recipient of a Merit Award. The proposal includes wetland restoration, green corridors and community engagement to enhance ecological resilience and foster a sense of place and stewardship among residents in Watsonville, California. Also receiving a Merit Award is The Big Night: Honoring Taricha Torosa’s Seasonal Migration in Tilden Regional Park by Abigail Barton, which invites the public to experience a regional park at night and in the rain as part of a yearly ritual to follow the migration journey of the California Newt, an important indicator species in the headwaters of Wildcat Creek watershed.
The full list of award winners is as follows:
GENERAL DESIGN
Award of Excellence Presidio Tunnel Tops / Field Operations
Honor Award China Basin Park: A New Public Realm / SCAPE Landscape Architecture Force Field: Ecological Park shaped from Wind, Water, Motion & Science / Bionic Heartwood / Meyer Studio Land Architects
URBAN DESIGN
Merit Award A Slam Dunk for Mission Bay: Chase Center Sports & Entertainment District / SWA Group Emery Yards: Transforming Postindustrial Emeryville / Bionic The Plus Plan: A Framework for downtown Portland and the University District / Bionic
RESIDENTIAL DESIGN
Merit Award Mal Paso / Ground Studio Old World Charm, Modernized / Arterra Landscape Architects
ANALYSIS & PLANNING
Merit Award Leetow Mountain Ecology Restoration & Recreation Planning / Instinct Fabrication Inc. North Berkeley BART Transit Oriented Development / Einwiller Kuehl Inc. Stonestown / Einwiller Kuehl Inc.
RESEARCH & COMMUNICATION
Honor Award Wisdom of Place: Elemental Landscapes / Chip Sullivan, Elizabeth Boults
Merit Award Building Resilience: Implementing a Practical Climate Action Plan / SWA Group
SMALL PROJECTS, BIG IMPACT
Merit Award Living Pond / ROCHE+ROCHE Landscape Architecture
COMMUNITY IMPACT, JUSTICE, EQUITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION (JEDI)
Honor Award San Francisco Street Tree Nursery / City and County of San Francisco-Public Works, Bureau of Landscape Architecture
Merit Award Bayview Gateway: Built by the Community, for the Community / HOK
INTERNATIONAL
Honor Award Jingzhang Railway Park / TLS Landscape Architecture Lantern / TLS Landscape Architecture Lion Mountain Park / TLS Landscape Architecture
Merit Award Chengdu CyPARK | a low-carbon landscape approach to revitalize an urban center / Instinct Fabrication Inc. Jianhua Center / SWA Group
STUDENT AWARD
Honor Award Recovered Wetland / Jie Han, University of California, Berkeley
Merit Award Stitching: More Than Human/ Chenyi Wang, Kexin Zhang, University of California, Berkeley The Big Night: Honoring Taricha Torosa’s Seasonal Migration in Tilden Regional Park / Abigail Barton, University of California, Berkeley
BIODIVERSITY & CLIMATE ACTION AWARD (selected by ASLA-NCC Biodiversity & Climate Action Committee)
Building Resilience: Implementing a Practical Climate Action Plan / SWA Group Gilead Park: From Gray to Gold / Carducci Associates
Special thanks to this years jury members, which included the chapter’s three (3) newest inductees to the ASLA Council of Fellows:
Patricia Algara, BASE Landscape Architecture Michael Dellis, PWP Landscape Architecture David Fletcher, Fletcher Studio Joni L. Janecki, Joni L. Janecki & Associates Caroline Souza, David Baker Architects Monica Way, Studio-MLA
Additional thanks to our ASLA-NCC Biodiversity & Climate Action Committee for selecting this year’s first award winners in the new category, of the same name.
About the ASLA Northern California Chapter The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is the national professional association for landscape architects. Founded in 1899, ASLA represents more than 17,000 members. Landscape architects lead the planning, design and stewardship of healthy, equitable, safe and resilient environments. The Northern California Chapter (NCC) is one of four chapters that represent California. The Northern California Chapter represents more than 700 landscape architects, students and affiliates. While keeping pace with the ever-changing forces of nature and technology, landscape architects have an increasingly profound impact on the way people live, work and play.
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