2018 - Ron Herman (B.L.A. '64), posthumously honored
We are sad to announce the passing of Ron Herman, a CED alumnus and landscape architect responsible for designing many of North America's largest and most intricate private gardens. We will be honoring his legacy at this year's CED Soiree.
Ron holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley and served as a graduate research student at Kyoto University from 1966-1968. He created more than 400 full-scale garden designs in his career in landscape architecture, including the 25-acre Japanese-style village of Oracle co-founder Lawrence Ellison.
2017 - AUSTIN ALLEN (B.L.A. '82)
PRINCIPAL, DESIGNJONES, LLC; ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
Austin Allen is a Principal of DesignJones, LLC, a full-service landscape architectural firm which recieved the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal of Honor for Community Service in October 2016. He focuses on community engagement practices, disaster recovery planning, and building resilient communities and green infrastructure projects.
Allen has taught as an associate professor in the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University since 2010, after serving as its inaugural Bickham Chair in 2009. Interests include recovery and regeneration of landscapes; urbanism; public space; film and media arts; and African-American cultural landscapes.Allen was also an Associate Professor of Film and Communication at Cleveland State University and an Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver.
He has worked on recovery projects in New Orleans for eleven years, particularly in the Lower Ninth Ward and the Bayou Bienvenue Wetlands Triangle, working with the community on planning and funding, administration, linking neighborhoods to wetlands and coastal restoration. His focus has been to take lessons learned from New Orleans recovery to the Historic District of Jacmel, Haiti, including work with the Haiti/New Orleans Cultural Task Force.
Allen was part of the Landscape Architecture team of the HUD/DOT Livable Claiborne Communities study for the City of New Orleans from 2012-2013. Along with colleagues from Southern University, he is currently conducting research on the Baker Canal Corridor Project. He was also part of the 2009 ASLA award winning team for the Rockefeller Park Strategic Master Plan in Cleveland, Ohio.
Allen has served in an administrative capacity at Cleveland State University including as Interim Director of First College in the School of Communication and as director of the CSU Prison Media Literacy Project. In addition, Allen served as Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Colorado Denver from 2006 through 2009, and as the MLA Graduate Program Coordinator at the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture at LSU from 2012 through 2015.
Allen recieved his BA in Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley in 1982, his Master of Arts in Mass Communication from Ohio University in 1987, and his Ph.D in Mass Communication from Ohio University in 1992.
2017 - DIANE JONES ALLEN (M.L.A '84)
PRINCIPAL LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, DESIGNJONES LLC
Diane Jones Allen, D. Eng., MLA, ASLA, RLA, has 30-years of experience in professional practice, research, and teaching, focusing on land planning, transportation planning, and park design projects, as well as community development work. Allen was a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis, School of Fine Arts, receiving a BFA in painting in 1980. After volunteering for the Neighborhood Design Center and Department of Urban Planning in Baltimore City, Maryland, she entered the College of Environmental Design and graduated with a Master of Landscape Architecture degree in 1984.
Allen became a community planner for the Maryland National Park and Planning Commission where she practiced community engagement and collaborated in a Master Plan for the Old Town Bowie, Maryland Town Center. Prior to becoming a tenured professor in Landscape Architecture at the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland in 2010, Allen was Principal Landscape Architect for TerraDesign Inc., a Louisiana based Landscape Architectural Firm for 11 years.
Terra Designs Inc. worked on several significant projects in New Orleans, including the restoration and redesign of Washington Artillery Park in the Historic French Quarter, and the expansion of the Riverfront Streetcar along Canal Street. To expand her abilities as a landscape architect in research and practice, Allen received her Doctorate in Civil Engineering with a focus in Transportation Engineering from Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland in 2014. Her dissertation titled “Operating within Transit Deserts: the Application of Just, Open and Equitable Circulator Systems within Outer Urban Neighborhoods” was the beginning of her continued research on Transit Deserts, which are places of increasing transportation demand and limited access. Allenwas also an Adjunct Professor at the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, College of Art and Design, Louisiana State University.
She has served as a member of the Baltimore City Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel (UDARP). She is currently Principal Landscape Architect with DesignJones LLC in New Orleans, Louisiana. DesignJones LLC is working on several community based projects in New Orleans, including assisting the Gordon Park Neighborhood in a plan for relocation of their homes from the Agricultural Dump on which they rest. DesignJones LLC was selected to receive the 2016 Community Service Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).
Allen’s research and practice is guided by the intersection of environmental justice, identity and sustainability in African-American cultural landscapes, including “Nomadic” responses to “Transit Deserts,” as discussed in her forth coming book, Lost in the Transit Desert: Race, Transit Access, and Suburban Form, to be published by Routledge Press. Allen received a research fellowship from the University of Chicago-based Black Metropolitan Research Consortium during the summer of 2015 to undertake research on population shifts in Chicago, which she applied to the study of Transit Deserts for her book. She is a member of the Landscape Architecture Foundation board, and participated as a panel member for the Landscape Summit which was held in June 2016 at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
2016 - KIM WILKIE (MLA 1984)
ROYAL DESIGNER FOR INDUSTRY HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS CHARTERED MEMBER OF THE LANDSCAPE INSTITUTE
Kim had an intense introduction to landscape. He grew up in the Malaysian jungle and Iraqi desert before being sent to school in southern England. Having studied history at Oxford and landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, Kim set up his landscape studio in London in 1989. He now works from his farm in Hampshire, collaborating with architects across the world, while still keeping his feet firmly in the mud.
Fascinated by the link between land and culture and between memory and imagination, he has projects across the Americas to Europe and Russia. Kim specializes in reading the patterns and stories of the land as inspiration for new design. Current projects include the redesign of the grounds for the Natural History Museum in London and a new city for 250,000 people planned around 2 miles of agricultural terraces in the Omani desert. The project will be entirely irrigated by recycled grey water.
Kim has sat on a number of United Kingdom government bodies, including the Mayor of London’s Public Realm Advisory Group and the Royal Parks Advisory Board. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2002 and made a Royal Designer for Industry in 2009. He published Led by the Land in 2012.
Kim’s practice has a reputation for bold new designs in complex historic and ecological settings, exemplified by the Orpheus landform at Boughton Park in Northamptonshire, UK. The project created a huge inverted pyramid for musical performances at the centre of a rare seventeenth-century park.
In London projects include a 100-year landscape strategy for the Thames through London, the Victoria & Albert Museum Garden, the central Hyde Park Corner interchange and projects for Imperial College. Abroad Kim has advised on the World Heritage Sites of the Solovki Archipelago in the Russian Arctic Circle and the Transylvanian Saxon Villages in Romania. He is currently working for New York University at Villa La Pietra in Florence and for Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia.
2015 - Daniel Iacofano (PH.D. Environmental Planning, 1986)
Founding Principal, MIG Inc.
Daniel Iacofano is a founding principal of MIG, Inc., known worldwide for its results-oriented creative projects and innovative research and development initiatives that enhance community livability, support revitalization, and connect people with places. His award-winning projects—addressing issues in dense urban planning and community design and transit-oriented development—have included campus development plans for UC San Francisco’s new Mission Bay Campus, the University of California at Davis, and California State University at Monterey Bay; the Napa River Flood Protection Project, which will provide flood protection to much of the City of Napa; and an unprecedented health and wellness element for the City of Richmond’s General Plan.
Iacofano is the author of Public Involvement as an Organizational Development Process (1990), Meeting of the Minds (2001), The Inclusive City: Design Solutions for Buildings, Neighborhoods and Urban Spaces (2007), and What is Your Construction Management EQ (2014).
“We are privileged to honor our colleague Dan Iacofano for his groundbreaking work in engaging communities in the planning and design of vital and equitable environments in which to live, work, and play,” said Louise Mozingo, Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning. “His advocacy for effective citizen collaborations has transformed the design and planning professions and public policy. He is an outstanding example of the CED legacy of social responsibility.”
2014 - Mark Owen Francis (B.A. Landscape Architecture, 1972)
Professor Emeritus, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design, UC Davis
Influential Landscape Architect, Mark Francis, joined the Landscape Architecture Program at UC Davis in 1980. Francis did graduate studies at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning and at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design where he earned a Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design in 1975. He earned a B.A. in Landscape Architecture with honors from UC Berkeley in 1972.
Two years after joining the Landscape Architecture Program at UC Davis in 1980, Francis became an associate professor with tenure. He became full professor in 1988. He was named Chair of the program from 1994-97. In 1983, Francis founded the Center for Design Research in the Department of Environmental Design which he directed for twenty years.
Francis works at the intersections of landscape architecture, environmental psychology, geography, art, and urban design. He focuses on spatial meaning and democracy including the theory and design of urban and community landscapes using a case study approach to study parks, gardens, public spaces and urban public life. An example of his design work is the award winning Davis Central Park and Farmer’s Market, voted the most popular farmer’s market in America by the American Farmland Trust in 2010.
Author of the landmark books "The Meaning of Gardens" (published by MIT Press in 1990) and “Public Space” (published by Cambridge University Press in 1992), Francis is a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture. He is the author of six books and over 70 articles translated into a dozen languages. His most recent book, "Village Homes: A Community by Design," was published by Island Press in 2003.
2013 - Achva Benzinberg Stein, FASLA (B.A. Landscape Architecture, 1969)
Landscape Architect; Professor of Landscape Architecture, City College of New York
Achva Benzinberg Stein is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a practicing professional who has taught and worked in the US, Europe, Israel, India and China. She is the founding Director of the Graduate program in Landscape Architecture at the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York, where she is a member of the faculty in both Landscape Architecture and Urban Design. In 2010, Professor Stein was honored with the Community Service Award by the American Society of Landscape Architects in recognition of her lifelong commitment to public design and her contribution as the Director of the City College Architectural Center, a community assistance program, which prepared designs and master plans for low income communities in the greater New York City region. The City College of New York has also honored her contributions, granting her the Outstanding Teaching Award for 2011-2012. Her projects with neighborhood groups, non-profit organizations, public housing authorities, and Government agencies focus on meeting social needs while seeking to heal the damage caused by poorly managed urban development. Her many award-winning designs include school grounds, large-scale housing projects, parks, playgrounds, hotels, community gardens and private residences. Among the various personal awards she has received are the Certificate of Commendation for Outstanding the Service to the Community from the City of Los Angeles; the Award of Distinction from the Council of Educators Landscape Architecture; the Collaborative Practice Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture; the University of Southern California Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching; and the award of Excellence from the California Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for her educational contributions to the profession. Professor Stein was twice the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, once to India in 1979 and again in 2001 to Germany.
Among her publications is the book, Morocco: Courtyards and Gardens, published by Monacelli Press, the article "On Sacred Trees and Historical Sites" published by the World Bank in the volume Historic Cities and Sacred Sites/Cultural Roots for Urban Futures; "Winter Dream" in The Next Jerusalem, edited by Michael Sorkin, and published by Monacelli Press, and the article "Thoughts Occasioned by the Old Testament" included in the book The Meaning of Gardens, edited by Mark A. Francis and Randy Hester, and published by the MIT Press. Professor Stein is the designer of the Moroccan Courtyard in the new galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and South Asia at the Metropolitan Museum of New York. The courtyard, a permanent installation, opened in November, 2011.
Other important exhibitions include "Windows of Opportunity", focusing on marginal lands in urban areas, part of the nation-wide traveling exhibition Nature Constructed/Nature Revealed; "Subjects and Objects" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art which retained one panel as part of its permanent collection; and a panel "Uhuru Garden" from the show Urban Revisions, at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and which later toured the both the US and Canada.
2012 - John L. Wong, FASLA, FAAR (B.A. Landscape Architecture, 1974)
Managing Principal & Chairman, SWA Group
John L. Wong is an internationally renowned landscape architect with considerable and diverse design experience in North America and Asia. He is currently a Principal Designer and Managing Principal for the SWA Group’s Sausalito office and also serves in the capacity of Chairman of the Board for the firm. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Institute of Urban Design and member of the Urban Land Institute. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Architecture with Honors from the College of Environmental Design, University of California at Berkeley and a Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He was a recipient of the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture from the American Academy in Rome.
Since joining SWA Group in 1976, John has designed and directed an array of prominent and sustainable projects, including designing and planning of new communities and cities; urban mixed-use commercial and office complexes; hospitality resorts and hotels; corporate and educational campuses; civic, medical and residential projects; to the landscape and urban design of major high-rise complexes and urban districts; and the crafting of public plazas and gardens throughout the world. He has collaborated with numerous renowned architects in North America, including SOM, Gensler, Pei Partnership, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, James KM Cheng Architects, Bing Thom Architects and many others. He has been a key design participant and collaborator on the groundscape for many of the world’s tallest buildings, either completed or under construction. These projects include the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (UAE); Shanghai Tower and North Bund Magnolia Plaza in Shanghai, Nanjing Greenland Financial Center in Nanjing , Zero Energy Tower in Guangzhou, Wuhan Greenland Financial Center, Wuhan (China); LG Twin Tower, LG Kangnam and Tower Palace, Seoul (Korea); Lite-on, Taipei, Taiwan and others. He has won over 90 awards and design competitions with selected projects that include the Tokyo University for Foreign Studies, Center for Contemporary Graphic Art at Uzumine (Japan); Stanford University Alumni Center, Green Library, DAPER, Cantor Center for the Visual Arts and numerous other projects within the campus; Cornell University East Hill Village, UC Davis West Village, UC Santa Cruz residential infill at Stevenson, Cowell and Porter; Bentley School, UC San Francisco Regional Medical Center, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Tarrant County College at Fort Worth (US); Burnaby Civic Square and Library, Marinaside Crescent (Canada).
John has served as a Studio Lecturer and Visiting Farrand Professor at the College of Environmental Design, Department of Landscape Architecture, UC Berkeley and a Visiting Critic in Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. His design work has been published in many design journals, publications and books. He is currently serving on the University of California Berkeley’s Design Review Committee.
2011 - Topher Delaney (B.A. Landscape Architecture, 1973)
Landscape Architect, SEAM Studio
Topher Delaney received her Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley after studying philosophy and cultural anthropology at Barnard College. Her forty-year career as an environmental artist encompasses a wide breadth of projects which focus on the exploration of our cultural interpretations of landscape architecture, public art, and the integration within the site, these spiritual precepts of “nature.” Her practice, SEAM Studio, has evolved to serve as a venue for the investigation of cultural, social, and artistic narratives “seamed” together to form dynamic physical installations.
Delaney’s projects place an emphasis on the integration of physical form with narratives referencing the currency of a site’s unique historical, cultural, physical, and environmental profiles. The text of the terrain is evidenced in the structure of these narratives, crafted by technical skill and quality of materials to create a site which will be read and interpreted by the general public.
She has been widely published in numerous periodicals and journals in addition to the offering Ten Landscapes: Topher Delaney. Delaney has received a significant number of awards and honors for her studio’s installations, which seek to balance the social stratums, the cultural perceptions of art, and the literal pragmatics of a specific site. These publications address the installations of SEAM Studio, which focus on the following themes:
- Relevance / Why and for what purpose does the subject/form of a specific public art offering exist??? As the lead artist of SEAM Studio, Delaney, due to her training in cultural anthropology, emphasizes the importance of the site’s historical research both geologically/geographically and culturally. What is the evidence of these historical antecedents in the current expression of public art?
- Renewal / The team @ SEAM Studio strives to create the effect and affect of a site’s grounding and remediation, offering our public an accessible, intimate sanctuary in which to engage, observe, and recalibrate their perception of their relationship to the site and the community in which the public art is located. As the lead artist of SEAM Studio, Delaney, due to her training in landscape architecture and sculpture, emphasizes the integration of a broad spectrum of mediums which are integrated seamlessly together to offer a unique environmental experience.
- Reflection / What engages our communities in reflecting upon public art? As the lead artist of SEAM Studio, Delaney seeks to activate through the evocation of references embedded in the art forms, both literal and metaphorical, an enjoyment of personal and communal recognition.
- Evidence of the Hand / As the lead artist of SEAM Studio, Delaney has directed the construction of virtually all her installations. Of particular interest to Delaney is the evocation of the “hand” within her art. Visible excellence in the construction of installations, be they quilts, metal sculptures, concrete sculptures, stone sculptures, or terrazzo wall murals, all reference expressions of the arts which demonstrate the extra-ordinary.
2010 - Michael R. Painter, FASLA (B.S. Landscape Architecture, 1956)
President, MPA Design
Michael Painter’s interest in landscape architecture began with a part-time job doing site construction as a high school student with the Southern California design/build firm Hahn & Hoffman. He earned a degree in landscape architecture from UC Berkeley in 1956, working summers with Hahn & Hoffman to finance his studies. As a junior at Berkeley, Painter was recommended by faculty member Mai Arbegast for part-time work at Lawrence Halprin & Associates, and he joined the firm full-time upon graduation. In Halprin’s office Painter worked on projects including the Golden Gate Baptist Seminary in Marin, a consulate in Japan, and residential gardens.
John Carl Warnecke & Associates, a well-known San Francisco architectural firm, invited Painter to become their in-house landscape architect. Painter became an associate and then a partner, and worked on numerous projects in the Bay Area, Hawaii, and Washington D.C.: notably, Asilomar, the College of San Mateo, the Mauna Kea Hotel Master Plan, the Honolulu Civic Center, Lafayette Park, and the John F. Kennedy Gravesite. During these years, Painter earned his master’s degree in urban design from Harvard while continuing to work part-time with the Warnecke firm.
After 11 years with the Warnecke firm and a brief association with Peter Walker, Painter opened his own practice, Michael Painter & Associates, which became MPA Design in 1984. Throughout over 40 years of experience Painter has offered design development strategies and solutions for hundreds of projects in the Bay Area, U.S., and abroad. His work has been recognized with numerous awards from the ASLA, AIA, and Lambda Alpha. The most enjoyable award was presented by Painter’s favorite first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, in the White House Rose Garden.
Significant projects during Painter’s career include: San Francisco’s Great Highway and Ocean Beach; AT&T Administrative Center, San Ramon; Genentech Campus, South San Francisco; Children’s Playground in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; and Hewlett-Packard Campus, Grenoble, France. His most significant current project is the Presidio Parkway, which will create a safe and scenic route between San Francisco and Marin while also creating park connections between the Presidio’s Main Post and Crissy Field. Painter’s inspiration for this project goes back 22 years, when he served on the Exploratorium Board and first got a good look at the neighborhood from the roof of the Palace of Fine Arts.
Painter continues as president of MPA and remains active in civic organizations. He serves on the advisory committee for SPUR and on the board of the Foundation for San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage. Painter and his wife Sue have two children, Melissa and Joshua, and a grandson, Alonzo.
2009 - Moura Quayle (M.L.A., 1983)
Professor, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia
Moura Quayle’s work is centered on urban landscape, including the public realm, urban ecology, greenways, public ways, and streets. With a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of Guelph (1974) and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley (1983), Quayle is the author of numerous academic, technical, and professional reports ranging from design education to community and public landscapes.
She has lectured nationally and internationally and has been frequently called upon in an advisory capacity at the local, provincial, national, and international levels. Quayle is also commissioner of the Pacific Coast Collaborative Commission of the Province of British Columbia in Canada.
Throughout Quayle’s professional and academic career, her transformative leadership has been demonstrated in strategic projects undertaken at the institutional, organizational, legislative, and municipal level. In 1992, as chair of Vancouver’s Urban Landscape Task Force, Quayle established a city-wide process of consultation on urban landscape that resulted in the implementation of the city’s Greenways program.
In 1997, Quayle was appointed dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she devoted the next eight years (1997-2005) to working to restructure the faculty and reconfigure all faculty systems. The result was a complete rebranding to the newly established Faculty of Land and Food Systems. During this time (March 2004 to June 2005), Quayle also held the position of Associate Vice President, UBC Okanagan Programs, where she was responsible for overseeing the development of the academic plan and blueprint for UBC Okanagan.
She has won awards for her research, for excellence in teaching, and for professional practice design and service. In 2004, Quayle received a Doctor of Science (Honoris causa), in recognition of her outstanding academic leadership, her contributions to the professional community of landscape architecture, and her work on agricultural issues in contemporary society.
2007 - William Byrd Callaway (B.Larch., 1966)
Board Member, SWA Group
Bill Callaway was born in 1943 and raised in Courtland, California, on a Sacramento River Delta ranch that his family has farmed since 1850. In 1967, as the first in his family to go to college, he graduated from Cal with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree, spent six months in the Marine Corps Reserve, and reported for work at Sasaki Walker Associates (SWA) in San Francisco. In 1969 he went to Harvard Graduate School of Design for a Master of Landscape Architecture degree, completed in 1971, and returned to SWA, which had changed its name to SWA Group and moved to Sausalito. In 1994 he was made a Fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects. He was named President of SWA in 1992 and Chief Executive Officer in 2002. SWA was awarded the ASLA Firm Award in 2005.
During the forty years with SWA Bill has been a designer, urban designer, and physical planner. Among his projects are Concord Pavilion; Oakland City Center; Fireman's Fund Headquarters; IBM Almaden Research Center and Refugio Valley Park in the Bay Area; Columbus, Indiana, City Hall; The Georgia World Congress Plaza in Atlanta; and Filinvest City, Tuen Mun, and Beijing new towns in Asia.
Bill is married to Barbara Meacham (UC Berkeley M.L.A. ’73) and has four children: Amy (UC Berkeley B.A. ’94), Peter (UC Berkeley B.A. ’97), Catherine (UC Davis B.S. ’09) and Andrew (San Francisco Art Institute B.F.A. ’11). His first grandchild was born three months ago.
2006 - Asa Hanamoto (B.S. Landscape Architecture, 1950)
Founding Partner, Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey (RHAA)
A graduate of the University of California with a B.S. in Landscape Architecture in 1950, Asa Hanamoto was a Founding Partner at the office of Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey, one of the founding firms in the modern landscape architectural movement.
While at CED, Asa was a student of Robert Royston (B.S. ‘40 and Distinguished Alumnus in 2000). Royston had teamed with fellow landscape architects Garrett Eckbo and Ed Williams to form the Landscape architecture firm Eckbo Royston & Williams. This partnership grew and changed over 34 years to evolve into Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey. With a distinguished career spanning more than 40 years, Asa’s work includes major land and community planning, such as the Willamette River Greenway Study, park and recreational design, as well as campus and public realm oriented projects throughout the United States and abroad.
He is one of the pioneers in the contemporary practice of Landscape Architecture. And at a time when Environmental Impact Reports and other similar reports were not yet invented, Mr. Hanamoto led both the firm and the profession in outstanding and innovative land use studies and environmental assessments.
From 1984 through 1988, Asa was appointed to serve on the Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board of the American Society of Landscape Architects. In 1984, he was made a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. He also served on the State of California, Board of Landscape Architects oral examination panel and as a Subject Matter Expert to the Council of Landscape Architectural Licensing.
He has been a visiting lecturer at UC Berkeley, the National University of Mexico, the University of Illinois, and Mississippi State University. From 1976 to 1984, he was appointed to the Roster of Visiting Evaluators (ROVE) for schools of Landscape Architecture.
He created and sustained an increasingly complex and varied practice, beginning in the days when there were very few practicing landscape architects. As a founder and partner in the firm of Royston Hanamoto Alley and Abey, Asa's impact on the field of landscape architecture for over four decades is truly inspiring.
2005 - Christophe Girot (M.Arch., 1986; M.L.A., 1988)
Chair of Landscape Architecture, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
Christophe Girot earned both a Master of Architecture ('86) and a Master of Land Architecture ('88) from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. After finishing his studies Girot taught various studios across the globe from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the Royal School of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, the Institute for Urban Design in Stuttgart, to the ETSAB in Barcelona. Now Girot is a Full Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the Department of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH). Girot's research focuses on three central topics: new topological methods in landscape design, new media in landscape analysis and perception, and recent history and theory of landscape design. Additionally, Girot's extensive line of work includes Invaliden Park in Berlin, several projects in Paris, and the publication and exhibition of "Groundswell." Now practicing landscape architecture in Zurich, Girot is also currently working on 80 hectares Parco di Castello in Florence, the 18 hectare Deposito di Sigirino for Alp Transit in Tessin, and garden resort in Marrakesh. Girot is currently on the curatorial board of the IBA Hamburg 2013 which is developing topics on the future of the coastal metropolis.
2004 - Mario G. Schjetnan (M.L.A., 1970)
Founding Partner, Grupo de diseño urbano
Mario Schjetnan was born in Mexico City in 1945. His interests in 20th century modern architecture, pre-Columbian myth, and colonial history have its roots in his parents' professions: hi father was an architect, professor, and golf course designer while his mother was involved in literature and theater. From an early age he showed great interest in architecture; specifically, Mexican Modern Architecture led by Luis Barragán, Max Cetto, and Mario Pani. The Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City motivated him to design for social needs through Mexico's federal institute for worker's housing agency INFONAVIT. In 1970, Schjetnan earned his Master of Landscape Architecture from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley in 1970. Following his work on public housing, he founded his own firm Grupo de Diseño Urbano/GDU with José Luis Pérez. He is known for working with low budgets, basic materials, and modest details while delivering end-products that link public spaces, individual memory, public history together in harmony. Schjetnan's work weaves architecture, urbanism, and nature in his many projects including Malinalco House which won the 2007 ASLA Professional Awards Residential Design Honor Award. In 1985 he was honored with a Loeb Fellowship in Advanced Environmental Studies at the Harvard Design School. Schjetnan's many achievements include: Prince of Wales/Green Prize in Urban Design for Xochimilco, ASLA President's Award for Excellence for Parque El Cedazo, Latin American Grand Prix from the Biennale in Architecture in Buenos Aires, Gold Medal from the Mexican Biennale of Architecture for Culhuacán Historical Park, and an honorary PhD from the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo León in 1995.
2003 - Diane Kostial McGuire (B.S. Landscape Architecture, 1954; M.S. Landscape Architecture, 1956)
Diane Kostial McGuire graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with both her undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Landscape Architecture and Master of Science in Landscape Architecture. Following her studies and building her career as a landscape architect McGuire became Principal at McGuire and Watson, a New England-based consulting firm for landscape architects and site planners. She is recognized for her keen aesthetic sense, design philosophy, knowledge as a landscape historian, and command of construction materials. Given her multiple roles as a scholar, teacher, she is a leader and model for all women pursuing landscape architecture. In 1965 she founded Radcliffe Seminars Landscape Design Program at Radcliffe College where she served as Director for five years. The program encouraged women to become career-oriented professionals. She has also served as an Advisor to the Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks and published a few books including: "Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes: Her Gardens and Campuses," "Beatrix Farrand's Plant Book for Dumbarton Oaks," "Beatrix Jones Farrand, 1872-1959: Fifty Years of American Landscape Architecture," and "Gardens of America: Three Centuries of Design." McGuire currently serves on the Board of the Beatrix Farrand Society. Photo: Liz Linder Photography
2003 - Peter Walker, FASLA (B.S. Landscape Architecture, 1955)
Partner, PWP Landscape Architecture
With a career spanning five decades, Peter Walker continues to have a profound international influence on the field of environmental design. He is the founder of PWP Landscape Architecture (formerly known as Peter Walker and Partners), a Berkeley-based landscape architecture firm with a commitment to dynamic and sustainable solutions for constructed systems and environments. Over the years, PWPLA has created numerous prize-winning and iconic designs, ranging from small gardens to complete master plans. Walker served as co-designer with Michael Arad to the National September 11th Memorial, unveiled this past September. Before founding PWPLA, Walker co-founded the firm Sasaki, Walker, and Associates (est. 1957). His career also includes a significant role as an educator, serving as acting director of the urban design program and chairman of the landscape architecture department at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as head of the landscape architecture department at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design. He has also served as advisor and consultant on numerous projects, including the Redevelopment Agency of San Francisco and the American Academy in Rome. Over many years, PWP has explored the issue of horizontality in a number of projects. We see horizontality as a metaphor for the earth, an abstraction of the way we perceive the landscape. Many of these projects — some light-hearted and experimental, others more serious — led to conceptual insights that informed the design at the World Trade Center Memorial in New York City, which Walker will discuss in his lecture.
2002 - Mai K. Arbegast (M.L.A., 1953)
Arbegast graduated from Oberlin College in 1945, and earned an M.S. degree in Ornamental Horticulture from Cornell University in 1949 as well as a M.S. in Landscape Architecture from Berkeley in 1953.She taught both full and part time at Berkeley in the Department of Landscape Architecture from 1953 to 1967. During that time she maintained a part time professional practice. In 1967, she gave up teaching and began a full time professional practice that continued through 2003. Arbegast was involved in the design of large scale residential gardens/estates, wineries, in addition to commercial, educational and public projects. In addition to her professional practice, Arbegast has been a member and trustee of many boards and foundations. Arbegast played a key role in the gift of the Blake Garden to the UC Berkeley Department of Landscape Architecture and the transfer of Filoli Gardens to the National Trust. She was largely responsible for the donation of the Beatrix Farrand Collection and Gertrude Jekyll Collection as well as the Farrand scholarship and fellowship funds to the UC Berkeley Department of Landscape Architecture.
2001 - Shlomo Aronson (B.Larch., 1964)
Partner, Shlomo Aronson Architects
Shlomo Aronson was born in Haifa, Israel. He earned a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 and Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1966. His earlier membership include: The Architects' Collaborative in Cambridge, Massachusetts and The Greater London Council in 1966-67; Architecture Department from 1966-67; Jerusalem City Engineer's Department in 1968; Chairman of the Israel Associates of Landscape Architects from 1991 to 1998. In 1969 Aronson founded the multi-disciplinary firm Shlomo Aronson and Associates. The office includes landscape architects, architects, and urban planners. His work is recognized for its attention to moral and historical issues of place, culture, as well as the cultural and environmental relationships of the region and site. His work incorporates "modern aesthetic into an ancient landscape." His portfolio includes an extensive array of projects under the fields of: Landscape Planning (master plan for the Yatir Forst, Beit Govrin National park), Archaeological Parks (Kidron Valley - Yad Avshalom, Caesarea), National and Regional Planning (Negev tourist development plan, master plan for the Judean Hills region), Urban Planning (Lavon, Beit Shemesh), Architecture (Nes Harim, Talpiot), Historical Preservation (Abu Gosh, Shaar Hagai Inn), Landscape Architecture (Central Plaza of Tel Aviv University, Malha Park, Trotner Park), Transportation and Engineering (Ben Shemen interchange, Central Garden at Ben-Gurion International Airport). Aronson's numerous awards and achievements include: 1990 Gold Medal and Best Design Award, Osaka Expo, 1996 Represented Israel in the International Biennale in Venice, for Shaar Hagai Interchange, Nazareth, 2000 Jerusalem Prize for Architecture, 2005 General Design Award of Honor, American Society of Landscape Architects, for Ben Gurion International Airport, Lod, Israel, and 2011 Global Award for Sustainable Architecture [Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris & Fondation LOCUS]. Aronson now lives and works in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem.
2001 - Orlando Diaz-Azcuy (M.L.A., 1968)
Founder, Orlando Diaz-Azcuy Design Associates
Orlando Diaz-Azcuy was born in Cuba. He continued his studies in the United States where he received a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning and a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture both from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1976 to 1987 Diaz-Azcuy worked as a design principal for Gensler and Associates Architects where he made a reputation for his work on landmark projects that include the interiors for the Levis Strauss Company headquarters in San Francisco and the United Bank of Denver headquarters in Denver. In 1985, he launched his own, part-time design studio. In 1987 he worked almost completely on Orlando Diaz-Azcuy Designs, Inc. Diaz-Azcuy's firm expanded with a second office in New York City in 2001. He is praised for his work on projects that include: Levin residence, Vainio residence, Lavan-Adams residence, Sir Michael Kadoorie residence, Wester Athletic Club facilities, Folger Levin & Kahn, Morgan Capital Management, Spa and Pool of the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, The Peninsula Phuket Hotel, Masa restaurant, and the offices of Horsley Bridge International. On the design front, Diaz-Azcuy has also been active with several collections for: McGuire Furniture Co., HBF, Stow Davis, and many others.
2000 - Clare Cooper Marcus (M.C.P., 1965)
Professor Emerita of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, UC Berkeley
Clare Cooper Marcus has lectured and consulted in the United States, Canada, Britain, Scandinavia, Australia, and China. Her areas of special interest include medium-density housing, public housing modernization, public open-space design, children’s environments, housing for the elderly, post-occupancy evaluation of designed settings, design guidelines, healing environments, and the psychological meaning of home and garden. She has written four books and has contributed numerous articles to design and academic journals. Honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Award for Exemplary Design Research, a Career Award of the Environmental Design Research Association, and a Guggenheim Award.
2000 - Robert Royston (B.S. Landscape Architecture, 1940)
Robert Royston graduated from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley with a B.S. Landscape Architecture degree in 1940. Post-graduation Royston became a full-time employee at the office of Thomas Church. He was given major projects such as the Valencia Gardens Housing Project in the Mission District, the Potrero Hill Housing project, and the large Park Merced Apartment complex. With the outbreak of World War II, Royston joined the United States Navy. During his spare time he would go through design ideas, models of residential gardens, and creating jewelry from scrap materials. Upon his return to the Bar Area he co-founded the firm Eckbo, Royston, and Williams. His early work of residential site planning and garden design is concentrated in Northern California and eventually expanded to include parks, plazas, and planned residential communities. His work is recognized for its non-axial spaces, bold asymmetrical arcs and polygons, and the integration of design form with human use. From his work on planned residential communities he developed the concept of "landscape matrix" which is defined as “the linking of open space as a continuous system throughout the community establishing a strong framework whereby communities are controlled and given form.” For some time Royston was also active in the world of academia as he lectured at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, North Carolina State University, and twenty other colleges and universities across the country. His numerous awards include: Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects; The American Institute of Architects Medal in 1978; and the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal in 1989.
1999 - Francis Violich (B.S. Landscape Architecture, 1934)
Francis Violich was born in San Francisco home near the Golden Gate Park where his early interest in landscape architecture is rooted. He graduated from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley in 1934 with a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture degree. Violich further continued his studies at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied city planning and the development of urban places and social inequity respectively. In 1941 Violich became a faculty member of both the Department of Landscape Architecture and the Planning Department. Under his dual roles as both faculty member and chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture (1962-64), he emphasized the use of comprehensive approaches to land use planning and urban design at the local level while also stressing the relationships between social and cultural issues. Violich also led the formation of an interdisciplinary environmental group with strong social concerns named Telsis. Telesis laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Department of City and Regional Planning (he is recognized as cofounder of the department) and later the formation of the College of Environmental Design. In 2001 Telesis was honored with the national historical landmark status by the American Planning Association which praised the group for "bring[ing] multiple fields together successfully in a comprehensive approach to environmental development in a regional context." In 1976 Violich retired from the University after twenty-seven years of service. Despite his retirement he remained active in the field; in 1998 his book "The Bridge to Dalmatia: A Search for the Meaning of Place" was published. Violich enjoyed participatory planning of Berkeley's general plan, downtown, waterfront, restoration of parks, the UC Berkeley campus, San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway replacement, and the redesign of the Ferry Building Plaza.
1999 - Richard Haag (B.S. Landscape Architecture, 1950)
Founder, Richard Haag Associates Inc.
Richard Haag is most famous for his award-winning work including the Gas Works Park in Seattle and the Bloefel Reserve on Brainbridge Island in Washington. Haag studied landscape architecture at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Landscape Architecture in 1950. Haag further continued his studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he earned his Master of Arts degree in Landscape Architecture. Following his studies he became a faculty member at the University of Washington where he was successful in founding a Landscape Architecture Department (1964). He also established his own design company Richard Haag Associates, based in Seattle, where he worked on over five hundred designs and planning projects. Haag's other notable work include: Victor Steinbrueck Park in Seattle, Jordan Park in Washington, North Waterfront Park in Berkeley, Washington Pass Overlook & Visiting Center in Washington, and the Okanogan National Forest in Washington. Among his numerous awards and achievements are: the only person ever to receive the ASLA President's Award for Design Excellence twice, publication of "Richard Haag: Bloedel Reserve and Gas Works Park," and recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship in Japan.
1998 - Garrett Eckbo (B.S. Landscape Architecture, 1935)
Garrett Eckbo was born in New York. During his formative years Eckbo moved from Illinois, California, and Norway before returning to California for college. He graduated from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley in 1935 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Landscape Architecture. Following a one-year employment at Armstrong Nurseries Eckbo entered Harvard University's Graduate School of Design through a scholarship competition he won. While at Harvard Eckbo was influenced by Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy and Kasimir Malevich. After graduating from Harvard with his MLA degree in 1938 Eckbo worked for the Farm Security Administration where he worked on designing camps for migrant agricultural workers in the Central Valley. A few years later Eckbo, along with his brother, founded the firm Eckbo, Royston, and Williams which specializes in residential gardens, planned community developments, urban plazas, churches, and college campuses. He also became a partner at Eckbo, Dean, Austin and Williams in 1964 and Garrett Eckbo and Associates and Eckbo Kay Associates in 1979. His works are recognized today for the layering and massing of plants and the overall sense of movement within the piece while maintaining a social, ecological, and cultural approach to his design process.