Landscape Forms is proud to congratulate Victor Cizik, Adriel Jimenez, and Najla Said Lopez, the 2022 scholarship recipients from the Landscape Forms’ and Landscape Architecture Foundation’s annual scholarship program.
Since 2007, Landscape Forms has partnered with the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) to offer annual scholarships for distinguished undergraduate landscape architecture students. Landscape Forms believes in the positive impact landscape architects can have on the environment and society’s connection to it, and sees the scholarship program as an invaluable opportunity to support, celebrate and elevate the rising leaders in their industry. Through its annual scholarships, Landscape Forms seeks to open up new opportunities to increase the capacity and influence of the next generation of landscape architects in order to create a more just, inclusive, creative and sustainable future for the profession.
Najla Said Lopez, recipient of the 15th annual Landscape Forms Scholarship in Memory of Peter Schaudt, FASLA, is a fourth-year landscape architecture student at the University of Florida with varied interests and a diverse professional background brought together by a passion for helping those in need. “I enjoy how landscape architecture combines science, nature and art,” Najla describes. “I think it’s a very powerful field—after immigrating to Miami from Jordan, I’ve worked in a refugee resettlement agency and a children’s mental health crisis unit, and I’ve come to realize that in whatever line of work I’m doing, I want to be helping people. In landscape architecture, I’m inspired by the way that a connection to and love for nature is universal. And in improving sustainability, equity-based design, and advocating for equitable access to green spaces, I think we can serve underprivileged communities in really important ways.”
Victor Cizik, one of two recipients of this year’s Landscape Forms Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholarship, is a third-year landscape architecture student at the University of Connecticut who seeks a future for streetscapes and urban design that is more sustainable, more pedestrian friendly, and filled with the beauty of nature. “Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved being outside in nature. I knew that in my studies and in my career, I would be involved with nature in some way, but initially I just wasn’t sure how,” Victor recalls. “But in landscape architecture, I found a way to share this passion and provide opportunities especially for low-income communities to experience the inspiration and beauty that I find outside. I have a preference for naturalistic landscape design—solutions that accentuate the existing forms and patterns found in nature—and my goal is to introduce better ways to express these ideas in the urban streetscape.”
Adriel Jimenez, the co-recipient of this year’s Landscape Forms Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholarship, is a landscape architecture student at the University of Florida inspired by regenerative landscape design utilizing 3D modeling programs, data from GIS, CAD, and site-specific local research. “I’m inspired by the idea of using local context to inform landscape design—combining an area’s cultural heritage and natural features and expressing this in the landscape,” says Adriel. “For my capstone, I’m interested in the idea of replanting mangroves on the Florida coast as a way of using native, natural solutions to combat the catastrophes of climate change. As a society, we’ve disconnected from our roots and our attachment to nature, so I think rebuilding these connections is a crucial step in solving the problems we currently face.”
“I am incredibly proud of Adriel, Najla, and Victor for the level of passion that all display, and what this means for the future of landscape architecture,” says Landscape Forms’ Chief Executive Officer, Margie Simmons. “We see our scholarship program as an investment in the future of the profession, and its impact on the world we live in. Through this program and our other support for the Landscape Architecture Foundation, we want to ensure that the profession continues to thrive and that its outstanding individual contributions can be recognized.”
Landscape Forms is a proud WLA Sponsor