World Landscape Architecture is very proud to have eight jurors join the jury for the 2020 WLA Awards. It was particularly hard to select a jury from over 24 nominations. There expertise and knowledge will be utilised the entries in the various categories. Jurors were selected from a diverse range of backgrounds and locations from across the world. Below you can find out more about each juror:
Claire Martin – Associate Director – OCULUS
Claire Martin is a landscape architect and Associate Director of OCULUS’ Melbourne studio where she has led the successful delivery of a range of education, health, cultural, infrastructure and public landscape projects. She is a Director of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects’ Board, a member of the Office of the Victorian Government Architect’s Victorian Design Review Panel, and a contributing editor of Landscape Architecture Australia. Claire is a regular guest lecturer at the Schools of Architecture & Design at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University where she has taught as an invited critic and a member of the Landscape Architecture Industry Advisory Committee. She was a Co-Creative Director of This Public Life, the Australian Institute of Landscape Architecture’s Festival of Landscape Architecture, which brought together thinkers and practitioners from the arts and sciences.
Daniel Woodroffe – Principal – dwg.
As president and design director of dwg., Daniel has practiced landscape architecture in central Texas for over 20 years. Through his award-winning firm, he has amassed a wealth of experience that focuses on the urban architectural landscape where his work expresses the role and importance of creating exceptional designs that are socially, environmentally and economically equitable and resilient.
Daniel is an Austin 40 Under 40 Award for Design & Architecture winner and he is a current board member with AIA Austin and with the Downtown Austin Alliance and has previously served as the chair of the Austin Parks Foundation and the Waterfront Planning and Advisory Board. Daniel has been recognized for his commitment to community service in 2018 from the SMPS and from ASLA in 2014.
He holds and Bachelors and Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1998 and is presently licensed in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Alabama.
Deborah Nagan – Director – Uncommon Land
Deborah is a built environment and landscape professional with over 28 years of global design experience, working at micro and macro scales on projects ranging from horticulture and architectural detailing through to area-wide planning. Holding senior posts at Martha Schwartz Partners, EDAW/AECOM, and now Uncommon Land, Deborah’s project work has ranged from minor installations to city design, with notable examples including work on the Crossrail project in London, and the University of Warwick’s Faculty of Arts landscaping.
Deborah has been a Design Council Built Environment Expert and a member of the Southwark and Wandsworth design review panels for many years. Her longstanding participation in design review has informed her perception of the pivotal role of a design professional for projects at all stages, from procuring land, advising a wider design team, master planning, working with planners and other stakeholders, moving through the work stages to post-occupancy evaluation.
Jack Qian – Founder & Director – Gossamer 怡境国际
Jack founded Gossamer 怡境国际 as an internationally managed division of the GVL Group. He is a multidisciplinary designer of over 13 years and an Australian Registered Landscape Architect with a background in graphic, industrial and digital media design. Born in Shanghai and raised in Australia, Jack was a former Director of McGregor Coxall and has worked with some of the worlds leading consultancies, delivering a diverse range of award-winning projects across all sectors and scales.
Luc Wallays – Creative Director – OMGEVING
Luc is a landscape architect and spatial planner and has been lead designer at OMGEVING since 2002.
Previously, he gained 28 years of experience as lead designer and team leader of several Dutch design companies. He can fall back on a rich experience in a wide range of design projects. His career is marked by a constant drive for innovation and improvement. In addition to a pure design attitude, Luc is also highly interested in organizing planning processes for complex assignments. He shares his fascination for the profession by being present on many juries and by acting as a guest lecturer in many courses concerning public space.
He gained broad experience in projects of different scales and themes. Since June 2014 Luc is CEO of OMGEVING.
Maria Debije Counts – Knowledge Manager, Landscape Architecture – Perkins and Will
Maria Debije Counts is a Knowledge Manager for Perkins and Will based out of the Miami studio. She serves the global team on projects ranging in scope and scale across a variety of market sectors and practice areas as well as through developing strategy, critical analysis, applied knowledge, and shared resources. Her work seeks to expand the experiential range of landscapes as agents of well-being at the scale of the site. She was a 2018 Van Alen Grant awardee for her project, “Sonic City: Visualizing Spaces in Urban Places”. She is also a design educator and has previously taught at IIT, Clemson University, NYU, the City College of New York, and Penn State. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from Cornell University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Counts’ experience in education includes serving as a design critic and jury member at Florida International University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigne, Parsons, and Yale University. Her student work has received two national ASLA honor awards in Communications and been published in three of the Representing Landscapes series books edited by Nadia Amoroso including Representing Landscapes: Analogue (2019), Representing Landscapes: Hybrid (2016) and Representing Landscapes: Digital (2015). She has served on the Board of CELA (Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture) as a Regional Director for regions six and nine.
Michelle Delk – Partner / Discipline Director – Snøhetta
Michelle Delk is a passionate champion and designer of the urban public realm. Based in New York City, Michelle is a Partner and Landscape Architect with Snøhetta. Her work is trans-disciplinary, evocative, and representative of a simple foundational premise shared with Snøhetta: to create places that enhance the positive relationships between people and their environments. Both aspirational and pragmatic, her work reveals and complements the sublime qualities of embedded beauty and rational functionality within the constructed environment.
Michelle’s enthusiasm is reflected in her commitment to design and leadership within her firm and community. She is an active board member for the Urban Design Forum in New York City, a member of The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s Stewardship Council, and lectures at conferences, universities, and communities throughout the world. Since 2001, her range of work around North America spans from small urban plazas to public parks and large-scale master plans. Currently, she leads several efforts with Snøhetta, including the design of the Willamette Falls Riverwalk in Oregon, a transformation of a 22-acre post-industrial site; as well as a re-imagining of the 20-acre Blaisdell Center in Central Honolulu; and the re-imagined design of a significant public plaza in midtown Manhattan.
Tao Zhang – Principal – Sasaki
Trained as an ecologist and landscape architect, Tao is active in the arena of ecological design, striving to bridge the gap between practice and science. As well as being mindful and invested in the creative expression, he seeks inspiration from a deep understanding of the socio-ecological context. Tao is an integral part of Sasaki’s strong global practice and has led a number of award-winning projects and research initiatives. He has published in multiple peer-reviewed journals and frequently speaks at conferences around the world. Besides practice, he has also taught at Rhode Island School of Design and has been a visiting studio critic at Harvard Graduate School of Design, MIT, and multiple other universities in the US and abroad.
Find out about how you can enter the 2020 WLA Awards
