World Landscape Architecture is very proud that the 2023 WLA Professional Awards jury includes six professionals (private and public practice) from around the world with various backgrounds and experiences.
We are excited to announce the 2023 WLA Professional Awards jury. We wish them luck
in selecting the winners from the entries, with registrations have been extended to Wednesday, March
22 and submissions close on March 24, 2023. Find out more about each juror
below.
Anna Cawrse, ASLA, Principal, Denver Office Co-Director
Anna Cawrse is a Principal and the Co-Director of Sasaki’s Denver Office. Anna has dedicated her career to weaving nature, culture, and history into urban landscapes. At every scale, she is committed to engaging communities and strives to create designs that reflect both the current and future communities’ needs. Anna excels at transitioning master planning of the public realm into realized space. Whether it’s a regional park along a major waterway or a small plaza nestled within the urban fabric, Anna leads complex built projects and master plans across North America and Europe. Some of her notable projects include Bonnet Springs Park in Lakeland, FL, which transformed an abandoned railyard into Florida’s own Central Park; the implementation of University Lakes in Baton Rouge, LA, an ambitious project to set the six-lake system on a more ecologically sustainable and recreationally rich future; and The Ellinikon Metropolitan Park, Athens, Greece, which will be Europe’s largest urban waterfront park. Anna holds a master of landscape architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a bachelor of science in landscape architecture from Colorado State University.
Jennifer Cooper, RLA, Landscape Architecture Bureau Manager – San Francisco Public Works
Jennifer Cooper is the Landscape Architecture Bureau Manager at San Francisco Public Works managing a team of over twenty landscape architects designing award winning public open space. She leverages her background in landscape and ecology to envision a more resilient future for San Francisco. Jennifer practiced in the private sector and academia for twenty years before leading the team at Public Works. She received her MLA from the Harvard GSD and BLA from Clemson University. She has published articles internationally and was the winner of the Bradford Williams Medal for Journalism in Landscape Architecture Magazine.
Mohan Rao, Partner and Principal Designer INDÉ
Mohan Rao is the founder and principal designer at INDÉ, a research-based multi-disciplinary practice based in Bangalore, India. With a degree in Architecture from Bangalore University (1991) and a Master’s in Landscape Architecture (1993) under the tutelage of Professor Mohammed Shaheer at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India, Mohan started his independent practice in 1994. Initially focused on Landscape design, his practice (later known as Integrated Design or INDÉ) has substantially expanded its horizons to include environmental design, regional planning and landscape conservation across scales and geographies. His work is rooted in exploring and expanding the limits of disciplinary engagement to steward a process that is holistic, contextual, and inclusive. Mohan is well-known in academic and professional circles, both national and international, that intersects the domains of ecology and sustainability, social and natural ecology and water and human settlements. Amongst his peers, he is known as a pioneer in sustainable water management and landscape conservation in India.
Kate Tooke, ASLA, PLA, Principal, Agency Landscape + Planning
Kate Tooke, a landscape architect and principal of Agency Landscape + Planning, has focused her career on the intersection of community and public space. She leverages a diverse background as an educator, an engineer and a landscape architect into a practice unabashedly passionate about connecting people to the urban environment. Kate’s listening-oriented approach to project leadership as well as her strategic thinking, design eye, and technical acumen have been instrumental in the success of diverse projects ranging from master planning to site-scale work and extending coast to coast. While a Principal at Sasaki, Kate led the design of Boston City Hall Plaza and Copley Square, Alabama’s Gulf State Park and Los Angeles’ Wilmington Waterfront Promenade, among others. Her work with Agency includes Lexington’s Town Branch Park, the Mill River Park in Stamford, and the Charlestown Navy Yard.
Gerwin de Vries, owner of Flux landscape architecture and landscape architect
Gerwin de Vries is a landscape architect and owner of Flux landscape architecture, an office for landscape architecture in Utrecht. The work of Flux contains different scales, from design research to concrete spatial designs for landscapes and public spaces. Projects are related to themes such as climate change, new forms of ecology and circular economy. The design team of 22 people consists of landscape architects, urban planners and designers. Some of Flux’s projects include Green Vision Eindhoven (Eindhoven municipality 2021), Stadspark Do rd rec ht (municipality of Dordrecht 2022) and Utrechts Heuvelland (province of Utrecht 2021). The projects NPD strip, Werkspoor Cathedral and Park ter Walle Menen have been successfully executed.
In 2006, Gerwin won the first prize in the International Archiprix and received a starting grant from the Fonds BKVB (in 2008 and 2009) and in 2014 was selected for the short list of the Prix de Rome. Gerwin is involved as a lecturer in teaching at HKU Spatial Design Utrecht, TU Delft and at the Academy of Architecture Amsterdam.
Mike Wood, FLI, Director, Landscape Architecture, Arup
Mike is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute, UK. He has extensive global experience in the design and delivery of a diverse range of public, mixed use and private projects in the UK, Singapore/S.E.A, China and Australia. He is now based in London as the Director for Arup Landscape having spent considerable time living and practicing in Singapore and Sydney. Mike is particularly interested in engaging with natural systems and the integration of these within our streets and public realm and is known for a creative approach to ecological/sustainable landscape design. This includes the integration of landscape with engineering and architecture to create distinctive contemporary places with a strong ecological character.
Mike believes that all landscape propositions are required to be particularly responsive to place, people and natural systems and must be driven by concepts of robustness, flexibility, resilience, and sustainability such that they can meet all of their aspirations and the needs of the community.