WLA recently announced the winners of the 2024 WLA Student Awards. We would like to thank the jury for their time and professionalism in judging this years awards and hope that they enjoyed the process and opportunity to see the amazing student work from universities across the world. Learn more about the jury:
Elisa C. Cattaneo
High Qualified Professor of Theory of Contemporary Architectural Design at Politecnico di Milano.
Ph. D. Arch. Elisa C. Cattaneo is an Italian landscape designer, theorist, and educator, recognized for her innovative approach to experimental ecological design and its theoretical implications. Since 2002, she has been the principal of her firm, leading public projects and international competitions.
Visiting Scholar at MIT and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, she investigates landscape as an exploratory discipline of contemporary, redefining conventional design methods to uncover new aesthetics and codifications.
Her approach is grounded in her definition of “weakness theory” (WeakCity, 2015), which has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, biennials, and conferences. She was co-curator of the session City and Landscape at the Expo 2015 Architecture Pavilion Milan Capital of the Modern, co-curator of the exhibition Verde Prato, and Curator of the Seeds International Symposium at Pecci Center for Contemporary Art.
Her main publications: Andrea Branzi. The project in the Age of Relativity (2018); Prato Factories Nature (2019); Loaded Void (2013-15), Landscape in Art and Science, 2016; Nature through the Mirror (2014); Soundscapes (2016).
Craig Douglas
Assistant Professor, Landscape Architecture Department at Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
Craig Douglas is a Landscape Architect whose work focuses on innovative techniques and methodologies that explore the agency of representation in landscape architectural design. He is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. His work explores the landscape as a dynamic material process in a constant state of flux through analytical and conceptual approaches integrating drawing, modelling, simulation, and sensing to make visible and reconstitute the landscape as a complex temporal and material manifold of differential space.
His approach supports informed and innovative responses to the challenges found at the nexus of the social, ecological, and built environment that embrace the spatial, temporal, and material complexity of the landscape. It explores design as an activity of making and as an agent for understanding and responding to the challenges of urbanisation in a rapidly changing world that contributes to the complexity of the contemporary city in the age of climate crisis.
Shen Jie
Associate Professor, doctoral supervisor and Deputy Director of Landscape Architecture Department at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University.
Shen Jie is an Associate Professor and a doctoral supervisor, and she holds the position of Deputy Director at the Landscape Architecture Department of Tongji University’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She is a member of the Theory and History Committee of the Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture and a young member of the National Landscape Committee of the same society. She also serves as a member of the Public Space and Urban Infrastructure Committee of the Shanghai Architectural Society and as a young editor for the “Landscape Architecture” magazine. She has been selected for the Shanghai Youth Science and Technology Talents Sail Plan.
Professor Shen has led three national and provincial-level funded projects and developed one first-class course and one key course in Shanghai. She has received two teaching awards, including the Special Prize for Teaching Achievements in Shanghai, and four design awards including the first prize for planning and design from the Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture. Additionally, she has been honored with four scientific research awards, including the second prize for scientific and technological progress from the same society. She has also won two awards in the IFLA Student Design Competition and has guided students to win over 20 awards in domestic and international design competitions, including the ASLA Student Design Competition and the National College Students’ Garden Design and Construction Competition.
Alessandro Martinelli
Education and Academic Activities Standing Committee Chair, IFLA – International Federation of Landscape Architects; Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, Chinese Culture University, Taipei
Previously involved in research projects and didactic activities at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio and the International Institute of Architecture in Lugano Vico Morcote, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Barcelona Institute of Architecture, the Canadian Centre of Architecture in Montreal, the Archivio Cattaneo in Cernobbio, the Shih Chien University and the Huafan University in Taipei, Alessandro Martinelli, Ph.D., is Associate professor at the Department of Landscape architecture, the Chinese Culture University, Taipei.
He is also the editorial director of ListLab Publisher (listlab.eu), Chair of the IFLA Education & Academic Affairs Committee, and immediate past chair of the IFLA Asia Pacific Region Education & Academic Affairs Committee (iflaworld.com). Finally, he works with BIAS Architects & Associates (biasarchitects.com) on design and curating projects concerning the public space today.
Thank you to our 2024 WLA Student Awards Jury.
2025 WLA Student Awards will be opened for registrations on June 17, 2025.
The 2025 WLA Student Awards will open for registrations on June 17.
