The 2024 World Landscape Architecture Professional Awards celebrate the pinnacle of design excellence, innovation, and sustainability in landscape architecture. The global jury of this year’s awards were impressed by the quality and diverse range of entries with over 250 entries from over 40 different countries. From urban parks and green spaces to restorative ecological projects, the entries reflect a broad spectrum of visionary solutions addressing global challenges.
2024 WLA Awards Jury
Top Left to Right – Lauren Cantrell, Hanneke Kijne, Zhongwei Li; Bottom Left to Right – Manguesh R. Prabhugaonker, Sophie Thompson, Kongjian Yu, Charles A. Birnbaum.
Lauren Cantrell | Principal and Founder, DELINEATOR;
Hanneke Kijne | Landscape architect and Owner, MORE landscape;
Zhongwei Li | Founding Principal Lab D+H Shanghai;
Manguesh R. Prabhugaonker | Architect & Landscape Architect;
Sophie Thompson | Director and Head of Public Realm at LDA Design;
Kongjian Yu | Founder and Principal Designer, Turenscape;
Special Juror – Charles A. Birnbaum | President + CEO, The Cultural Landscape Foundation;
World Landscape Architecture is proud to announce the winners of the 2024 WLA Professional Awards as follows:
Built – Small Landscape Design
Award of Excellence
One Hive is innovative in its region and the implementation of the cast stone blocks is successful in creating a variety of comfortable edges within its urban context. A delightful transformation of an underutilised and leftover space, typical to many high-density cities. It creates a locally distinctive and well-loved pocket plaza, and within the confines of a small space works hard for people and nature.
Merit Awards
Honour Award
Built – Commercial Residential Landscape Design
Award of Excellence
Jury Comments: The project’s role in establishing sustainable water management along with park space stood out. High sustainability ambitions made possible under strained conditions.
Merit Awards
Honour Awards
Built – Private Residential Landscape Design
Award of Excellence
Jury Comments: A beautiful sequence of spaces that seamlessly blend the garden with the wider landscape, substantially improving biodiversity and reducing intensive maintenance. The project is recognized for its restorative efforts in the landscape to achieve biodiversity goals and ecologically connect to its context. It’s also a design that promotes comfort, relaxation, and a return to nature.
Merit Awards
Honour Awards
Built – Large Landscape Design
Award of Excellence
Jury Comments: Creative adaption of a former steelworks for the benefit of the greater good. Multi-functional network of spaces for people and nature. I was impressed by this project as an evolved global model for superscale industrial adaptive reuse. I appreciate the involvement of the Landscape Architect in reinterpreting the function of the factory, transforming its new life from a static “relic” in the landscape to a live space that successfully achieves cultural and ecological goals.
Merit Awards
Honour Awards
Built – Urban Design
Award of Excellence
Jury Comments: An excellent example of reassignment of space around highways that includes a provocative new type of play space. An outstanding urban-scale landscape project, remarkable for its surprising execution.
Merit Awards
Honour Awards
Conceptual – Analysis and Planning
Award of Excellence
Jury Comments: A good example of a replicable approach to improving biodiversity and water management across university estates. Collaboration with the local Gabrieleno/Tongva people is highly appreciated, good resilience ambitions.
Merit Awards
Honour Awards
Conceptual – Small
No entries were shortlisted or awarded.
Conceptual – Residential Landscape Design
Award of Excellence
Jury Comment: An excellent example that integrates climate adaptation, biodiversity and liveability at several scales.
Conceptual – Large Landscape Design
Award of Excellence
Jury Comments: The innovative concept of the restored architecture and landscape reflects collaboration across an ecologically and culturally-driven project. Meaningful engagement and co-design and a sensitive and interesting re-use and adaptation of historic and industrial landscapes and structures to create areas with a distinctive and special character, communicated with clear and evocative graphics.
Merit Awards
Honour Awards
Conceptual – Urban Design
Award of Excellence
Jury Comments: Complete and contextual integrated design on multiple scale levels.
Merit Awards
Honour Award
The Cultural Landscape Foundation – Cultural Landscape Award
Jury Comments: Peavy Plaza’s successful renovation elevates (landscape architecture) preservation and underscores the impact of our collective advocacy in restoring culturally relevant public spaces for the community. A well researched and thought our restoration and adaptation of a key cultural and historic brutalist public space to bring it back to life. Sensitive changes relating to accessibility and sustainability maintain the inherent character.
World Landscape Architecture – Editor’s Award
Editors Comment: A project that addresses not only environmental sustainability by enhancing water quality, allowing room for flooding, but also social and economic factors through the attracting people back to their hometown through the restoration of damage or abandon buildings for the purposes of providing spaces for artists and creatives. __________________________________________________________________________________________
Congratulations to all the winners of the 2024 World Landscape Architecture Awards. We thank all the entrants for this years awards and look forward to see more entries in 2025.
Shortlisted Certificates will be issued on June 17.
WLA Student Awards will be launched on August 20.