The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced today that the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) is one 38 national, regional, state, and local nonprofit organizations to receive an NEA Art Works grant in the Design category.

LAF is recommended for a $25,000 grant to support the Summer 2012 Case Study Investigation (CSI) program. CSI is a unique research collaboration that matches LAF-funded student-faculty research teams with leading practitioners to document the benefits of exemplary high-performing landscape projects. Ten research teams will participate in the Summer 2012, and the NEA grant will fund half of the $5,000 stipend paid to the student Research Assistant on each team.

“We are thrilled that NEA is investing in this research to show the environmental, economic, and social value of exemplary design,” said LAF Executive Director Barbara Deutsch, ASLA.

The NEA received 1,624 eligible applications for this round of Art Works funding. The 788 Art Works grants total $24.81 million and support the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts. Visit the NEA website for a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grant support.

The Potomac and Maryland Chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects presented LAF with a 2011 Honor Award for Communications for the Landscape Performance Series. Winners were recognized at the 18th Annual Awards Event and Reception held on April 15 in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

The awards were juried by the Alabama ASLA Chaper. Jurors offered the following comments on the LPS:

        “A wonderful creative, collaborative resource to begin to understand the implications and potential successes, well designed places and landscape can have.”

        “The LPS is a great tool for clients and prospective owners — as well as landscape architects — to use in making decisions about sustainable site development practices, using easily understood, tangible figures to support the claims of LEED and SITES. It’s earned a bookmark in my browser!”

Other award winner include: Michael Vergusen Landscape Architects, Ayers Saint Gross, Maryland National Captial Park and Planning, Mahan Rykiel Associates, Florence Everts Associates, Landscape Architecture Bureau, Graham Landscape Architecture, and Plusen Designs Landscape Architecture.

Congrats to all, and many thanks to the Executive, Banquet, and Awards Committees of the Potomac and Maryland Chapters for organizing a great event!

The Environmental Design Research Association announced its 2010 Great Places Award winners, and recognized Greening Cities, Growing Communities: Learning from Seattle’s Urban Community Gardens with the award for a recently published book advancing the critical understanding of place and the design of exceptional environments. The book is the fifth in LAF’s Land and Community Design Case Study Series.

To celebrate this important achievement, LAF, along with the George Washington University Landscape Design Program and the Potomac Chapter and Maryland Chapter of ASLA, hosted authors Jeffrey Hou and Julie Johnson from the University of Washington and Laura Lawson from the University of Illinois for a lecture, reception, and book-signing event in Washington, DC on June 2, 2010.  The authors presented insights from their research to an engaged audience of over 50 landscape architects, community organizers, students, and community gardening enthusiasts. 

The book highlights community gardens in Seattle where there has been a strong network of knowledge and resources. The case studies reveal the capacity of urban gardens to address larger community issues, like food security, urban ecosystem health, sustainable design, active living and equity concerns. The authors also examine how landscape architecture, planning, and allied design professionals can better interact in the making of these unique urban open spaces.

More information and online ordering are available through the University of Washington Press.