Congratulations to our 2024 LAF Legacy Award winner: Lucinda R. Sanders, EdD, RLA, FASLA.
The LAF Legacy Award recognizes past members of the LAF Board of Directors who provided extraordinary service and contributions to the organization and its legacy. LAF created the award in 2023 to show appreciation for its board members, who are the greatest strength of LAF and are part of a special lineage of leaders in the landscape architecture community who have helped create and sustain the organization.
LAF Legacy Award Winners
Lucinda R. Sanders Lucinda R.
Sanders2023 LAF Legacy Award Recipient
“Since joining the Board, Lucinda has always stepped up and said, ‘yes’ to taking on big challenges and exploring big ideas. Her leadership took LAF to new places it had never been before. LAF is so grateful to Lucinda for her generosity of time, talents, resources, and passion.”
— LAF CEO Barbara Deutsch, FASLA
Lucinda served on the LAF Board of Directors from 2008-2016, holding several positions, including Vice President of Finance and President. In 2013, she took on the role of Vice President for LAF’s new Leadership Committee, charged with developing a strategy for partnerships and leadership. This work led to the creation of the LAF Fellowship for Leadership and Innovation, which drew heavily on Lucinda’s experience as President and CEO of OLIN, her experience as an educator at the University of Pennsylvania, and her doctoral studies in transformational leadership. Since the first cohort of LAF Fellows in 2017, Lucinda has served as a co-lead facilitator for the program. Applying her unique approach to leadership, she empowers the people around her to become their best selves.
Richard Weller Richard
Weller2023 LAF Legacy Award Recipient
Richard's vision and leadership helped bring to fruition two bold initiatives that were catalytic for LAF and the landscape architecture discipline. We are forever grateful for Richard's service and dedication to LAF, and for bringing the hopes and aspirations of the discipline together in clear and impactful ways."
— LAF CEO Barbara Deutsch, FASLA
Richard served on the LAF Board from 2014 to 2018. An influential leader and prolific writer, Richard’s presence and vision strengthened the LAF Board and helped the organization turn ideas into action, in particular LAF’s 2016 Summit on Landscape Architecture and the Future and the resulting New Landscape Declaration. As a Board Emeritus, Richard conceptualized the idea of the Green New Deal Superstudio and served on the core planning team. The Superstudio, which ran from 2020 to 2021, was an open call to design schools, professional practices, individuals, and others to translate the core goals of the Green New Deal—decarbonization, justice, and jobs—into design and planning projects. The Superstudio’s success and the ideas it inspired informed the most important conversations emerging in design today.
