Animation Wins Competition to Communicate the Impact of #landarch on Well-Being

Congratulations to Lovisa Kjerrgren, who won the 2015 Wayne Grace Memorial Student Competition with her short animation entitled “Pretty Heroic.” The competition and its $10,000 USD prize was sponsored by the Landscape Architectural Registration Boards Foundation. Entrants had to develop a communications piece that effectively conveys the vital role that landscape architects play in protecting and enhancing the public’s well-being, as identified in the “Definition of Welfare” research conducted by the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB).

In the winning animation, the characters’ lives are enhanced by the work done by landscape architects, shown wearing capes in one scene. From the dialogue:

Born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, Lovisa recently graduated with a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. When asked how she settled on landscape architecture as a career, she said, “For me, it’s all about the dynamic combination of having the elements of art and creativity and marrying that with science, knowing that this really relates to people’s lives and the environment we live in.” Lovisa said the biggest challenge in creating the animation was scaling it back to be concise without losing the message she wanted to deliver.

LAF was honored to serve on the five-member jury of landscape architecture and communications professionals who unanimously selected Kjerrgren’s entry as the winner. The jury members were:

• Stephanie Landregan, FASLA, LARBF Chair and CLARB Past President
• Kenneth Backman, FASLA, LARBF Past Chair, CLARB Past President
• Terry Poltrack, Director of Public Relations and Communications, American Society of Lanscape Architects
• Barbara Deutsch, FASLA, Executive Director, Landscape Architecture Foundation
• Jim Brown, Trail Development Manager, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (and 2012 LAF Olmsted Scholar)