Awards

2019 National Design Award | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

In June 2019, SCAPE was honored with a 2019 National Design Award in landscape architecture by the Cooper Hewitt. Launched by the White House in 2000, the award recognizes excellence and innovation across design fields, and celebrates design as a vital humanistic tool in improving quality of life.

During National Design Week in Fall 2019, SCAPE designers participated in a number of programs at the Smithsonian Design Museum centered around the interactive design of public spaces in New York. On October 17, the SCAPE Principals (Kate Orff, Elena Brescia, Gena Wirth, John Donnelly, and Pippa Brashear) attended a gala and awards ceremony, joined by Vishaan Chakrabarti (PAU).

AIA California Council Urban Design Merit Award | Public Sediment for Alameda Creek

Alameda County, CA

The SCAPE-led Public Sediment team was awarded a AIA California Merit Award in the Urban Design category, for their Unlock Alameda Creek proposal. The team developed Unlock Alameda Creek for the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge. The team’s proposal is based on the premise that sea level rise adaptation must happen upstream. Low sediment supply and bayland drowning represents a slow but devastating scale of loss that threatens ecosystems, recreational landscapes, and places hundreds of thousands of residents and the region’s critical drinking water, energy, and transportation systems at risk. To creatively adapt to this challenge, the team has focused on bringing back sediment to the Bay. The Public Sediment team includes Arcadis, The Dredge Research Collaborative, TS Studio, UC Davis Department of Human Ecology and Design, Cy Keener, and Architectural Ecologies Lab.

View the Project

MacArthur Fellow | Kate Orff, Founder & Principal

Creativity, potential, and a promise for future accomplishments are the three criteria for selection for the MacArthur Fellowship. The Fellows are meant to touch on social challenges and bring exceptional innovation and experimentation to inspire diverse people and places.

Kate Orff has joined the MacArthur Fellowship Program – Class of 2017, the first Landscape Architect in the Foundation’s 36 year history to be honored with the award. She brings fresh ideas towards new forms of public space, reviving hidden ecological systems and encouraging urban residents to become active stewards in their environment.

Selected Awards