The Urban Design Project
Planning & Analysis Honor Award - The Olmsted City, Buffalo Olmstred Park System: Plan for the 21st Century

This project creates a restoration and management plan for the Buffalo Olmsted Park System that restores the historic character while integrating modern ecological and functional requirements that Olmsted could have not foreseen. The system includes 6 major parks, connecting parkways, circles, and several smaller parks. The system is on the State and National Register of Historic Places as a ‘cultural landscape.’  

Hass Landscape Architecs
Community Achievement Award / The Story Garden, Binghamton, NY

The Story Garden is an interactive children’s garden, located on a three-quarter acre parcel at the Discovery Center, a hands-on children’s museum in Binghamton, NY. The Story Garden offers 13 interactive vignettes focused on literary themes and provides opportunities for educational programming in association with the Discovery Center. The mission of The Story Garden is to reflect the mission of the Discovery Center in a garden setting, spark the imagination through interactive experiences with images from favorite stories, encourage the reading of children’s literature by children and adults, and foster a love and appreciation of gardens. 


Environmental Design & Research
Unbuilt Design Honor Award / Cancer Survivors' Park, Rochester, NY 

The conceptual design for Cancer Survivors’ Park offers hope, facilitates healing, inspires courage, and promotes perseverance. Most of all, it celebrates life. Inspired by the late Victor Salmons’ sculpture “Cancer - There’s Hope,” the park is divided into two distinct and sequential parts that integrate Salmons’ sculptural narrative of hope, support, courage, and perseverance for life. The layout and configuration of the site acknowledge cancer’s pain and challenges, but the overriding metaphors embrace healing, life, and regeneration. In fact, the conceptual design even enables the visitor to see cancer survival itself as a metaphor for rebirth and renewal associated with any traumatic challenge. This allows the park to appeal
to a broad audience of those undergoing recovery.

Environmental Design & Research
Residential Garden Design Merit Award / Private Residence, Clinton, NY

For this site graced with both inherent and borrowed natural features of beauty, the project’s purpose was to create discrete garden areas, each with a desired function or quality, and tie these visually to one another, to the house , and to the greater landscape beyond the confines of the client’s property. The underlying philosophy was to negotiate between the built and natural features, balancing the accommodation of human purpose with habitat enhancement through a soft blending of the designed landscape’s edge.

Joy Kuebler Landscape Architect, PC
Research & Communication Merit Award / Green Roof, North Tonawanda, NY

The purpose of this project was to create a structure that can be used to demonstrate sustainable principles, particularly in a residential context. Many lay-people have a desire to implement sustainable initiatives, but do not know where to start. This small residential structure acts as a reallife example of where and how to implement those green initiatives. As a landscape architect, the owner felt it was important to “practice what our profession preaches” and to take something that is far from the general public’s mind and make it accessible. While many landscape architects have proposed green roofs in Western NY, few have come to fruition. The owner also felt it was extremely important to invite landscape architects, architects and engineers to participate in the installation, allow them direct access to the designers and installers, ask pertinent questions and get immediate answers. Ensuring they received credit for attending was vital to the event’s success.


Bergmann Associates
Community Achievement Award / ARTWalk Streetscape, Rochester, NY

Functioning as a permanent urban art trail, ARTWalk is comprised of an ‘arts and culture’ promenade linking the Memorial Art Gallery to the George Eastman House, and large ‘public performance’ spaces at the center of the project. ARTWalk has been recognized and celebrated by the residents of the Neighborhood of the Arts and the Rochester community since its completion in 2004, and is a prime example of how neighborhood revitalization can be achieved through investments in arts and culture for public spaces.


Synthesis, LLP
Built Design Merit Award / Lighthouse Restaurant, Scotia, NY

The Waters Edge Lighthouse Restaurant is the first phase of a waterfront development project located on the Mohawk River in the Town of Glenville, New York. Phase I focused on restoring the architectural integrity of the historic Seely house, and providing a variety of accessible outdoor seating areas for The Lighthouse Restaurant patrons by engaging the site’s topography, and fostering views to the river. The restaurant is integral to the overall master plan for the site, which includes the future development of a 50 room inn, an outdoor pavilion, renovation to the existing marina shop, enhanced parking and landscape improvements to create a premier waterfront destination along the important tourist waterway, the Mohawk River & historic Erie Canal.


Bergmann Associates
Built Design Merit Award / Route 17, Horseheads, NY

This project once feared to be a new “great wall,” is an example of how Context Sensitive Solutions can be used to mitigate the effects of a major transportation improvement on a surrounding community. It transformed a congested principal arterial originally running through the heart of the Village of Horseheads into a welcome and aesthetically pleasing elevated multimodal Interstate corridor, buffered from residences by a linear park and a noise wall.


Environmental Design & Research
Built Design Merit Award / Meridian Fields Ecological Park, Town of Brighton, NY

The purpose of this project is to preserve and enhance the ecological functions of a former agricultural property in a context of pervasive development. The soft ecological footprint of the site work and the connectivity that it establishes support this purpose and the overarching goal of human well-being. As the outlying agricultural belt of an inner ring suburb is increasingly encroached upon, Meridian Fields provides a sanctuary not only for wildlife, but also for the folks who now have access to this important amenity. The balance that this project succeeded in achieving was made possible by integrating the same principles promoted by the Sustainable Sites Initiative, which will eventually be folded into LEED green building standards through the efforts of ASLA and its partners.

The Saratoga Associates
Unbuilt Design Honor Award / RPI - Open Space and Quadrangle Enhancement, Troy, NY

The primary purpose of the study was to provide Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) with an open space framework plan that would fulfill the following goals:
1. Create identifiable open spaces that are unique to RPI.
2. Minimize vehicular traffic movement within the open space system.
3. Identify future building sites that reinforce open spaces in a positive manner.
4. Identify and reinvigorate “lost and under utilized open spaces.”
5. Reinforce the concept of a “pedestrian” campus.
6. Enhance the public arrival experience to the campus.
7. Develop conceptual plans for the enhancement of the North and South Quadrangles based on the Open Space Plan & Principles.


Synthesis, LLP
Planning & Analysis Merit Award / Suqian Ancient Yellow river Master Plan City of Suqian, Jiangsu Province, China





















The primary goal of the Master Plan is to reclaim the luster and beauty of the natural landscape, restore and celebrate Suqian’s cultural and historic jewels and re-define the City’s important cultural identity. A key component of this goal is creation of a “sightseeing belt” for tourists that will link various areas of the City with the Ancient Yellow River. The Master Plan explores relationships between landscapes, environmental features, land-use functions and urban environments along eleven miles of the Ancient Yellow River. This project utilized traditional planning processes including analysis, research and overlay, and applied the data to formulate a detailed comprehensive urban development plan. This plan addresses a range of important concepts including biological diversity, recreational spaces, parks and gardens, and a downtown core, thereby providing a new identity, improved function and a basis for tourism.



The Saratoga Associates
Planning & Analysis Merit Award / Headley District Master Plan, Troy, NY

The purpose of this project was to create a dynamic community that would entice the world-class workforce needed to drive the economy of the Capital District. The design and programming strategy of the Hedley District, across the Hudson River from Albany, coordinates public and private investment to create diverse neighborhoods, vibrant streets, compelling public spaces and access to the river.

The Saratoga Associates
Planning & Analysis Merit Award / Lake District Revitalization Vison Concepts, Saranac Lake, NY

The primary focus of this project was to set a vision for the Village of Saranac Lake to protect, diversify and promote its authentic hometown characteristics and economy. Guiding Principles for the planning study included:
1. Protect a unique and vibrant community within the Adirondack Park
2. Continue to promote the Village’s economy through diversity
3. Build upon the authentic hometown character as a fundamental framework
4. Invest in areas of opportunity through diversification of community amenities
5. Promote new cultural, residential & research jobs and educational opportunities
6. Enhance the character and function of the Village within the region


Peter J. Smith & Company
Unbuilt Design Merit Award / Carolina Beach Master Development Plan, NC

The purpose of this project was to provide a clear and exciting vision for the Central Business District (CBD) that stimulates revitalization and provides guidance and direction to the Town as it endeavors to pursue its future. To accomplish project objectives, the approach to the Master Development Plan included:
1. Engaging the public in the process
2. Improving the quality of the public realm
3. Creating a plan that fosters implementation
4. Providing urban design plans that are grounded in sound economic principles


Thomas Associates - Tetratech Architects & Engineers
Unbuilt Design Merit Award / Nottingham High School Courtyard, Syracuse, NY

The Courtyard is the final piece in a phased plan of campus improvements. As shown in the aerial, the courtyard provides definition to an underutilized space to facilitate various program elements. Five key program elements include; (1) an outdoor classroom:
1. A performance venue
3. Outdoor eating
4. Art display, and 
5.  opportunities for passive recreation. The philosophy for organizing these elements is heavily influenced by storm water, the site’s most important constraint and opportunity. The courtyard puts the site hydrology on display; as a “natural” focal feature, rain water becomes an educational opportunity to understand the importance of designing sustainable environments.


The Saratoga Associates
Unbuilt Design Merit Award / Arts Center of Old Forge, NY

The primary focus of the project was to create an environmental and economically sustainable Arts Center in the northwestern portion of the Adirondack Mountains. The vision for the project included integrating history, local architectural style and landscape features for a state of the art facility for community use and tourism.


The LA Group
Community Achievement Award / Reclaiming the Hudson, The Saratoga County Riverscape Project, NY

The Saratoga County Riverscape Project is a joint effort of six towns, four villages, and one city working collaboratively to champion more than 35 projects along the Hudson River and Champlain Canal. The purpose of the Plan is to make these waterways more accessible to both residents and visitors, develop a waterfront revitalization plan and an economic development strategy to promote a better quality of life.


2009 Winners