Congratulations to the 2025 Student Award Recipients!
Thank you to the Arizona ASLA Chapter for jurying the 2025 awards program.
Analysis & Planning
From Ruins to Roots: Healing through Unity, Growing for the Future
Zicheng Zhao & Jiewen Hu
Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania
Project Statement:
The project leverages metro stations as dual-purpose hubs for shelter and connectivity, fostering psychological healing and community resilience during conflict while laying the groundwork for post-war recovery and future preparedness through adaptive, community-driven interventions.
Circular Resilience: Energy Transition Imaginaries for the Arthur Kill
Junyi Yang
University of Pennsylvania
Faculty Advisor: Catherine Seavitt
Project Statement:
This is a regional planning project along the northern reach of the Arthur Kill River between New Jersey and New York’s Staten Island. The proposal seeks to transition energy generation strategies from a fossil-fuel industry to solar energy while acknowledging the site’s petrochemical history and restoring its wetland ecology. This new energy landscape provides access to local residents through a new trail network and enhances climate resilience through wetland migration.
General Design
Gravity In The Mine: Konkrete Dynamics
Jason Chun-Cheng Yeh
University of Pennsylvania
Faculty Advisor: Todd Montgomery
Project Statement:
This is a project marrying the energy engineering and the poetics of quarry landscapes. At Lehigh Valley, historically exploited for its mineral wealth, bears the scars of industrial extraction. A succession of extractive industries, from slate to coal, hints at a looming decline. In response, I advocate for repurposing quarries near power substations, over 300ft deep, for clean energy storage using gravity bricks. Simultaneously, repurposed railroads would form a network of recycle industrial wastes and bike paths, linking industrial hubs and metropolitan areas to pave the way for a cleaner, economically vibrant future in the Lehigh Valley.
The Aesthetics of Deep Time
Ryan Byrne
Temple University
Faculty Advisor: Rob Kuper
Project Statement:
Deep Time is the vast incomprehensible expanse during which the planet has undergone significant changes. Timefulness is perceiving and experiencing how the present evolved from the past and will continue to change in the future (Bjornerud, 2018). Yet, the corridors between deep time and timefulness are elusive without intimate geological knowledge. This project explores the deployment of spatial design to cultivate immersive experiences of deep time at a diabase outcrop, fostering more timeful, polytemporal perspectives.
Community Service
Frankford Unity Center
Julia Jackson
Thomas Jefferson University
Faculty Advisor: Kimberlee Douglas
Project Statement:
The Frankford Unity Center is designed for a church in the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia, who is on the path of upgrading one of their properties into a vibrant community center, with special attention to the neurodivergent community. Although designed to fit the needs of Frankford’s neurodiverse neighbors, the site boasts biophilic elements that welcomes and comforts all. Steeped in the ideology of playful growth, the Frankford Unity Center is designed to inspire for generations.
Student Collaboration
Community Resilience Strategy Plan for Milton Delaware
Talia Brinker
University of Delaware
Faculty Advisors: Zach Hammaker & Dr. Eric Bardenhagen
Project Statement:
The Coastal Resilience Design Studio developed a Community Resilience Strategy Plan for the town of Milton, Delaware. The plan focuses on three key design areas that address future flooding, centering Milton as a hub for regional outdoor trails and recreation, and; a riverfront park to reactivate the downtown and provide future flood protection, incorporating adaptive reuse of a former wastewater treatment facility into a freshwater restorative aquaculture research facility. Our multidisciplinary student team analyzed spatial and modeled data, engaged the community with a workshop and survey series, and worked with local state agencies to align the plan with future initiatives.