The American Society of Landscape Architects has announced the addition of a new category for both professionals and students - Urban Design.

 
"The world around us is shifting to a more urban population and by the year 2050 it is anticipated that 68% of the world's population will live in cities. Well-crafted and beautifully designed projects have the ability to transform communities, drive economic development, impact large numbers of people, and completely change one's perception of place," said Doug Hoerr, FASLA, CEO and principal at Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects, who helped lead the effort to create this new category as part of the ASLA Honors & Awards Advisory Committee.

For both the ASLA Professional and ASLA Student Awards programs, juries comprised of leading landscape architects select a number of Honor Awards in Urban Design and may select one Award of Excellence. These new awards are an opportunity to highlight the best urban design projects around the globe, according to the association.

"Urban Design as a separate award category in the ASLA's Honors and Awards Program now gives special recognition to the profession's achievements in those respects," said Thomas Schurch, ASLA, who helped lead the effort to create this new category as co-chair of the ASLA Urban Design Professional Practice Network. "Within the highly competitive and greater design community that includes our peer professions, landscape architecture can now better showcase and promote the vast array of our capabilities in shaping a rapidly changing urban realm."

According to the association's statement, submissions for the new Urban Design category will be accepted once the call for entries opens later this fall.