Design Workshop Wins Three of 37 National ASLA Awards

19 December 2011

Denver –The Denver and Aspen, Colorado offices of Design Workshop, an international landscape architecture, land planning, urban design and strategic services firm, won 15 awards, from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Colorado. The Professional Design Awards the firm received spanned many areas of expertise, including planning and research, residential design and communication.

Design Workshop was recognized for its work at the ASLA Colorado Awards event held on December 1, 2011 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Denver. 

Design Workshop received 15 Professional Awards in the following categories:

Honor Award for Residential Design

• Residence at Red Butte – Aspen, Colo.
• Set in an area of open fields, the Residence at Red Butte uses the big view and vast lands to its advantage by creating a functional garden space that seamlessly melts into the majesty of the surrounding environment and provides unobstructed, panoramic views of Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk.
• Hillside Garden – Aspen, Colo.
• This project shows a respect for the natural beauty of the land, by creating an intimate garden setting. Design Workshop incorporated the surrounding garden themes into the home décor through use of features including terraces, cobblestone pathways and fountains.

• Residences at Little Nell – Aspen, Colo.
• The firm added expert design elements to the five-star resort property, creating a welcoming environment intended to mix community with tourism. Through additions of a pedestrian corridor as well as terraces in a restaurant dining area, on a rooftop with water garden and above a courtyard, the design features completed the high quality experience of living here.

• Amaranth – Goodyear, Ariz.
• This community, surrounded by public lands, will become a major gateway to the Sonoran Desert National Monument, requiring that it incorporate detailed conservation and management strategies such as water reduction.  While successfully featuring mountain views, significant washes and large tracts of natural desert, the master plan also exhibits the highest standards of environmental planning and New Urbanist design principles.
• Cadence – Henderson, Nev.
• The mixed-use community will be built on one of the country’s largest brownfield sites.  At full build-out, the remediated land—cleared of the industrial chemicals that had leeched into the soil and water over many decades—will be a site for a new sustainable community of approximately 40,000 residents and workers that rejuvenates the area socially, economically and environmentally. 

• Interstate 70 Mountain Corridor – Denver to Glenwood Springs, Colo.
• The potential for disruption of communities and the destruction of the most treasured mountain landscape in the United States is the great dilemma with a large infrastructure project like I-70.  This project provides a new and significantly different approach to determining the design of transportation facilities and has resulted in a consensus for solutions that will be constructed over the next 50 years.
• Strategic Plan for the Petra Region – Jordan
• A sixth century archaeological site, Petra was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1968 and more recently named one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World.” A multidimensional tension exists between the need to protect and preserve the archaeological resource and to promote and sustain the tourism potential of the region for the economic benefit of the country. The team of landscape architects, tourism planners and local experts was retained to prepare the Strategic Master Plan for the Petra Region, providing a guide to preserve the archaeological, ecological and cultural resources of worldwide importance while planning for the needs of future population - estimated to double in the next 20 years. 

• Springwoods Village – Harris County, Texas
• Springwoods Village will be located next to the new ExxonMobil corporate campus north of Houston and seeks to balance the future demand for employment, urban and low-density housing, civic and institutional facilities, outdoor space, and other elements, with a goal of preserving and protecting the natural environment through a long-term planning perspective.
• Loma Larga Residential Mixed-Use Development – San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico
• As one of the last parcels of undeveloped land in Monterrey, Mexico’s dense business district of San Pedro Garza Garcia, Loma Larga will be a unique vision of urban living within a natural landscape – modeling the integration of natural systems, community amenities and cultural programs within a dense urban context. 
• Amaranth – Goodyear, Ariz.
• See description under “Land Stewardship Award for Planning”
• Douglas County Open Space Plan – Douglas County, Colo.
• Prior to the plan’s implementation, which targets conservation efforts to the most critical lands, these open spaces were at great risk of becoming forever altered by development with impending implications for the health of the watershed. The plan has brought about a sense of urgency to establish a network of open space that will redirect development patterns to ensure both the legacy of the land and also critical environmental systems are sustained for future generations.  
• Cadence – Henderson, Nev.
• See description under “Land Stewardship Award for Planning”

• Garden Legacy – The American West
• Through a series of exemplary residential gardens in the American West, Garden Legacy is a book that highlights a firm’s pursuit of a design vocabulary that, until now, had been largely unrealized in the Rocky Mountains. Illustrated through breathtaking photographs and clear, concise narratives, a design ethos for the inner-mountain West is masterfully interpreted through a contemporary lens.

• Lodestone Golf Club – McHenry, Md.
• Also designated as the sixth-best golf course in the world by Golfweek, it was built atop lands previously exposed to timber harvesting that left a design canvas complicated by erosion and contaminated wetlands. Through thoughtful golf hole placement, the team incorporated the pre-existing streams, vegetation and moss-covered rock into the course design to create this beautiful course. In the end, the design proved to be so beneficial that the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) set the sustainability metrics as the new standard for golf course development in the state.
• Fillmore Plaza – Denver, Colo.
• This public streetscape redesign project showcases an innovative urban design setting that can be easily converted from a plaza for special events into an open street that allows limited vehicular traffic. A rhythmic canvas of brick paving spans the entire Plaza, Colorado Buff sandstone seat walls and planters punctuated by graceful benches, vertical “light blades” and a stunning shade structure distinguish Fillmore Plaza as a remarkable urban asset. 

About Design Workshop
Founded in 1969, Design Workshop is an international landscape architecture, land planning, urban design and strategic services firm with six offices in the U.S. and work spanning the globe. The firm has been recognized with over 200 prestigious awards for its work in new communities, urban centers, resorts, public parks, golf courses and residences. The firm’s philosophy challenges the project team to equally integrate and balance artistic vision, environmental sensitivity, community values and sound economics to create distinctive places that stand the test of time. It refers to this approach as DW Legacy Design^®.