Design Futurist Award
The Design Futurist Award elevates the power of garden design to achieve climate resilience, steward biodiversity, and connect people with nature.
Visionary designers and regional plantspeople demonstrate that we can conserve plants and wildlife, treat our water and soil as precious, and hold the wellbeing of people at the center of our gardened environments.
The Design Futurist Award celebrates garden design that is easily replicable, modest in scale, or designed for intimate neighborhood community use.
Photo Credits from Left to Right: The Verge, Patricia Carpenter, Davis, CA; The Nest, Joni L. Janecki and Associates, Santa Cruz, CA. Banner Image: Seattle Residence Preparing the Land, GGN, Ltd., Seattle, WA
The Design Futurist Award is a call for designers to be ecologically radical and socially bold. We hold this competition to bring design solutions to our diverse community of gardeners and allied horticulture professionals.
At Pacific Horticulture, we believe there is a gap in recognition of garden designers working on modest-scale climate resilient garden design. Even small-scale examples of design with resilient plant selections are proving to have positive environmental impacts. Increasing the number of resilient gardens drives community change in neighborhoods. The Design Futurist Award invites design solutions that harness the unique character of each site and its climate, topography, and flora in the Pacific region. Pacific Horticulture’s pillar educational themes provide the foundation for the award’s impact.
THEMES
The winning design will encompass one or more of the following themes.
Growing for Biodiversity
Ecologically focused gardens that support food webs and pollinators by including native and keystone plants with minimal or no traditional lawn, low water use, and functional planting, while minimizing impacts of artificial light.
Drought and Fire Resilience
Gardens that demonstrate principles of water wise design or protection from wildfire especially in the wildland urban interface, including appropriate plant selections for the garden and community.
Nature is Good for You
Gardens that support human health and well-being, connecting individuals or communities with nature and place.
Garden Futurist
Gardens that embody a vision for future livability in the face of climate change, applying research and innovation, while embracing cultural knowledge and inclusion. Garden installation and maintenance is achieved by employing fair, equitable practices.
Sustainable Gardening
Gardens that demonstrate a commitment to green infrastructure, temperature moderation, fossil fuel reduction, and care in materials selection and sourcing.
Photo Credits: Resilient Cottage Garden, Studio Petrichor, La Cañada Flintridge, CA; Native Plant Stewards Home Garden, Supernature, Seattle, WA; Ridged Lane, Topophyla, San Francisco, CA; The Kinship Garden at the Joyce Sobel Family Center, Catkin Horticultural Arts, Friday Harbor, WA
AWARD CATEGORIES
Top Prize is awarded to one garden that exceptionally embodies one or more themes.
Honors are awarded to designs exemplifying a theme.
Eligibility
All submissions must be of built work. Application should be submitted by the designer and should credit all team members involved in the construction of the work.
Gardens must be located within the Pacific Region, defined here as: California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Hawai’i, Alaska, and Baja California.
KEY DATES
Call for submissions opens: April 9, 2024
Deadline to submit: July 26, 2024
Awards recipients announced: October 15, 2024
Jury
Marilee Hanks (Portland, OR)
Managing Director, Principal Landscape Architect, Knot Studio
Ron Lutsko (San Francisco, CA)
Principal at Lutsko Associates
Daniel Roehr (Vancouver, BC)
Professor Landscape Architecture / Landscape Architect, The University of British Columbia
Tess Schiavone (Seattle, WA)
Principal, GGN, Ltd.
Nahal Sohbati (Santa Barbara, CA)
Landscape designer and co-founder of Topophyla
Susan Van Atta (Santa Barbara, CA)
President, Van Atta Associates
OUR SPONSORS
PRIZE
Design Futurist Award Top Prize
The designer(s) receiving the top prize Design Futurist Award will be showcased in a Pacific Horticulture feature article. The top prize winner may use the winning mark and award title on their promotional collateral. The top prize winner will also receive a gift package assembled by our generous sponsors, featuring products or services supporting resilient garden design and creation.
Design Futurist Award Honors
The designer(s) receiving Design Futurist Award Honors will be included in a Pacific Horticulture feature article. Gardens receiving honors may use the winning mark and award title on their promotional collateral. The Award Honors winners will receive a gift package assembled by our generous sponsors, featuring products or services supporting resilient garden design and creation.
APPLY
Pacific Horticulture is committed to creating an inclusive, equity-based, community focused organization that empowers people to take action on science-based climate solutions.
Entry fee: $50 per submission
The application window is Closed.
Thank you to everyone who applied.
Award applications may be submitted for gardens within the Pacific Region, defined here as: California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Hawai’i, Alaska, and Baja California.