ESF Landscape Architecture Students Receive National Award

Site remediation project called “a solid plan”
9/27/2011

• Project Synopsis at ASLA

Graduate students in the landscape architecture department at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) received a national award from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

Marin Braco and Andrew Murphy's project, Hope Municipal Airport Intervention, received an Honor Award from the professional organization. Martin Hogue served as their faculty advisor.

The former military airport near Hope, Ark., was used to house 15,000 relief trailers manufactured for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Many of the units rushed out to the area were built to extremely poor standards. In addition to leaky construction, the wood and glue used released harmful levels of formaldehyde gas that have caused serious respiratory troubles. Many of these units were later deemed unfit for human occupation, causing stockpiles of unusable trailers.

The students' project provides remediation plans for the trailers and the site and plans for repurposing the site afterward.

Said adjudicators of the project, "A strong, systemic response to a problem. The analysis recognizes that chemistry is an important element of designing for the future. The strength of this project is that it's a prototype and it's a solid plan to be used for this type of problem."

A complete project synopsis can be viewed at www.asla.org/2011studentawards.

ASLA will present awards to the students who won honors in the categories of general design, residential design, analysis and planning, communications, research, community service and student collaboration. The presentation ceremony and reception will take place Nov. 2 at the ASLA annual meeting and expo in San Diego.