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Students and faculty members from Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture have been honored for projects that highlight the impact of landscape architecture on the environment, electric vehicles, and waterways.

The 2024 Illinois American Society of Landscape Architects (ILASLA) student awards program highlights projects that showcase creativity, the diversity of the profession, and how landscape architecture positively impacts everyday interactions with the surrounding environment. Anonymous members from other ASLA chapters served as jurors.

Three projects from the college’s Master of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism program were selected and were showcased during the ILASLA Celebration Awards on September 19, and in Folio magazine.

“The Driverless City Project: The Socio-Environmental Implications to Urban Waters” won the Honor Award for Research. The university-wide research project includes faculty from Armour College of Engineering, the Institute of Design, and the M.LA+U program. It has garnered a total of $1.6 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, Illinois Tech’s former Nayar Prize, and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.

The $750,000 Sea Grant was specific to the landscape architecture and urbanism portion of the Urban Waters project —which included students Jorge Mayorga (M.LA+U ’24), Mahmudur Rahman (M.LA+U ’24), and Melika Yousefi (M.LA+U ’24). It explored how the change to autonomous and electric or hydrogen vehicles will affect water quality and what unique opportunities it offers, from toxicity problems to overcrowded street parking.

The “Hosting Life: Botanical Parasite” project, a collaboration between students Juliana Cardozo Chamorro (M.LA+U 2nd Year) and Zhicong Fang (M.Arch./M.LA+U ’24) and the French Consulate of Chicago and Paris-based urbanists ChartierDalix, received a Merit Award. The project brought ideas from Paris’ La Defense business district, which houses most of the city’s skyscrapers, to Chicago’s Loop neighborhood, which itself is dominated by high-rise buildings and dense construction. Under the project’s plans, Chicago’s surface parking and rooftops would become dynamic landscapes that are connected by walkways and showcase gardens for all seasons.

The “Living Creek/Arroyo Vivo: Confluences” project received a Merit for Design Award in coordination with Tecnológico de Monterrey University in Mexico. The multinational team included students Mohammad Arabmazar (M.Arch./M.LA+U 3rd Year), Sadiqul Islam Shehab (M.Arch. 3rd Year), and Omar Rodriguez (B.Arch. ’24), as well as COA faculty members Maurice Cox, Dirk Denison, and Maria Villalobos and . The project explored the reinvigoration of a neglected creek, Arroyo Seco, that runs through the heart of Monterrey, Mexico. 

Photo: [Top row, from left]: Mohammad Arabmazar (M.Arch./M.LA+U 3rd Year), Juliana Cardozo Chamorro (M.LA+U 2nd Year), and Jorge Mayorga (M.LA+U ’24)

[Bottom row, from left]: Omar Rodriguez (B.Arch. ’24), Zhicong Fang (M.Arch./M.LA+U ’24), and Alexis Arias-Betancourt (M.Arch./M.LA+U ’20)