The Design Competition in Landscape Architecture: Pedagogy and Practice (New Century Gardens and Landscapes of the American Southwest)

The Design Competition in Landscape Architecture is the first book devoted to helping professional and academic design studios comprehensively plan for successful competition entries. Divided into five sections, the book provides an overview of the history and development of modern design competitions, includes interviews with world-renowned landscape architects and designers, offers a pedagogical approach to competition studios as part of a college curriculum, showcases award-winning designs from landscape architecture faculty and students (including built projects), and reflects on future directions for landscape architecture design competitions. Crawford and Kambic’s writing shines a spotlight on the critical role competitions play in school and practice and highlights how competitions help give shape and identity to the places in which we live.

Katya Crawford is a professor in the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of New Mexico’s School of Architecture and Planning and is the past president and fellow of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture. Her research interests focus on design pedagogy, ephemeral landscape installations, landscape literacy, and social and environmental justice. Crawford’s work has placed in over twenty local, national, and international juried exhibitions and competitions.

Kathleen Kambic is an associate professor in the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of New Mexico and is an affiliate with the Water Resources Program, the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, and the Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program. Her research and teaching interests include water, infrastructure, the American West, feminist political ecology, landscape theory, and the role of design competitions in a landscape architecture curriculum. Kambic has won multiple international design competitions on interdisciplinary faculty teams.