Three students enrolled in the University of Florida’s College of Design, Construction, and Planning Landscape Architecture Implementation Studio have had their designs recognized in an international competition held in Portugal this year.
The theme of this year’s competition was “Garden of Peace: Garden for Peace.”
Will Marshall’s “Paths of Peace” has been selected as one of two reserve finalists for the prestigious award.
Audrey Foster’s “Re-Imagining Peace” and Hayden Bertone’s “Awaken” have been selected as the first-place entries in their respective categories. Audrey and Hayden’s designs are currently under construction and will be among twelve gardens chosen for exhibition at the 20th annual Festival Internacional de Jardins, Pont de Lima, commencing in May 2025.
Fifty-one entries were received from fifteen countries worldwide, including Portugal, Austria, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Spain, the United States of America, France, Colombia, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Ukraine, and Bulgaria.
This was the first time students enrolled in the Fall semester course designed for an international competition. Studio instructor Kevin Thompson reflected on the challenging semester, mentioning time differences, cultural boundaries, language barriers, foreign exchange rates, and the complexities of specifying and detailing materials in a vastly different measurement system (metric). The addition of two hurricanes further compounded the difficulties.
Despite the challenges, the students did an incredible job! “In the end, the studio produced 20 unique competition entries, each with complete construction documentation sets, and three of them won top prizes,” Thompson said. “I’m so proud of each and every student forstepping up to this challenge.”