Mahan Rykiel won the National ASLA Honor award for the Parsons Island Conservation and Regeneration Plan.  The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)–the nation’s largest professional association of landscape architects– announced the 2021 Professional Award winners. The 40 winning projects exemplify the highest level of achievement in the profession, and the professionals themselves will be honored at the ASLA 2021 Conference on Landscape Architecture, Nov. 20 in Nashville, TN.

Hundreds of islands have vanished beneath the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Since 1850, this includes approximately 10,500 acres of island habitat as well as an unknown number of invaluable cultural and archaeological artifacts, some dating back 20,000 years. Land subsidence, rising sea level, and wave-induced erosion, both natural and anthropogenic all contribute to and compound this ongoing and accelerating landscape saga. The Parsons Island Conservation and Regeneration Plan proposes to collocate opportunities for cultural resource conservation, habitat regeneration, and resiliency enhancements on this unique Chesapeake Bay island as both a means and method to catalyze collective action and stimulate impactful stewardship. Considered within the context of large-scale, federally funded island restoration projects in the Chesapeake Bay, this cooperative and adaptive undertaking represents a new approach in addressing the loss of valuable islands in the nation’s largest estuary.

View the Award Submittal: Parsons Island Conservation and Regeneration Plan | ASLA 2021 Professional Awards