The American Society of Landscape Architects recently awarded Mikyoung Kim Design the Firm of the Year Award, the highest honor that the ASLA bestows on a landscape architecture firm. Congratulations to UW alums, Associate Principal Bryan Chou (CEP ‘ 02) and Associate Jess Hamilton (MLA ’17)!
Mikyoung Kim Press Release
Boston, Massachusetts
August 2, 2022
Mikyoung Kim Design is this year’s recipient of the Firm of the Year award from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) which is ”the highest honor that the ASLA bestows on a landscape architecture firm”. The criteria for this award includes the impact of Mikyoung Kim Design’s influence on the “direction of the profession” and “the consistent quality of the firm’s work and its recognition by those who practice landscape architecture” as well as recognition “by members of the design community and…the general public.”
“We are thrilled that our studio’s work with communities across the globe has been recognized by the ASLA. We are so honored to receive this capstone award. For twenty five years we have been focused on transformational urban design at the intersection between human health, social justice and environmental resiliency,” says Mikyoung Kim.
Mikyoung Kim is the founder and design director of Boston-based Mikyoung Kim Design, an international, woman-owned, landscape architecture and urban design firm. With her leadership colleagues, Bryan Chou and Ian Downing, they have built an exceptional body of work that has redefined the discipline of landscape architecture. Over the past 25 years, their studio has addressed some of the most pressing environmental and health-related issues reshaping the urban experience. They have a responsive and collaborative approach that imagines possibilities across design disciplines and scales, seamlessly integrating landscape architecture, urban design, and environmental art. The firm has received the National Design Award from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the ASLA National Design Medal, as well as Fast Company’s Most Innovative Company award.
Among the nominators, Executive Director of the Van Alen, Deborah Martin, remarked: “Mikyoung Kim Design has been designing environments that recognize that human beings and the natural world are one. This audacious prescience, combined with MYKD’s joyous practice of engagement and exacting professional rigor, has led to the creation of some of the planet’s most forward looking, flat out gorgeous landscapes constructed in recent decades.” Mary Culler, Ford Motor Company’s President says in her nomination “Ford chose Mikyoung Kim Design because we truly believe MYKD represents the future of landscape architecture with Mikyoung’s inspired blend of artistry, technology and ecology.”
Selected by the Board of Trustees, the medals are the highest honors awarded by the ASLA each year. Other medal recipients include Laura Solano (ASLA Design Medal); Kofi Boone (Jot D. Carpenter Teaching Medal); Matt Arnn of the USDA Forest Service (LaGasse Medal, Landscape Professional); David Archambault (LaGasse Medal, Non-Landscape Professional); the National Assoc for Olmsted Parks (Olmsted Medal); Charles Kene Okigbo (Asla Emerging Professional Medal) and Shawn Kelly (the ASLA Medal). The honors will be presented at the President’s Dinner on November 14, 2022, held during the 2022 ASLA National Annual Conference in San Francisco.
The supporting nominations can be read at:
http://staging.asla.org/Honors/2018/docs/MikyoungKimNomination.pdf
To learn more about the firm visit: www.myk-d.com
Contact: Andrew Carr 617.782.9130 | marketing@myk-d.com
Chicago Botanic Garden, Regenstein Learning Center (Kate Joyce Photography)
140 West Plaza (Mark Larosa Photography)
Farrar Pond Garden (Chris Baker Photography)
Cheonggye Seoul River (Robert Such Photography)