UVA Architecture Professors among Finalists for International Prize

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Aug. 7, 2014 ? Two projects designed in part by University of Virginia faculty members are among the 11 finalists for a major international landscape architecture prize.

Organizers of the eighth Rosa Barba International Landscape Architecture Biennale Prize, to be awarded next month in Barcelona, last month recognized three UVA School of Architecture faculty members ? Iaki Alday, Margarita Jover andTeresa Gal-Izard ? as outstanding designers.

The competition jury ? chaired by renowned Dutch landscape architect Michel Van Gessel, and including members from Australia, Spain and the United States ? selected the 11 finalists from among landscape architecture projects completed in the last five years by some of the leading architectural firms from nine countries.

Alday, Quesada Professor and chair of the Department of Architecture, and Jover, a lecturer in that department, along with their firm Alday-Jover, were honored for their landscape architecture design of The Park of the Meander of Aranzadi in Pamplona, Spain.

Gal-Izard, associate professor and chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, contributed to a team that worked on another project in Spain, serving as a landscape designer and agricultural engineer with Batlle & Roig Architects, who designed and managed the reclamation of the Val d?en Joan landfill in Barcelona.

Other nominees for the prize include works located in Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Some of the projects are already widely known, such as the High Line and Queens Plaza in New York and Quinli Park in China.

The Rosa Barba International Landscape Architecture Biennale exhibition and symposium opens Sept. 25 in Barcelona. The finalists will lecture on their work, and the winner will be announced during the three-day symposium.

Alday-Jover?s Aranzadi Park ? built into the meander, or bend, of the Arga River ? was recognized as a public space of extraordinary quality that balances the relationship of the river, local residents and the area?s agricultural heritage in a radically innovative way.

The park?s vegetation grows with the help of the river, while its gardens serve as orchards to boost local food production. The park?s spaces function as both contemplative and educational areas for local citizens.

The nomination recognizes a park that is still young, but that incorporates the historic vegetable gardens in the meander, or river?s bend. The park has been heavily tested through the highest flood in Pamplona?s history.

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UVA Architecture Professors among Finalists for International Prize