Baltimore, MD (October 26, 2018) – Mahan Rykiel Associates (MRA), a Baltimore based landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm, won a National American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Honor Award in the Research category for Design With Dredge, a project focused on the innovative reuse of dredge featured as the December 2017 cover story in Landscape Architecture Magazine. The MRA Design with Dredge team included firm President Richard Jones, PLA, Research Director Isaac Hametz, Professor Brian Davis of Cornell University, and interns Jingting Li, Madelyn Hoagland-Hanson, Xiang Huang and Qing Li. Award recipients, their clients, and advisors were honored at the awards presentation ceremony during the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Philadelphia.
Mahan Rykiel Associates leads the Design with Dredge program in collaboration with the Maryland Port Administration and Cornell University, exploring ways to repurpose dredged material in a shipping channel as a resource to create civic open space, living shorelines, economic sustainability, and resilient landscapes. The multi-stakeholder design research program brings together members of the Port’s Harbor Development staff, port businesses, Maryland Environmental Service, the USACE Baltimore District, Maryland Geological Survey, MDE, and government agencies in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Anne Arundel County. Major goals of the Design with Dredge program include:
(1) Developing adaptive management and resiliency strategies for the Port’s dredged material management program
(2) Streamlining sediment processing operations at dredged material containment facilities
(3) Increasing recreational opportunities and ecological performance of dredged material landscapes
(4) Engaging the public in provocative educational workshops.
Every year in the Chesapeake Bay, approximately 5 million cubic yards of sediment are dredged from federal navigation channels to enable deep draught vessels to reach the Port of Baltimore. The Design with Dredge research is influencing dredged material management in Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay region through new material specifications, design standards, ecological management strategies, and community outreach and engagement methods.
Release courtesy Mahan Rykiel Associates