Two students at the University of Connecticut received awards from the Connecticut Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects for their landscape architecture projects on Feb. 18. The students, 8th-semester landscape architecture majors Brendan Pugmire and Matthew Bacon, received the Honor Award and the Merit Award, respectively.
Pugmire’s project, called “Rooted in Time,” involved expanding and refurbishing the Brookside Farm in East Lyme, Conn.
“For me, it was really [about] how can we bring the simplicity of the past [to the project]… but still have that modern-day functionality,” Pugmire said. “When I designed Rooted in Time, which is a conceptual version for Brookside, I was just really trying to imagine how we can refresh the existing landscape without ruining the aesthetics and the cultural impact that it has on the town.”
According to Pugmire, this project began in March 2024, when he visited Brookside Farm as a part of a class project. When Pugmire began designing his project at the farm, he “[tried] to break the site down into districts,” to make the design easier to remember and to add “more character.”
Bacon’s project was done at UConn’s Storrs campus in the spring of 2024, where he designed the “Northeast Science Quad Pollinator Pathway.”
“A lot of the people in the buildings surrounding the science quad had this idea of transforming that space into a pollinator garden,” Bacon said. “[A pollinator garden is] a garden that uses native plants to the region you’re designing in… to attract pollinators.”
Bacon talked about some of the challenges that he faced when creating his design.
“Underneath [the science quad] they have a laboratory and it’s a very shallow soil depth, so we were limited in what we could put there. No trees or anything with large route systems, so pollinator garden was kind of the best option,” Bacon said.
Both students submitted their projects to the Connecticut Professional and Student Awards competition, an event hosted by the ASLA which recognizes “excellence in landscape architectural design, planning and analysis, communication, and research.”
Pugmire, who serves as the president of the student chapter of the ASLA in Connecticut, talked about the application process.
“You have to break down the project image by image, caption by caption, you have to write a summary of it, you have to do project objectives, you have to get a letter of recommendation from a professor, there’s a fee if you are submitting a certain project,” Pugmire said. “The most difficult part of it for me was one question they make you submit, which is ‘why do you think you deserve an award?’”
Pugmire talked about the process on how awards are given out.
“Every year the state chapter switches states to judge their projects… That way there’s no bias if you know anyone,” Pugmire said. “So, this year it was judged by the Michigan chapter. They have a professional panel that looks at each project and decides which projects are deserving. Then they can give as many merit awards as they see fit, but they can only give out one honor award. Some years they don’t even give out an honor award.”
Pugmire received the honor award for “Rooted in Time” and Bacon was the only student to receive a merit award for his pollinator garden.
Bacon and Pugmire talked about what it was like receiving the awards.
“I wasn’t expecting anything honestly when I applied so I think it’s just kind of cool that it was something that was worth awarding,” Bacon said. “It’s definitely something that I can be proud of… I didn’t really have much experience doing that type of stuff and then to be awarded for it is cool.”
“It was very validating [and a] great testament to all of the time I put in,” Pugmire said. “It was a long time in the making and I feel very thankful to have received such a great honor.”