Designers of the Year 2020: Meet Our Landscape Architecture Judges

We invited a trio of landscape architects from all along the West Coast to create a powerhouse judging team for our Designers of the Year 2020 competition. Hailing from San Fransisco, Seattle and Vancouver, these three bring an incredible collective experience and celebrated expertise to helping us decide on this year’s landscape design winners. Get to know them below, and then get your entry ready: the deadline for DOTY 2020 is April 1. 

Grant Stewart, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol

Grant Stewart (ASLA, PLA) is principal at Seattle’s Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN). With professional experience from around the world, Stewart brings a diverse design and management portfolio to GGN. His extensive experience in urban design, commercial development, and master planning allows him to provide leadership on many of GGN's most comprehensive and complex projects. His role of Managing Principal is strengthened by his steady involvement with internal and external business management responsibilities. In his project work, Grant strives to provide unique design solutions while maintaining a focus on delivering quality, cost effective, and buildable landscapes. Originally from Canada, Grant is honored to serve as a juror for the 13th Annual Designers of the Year competition.

Andrea Cochran, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture

Andrea Cochran brings over 30 years of thoughtful landscape design to her practice, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, in San Francisco. Known for seamlessly interweaving sustainable landscapes, art, and architecture, her designs highlight the experiential qualities of the built environment. A sense of intimacy and attention to detail infuse each project. In 1998 she established Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture where the firm tackles a wide range of project types and scales€”from single family residences to hotels, wineries, affordable housing, schools, institutions, and public parks. Many of these projects have been widely published and recognized internationally, winning numerous awards.

Andrea lectures extensively, is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the recipient of the ASLA Design Medal in 2014. Andrea holds a Masters in Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard's Graduate School of Design and is a former Resident at the American Academy in Rome. As a long-time resident of San Francisco, she is committed to contributing to the quality of the urban environment, serving as a Commissioner and Chair of the Civic Design Committee of the San Francisco Arts Commission for seven years. In 2014, Andrea and her office received the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Landscape Architecture.

Paul Sangha, Paul Sangha Creative

Paul Sangha is the principal of Paul Sangha Creative, an internationally-recognized landscape architectural practice in Vancouver, BC. With over 30 years of experience, Paul Sangha's reputation has been built on his pursuit of the highest quality of design, detail and service, establishing the firm as one of Vancouver's premier design practices. Paul has an exceptional vision for uniting the landscape, built form and site, born from a rigorous and collaborative design process.

The studio's projects range from the Pacific Northwest, and across the United States, to the Netherlands, China and the Middle East. From large scale master planning to refinement of design details, Paul's work spans multiple scales, but is always highly adaptive and expressed through the organic, evolving realm of landscape. The firm's work has received recognition from numerous international design authorities, including the American Society of Landscape Architects and Canadian Society of Landscape Architects.

A gold-medalist of UBC's landscape architecture program, Paul is dedicated to the advancement of the field of landscape architecture through sponsorship of annual public lectures, the establishment of a scholarship for design excellence, and through roles as visiting professor and guest critic at UBC's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.