“A former barren, over-paved air force base is transformed into a Sonoran Desert Campus oasis that is true to the region and an inspiring place to learn – campus enrollment has doubled since project completion.” Thanks to Ten Eyck Landscape Architects the desert ecosystem is reclaiming the streets, one campus at a time. The firm has been awarded their third ASLA Professional Design Award for the Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus – New Academic Complex in Mesa, AZ. The other two awarded projects are also campus projects at The University of Arizona in Tucson and Arizona State University respectively. While the ASLA Design Awards are the field’s highest honor, almost all of Ten Eyck’s projects have attracted Arizona ASLA Awards, The Valley Forward Environmental Excellence Awards, and the Tempe Beautification Award. Ten Eyck’s success is well deserved as she and her team make innovative design an imperative. And what exactly is innovative landscape design? In an interview for Architype Review, Ten Eyck’s Todd Briggs talks about the firm’s design philosophy. “It’s now exemplified and reinforced the idea of architecture and landscape being so interconnected that neither can successfully exist without the other in an urban context…habitat creation, resource sustainability and holistic design become the norm rather than the exception.” Pushing the distinctions between the site and architecture,Ten Eyck’s award winning projects give users a chance to physically experience integral design. Projects that embody these precepts of design can be found elsewhere, but Ten Eyck has uniquely defined a new way of designing in the desert, which, resource strapped, can be ultimately more elusive. Stabilized Decomposed Granite was also born from the desert and uniquely responds to its challenges. Each of the three Ten Eyck projects honored by ASLA have incorporated Stabilized Decomposed Granite for aesthetic attributes as well as for its water-loving and heat reducing porosity. “Using a combination of concrete, and stabilized decomposed granite and offset planting for the mall reduces glare and helps with psychological cooling for desert dwellers.” At Stabilizer Solutions, we are honored to work with a firm that celebrates the complexity of the Sonoran Desert. Image Credit: Bill Timmerman