Three UF landscape architecture students will be honored for winning all categories of a landscape-design competition Thursday.
The students will be honored in Kissimmee, Florida, said Glenn Acomb, a senior lecturer in UF’s department of landscape architecture. While a UF student usually wins one category of the Florida Association of Native Nurseries: Real Florida Landscapes Design Competition, this is the first time UF students have won all three.
Students submitted drawings or digital designs to create a landscape in one of Florida’s regions: North, South and Central, he said. They listed native plants they would use for their design in an Excel spreadsheet.
Designs had to be 85 feet by 60 feet, Acomb said. Students competed against other students and professional landscape architects.
“I am very proud,” he said. “They are competing against professionals who do this day in and day out and know the plants, I would suggest, more intimately than the students.”
Acomb said he thinks students did well because they gave detailed presentations. His students provided additional drawings and images of their landscapes.
Collin Bowie, a UF landscape architecture junior, won the South Florida category with his park design, called “Floral Matrix.”
His design focused on stormwater management, the 20-year-old said. The design redirected runoff water from buildings to go to retaining ponds.
He said he wanted to incorporate buildings around the landscape into his design.
“Being in landscape architecture, we don’t talk about buildings too much,” he said.
Lea Kindt, a landscape architecture graduate student, won the North Florida category with her residential backyard design called “Garden of Seasons.”
She said her submission took about three weeks to complete.
“I am from a northern climate, so seasonality and plants changing is something I find very special, and I think it’s lacking here,” the 26-year-old said. “I tried to focus my design on accentuating the seasonal plants, like blooming trees and wildflowers.”
Acomb, who’s retiring after this semester, said he hopes future professors have students compete.
“I certainly hope and expect frankly that someone will carry on,” he said.
From left, Florida Association of Native Nurseries: Real Florida Landscapes Design Competition winners, Collin Bowie, the South Florida award winner; Crystal Simmons, the Central Florida award winner and Lea Kindt, the North Florida award winner, pose for a photo with their winning designs for a Florida landscape.
