Howe Sound Island by Considered Design Inc; Photograph by Sama Canzian
GRAY Media announces the landscape design finalists for the 7th Annual GRAY Awards.
SEATTLE, December 28, 2023 — Now in its 7th year, GRAY Awards — the international cross-disciplinary design awards program — continues to recognize the outstanding work happening around the world. Finalists have been selected in the fields of ARCHITECTURE, INTERIORS, LANDSCAPE, and PRODUCT DESIGN.
JUDGES CATEGORIES
Designers and manufacturers were invited to submit their projects in nine judges categories plus an editors’ pick Design for Good category. An esteemed panel of international design luminaries will select a winner in each of the initial nine categories. The winning designers will receive print and digital recognition as well as a custom designed trophy by acclaimed glass artist John Hogan.
GRAY CATEGORIES
GRAY encourages designers and manufacturers to create "Design for Good" projects —projects that have made a positive impact through design on a humanitarian, community, or environmental issue — and offers an award dedicated to these works each year.
In 2020, when the GRAY Awards expanded from a regional to international program, GRAY added a Legacy Award dedicated exclusively to a Pacific Northwest-based designer's lifetime achievement, honoring the region where GRAY began and the home to the GRAY Awards Parties. GRAY will name the next Legacy at the Party.
BREAKOUT CATEGORIES
Newly introduced at the 6th annual GRAY Awards last year, GRAY added several Breakout Categories, opening up opportunities to win GRAY Awards in micro-categories from Kitchens to Collaborations.
All winners will be announced at the GRAY Awards Party held in Seattle in March, 2024. The party is one of the most highly anticipated design bashes of the year, where all guests are treated like winners.
To purchase tickets, visit the 7th annual GRAY Awards Party page.
JUDGES
It is our privilege each year to welcome an international group of distinguished creatives to the GRAY Awards judging panel. Each working at the top of their game, these professionals now focus a discerning eye on determining the winners of the coveted GRAY Awards trophies.
7th annual GRAY Awards judging panel: Lee Broom, Brigitte Shim, Alessandro Munge, Silvia Tcherassi, Stephen Burks
FINALISTS - LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Photograph by Sama Canzian
When their long-time clients approached Considered Design Inc with a private island to take on, the team excitedly accepted the project. The previous owner had hand built a trolley cart rail line for supplies, a cabin, and little by little, a garden. Fragments still remain, as does the graffiti of a courting couple in the 50’s, and day visitors who came by boat, kayak or swam across the channel. Since then, nature has been the caretaker.
With careful attention to maintaining and respecting the island, raised cedar walkways now guide barefooted soles from the new landing, in the same place as the old rickety dock. Guests are invited to explore and wander. Towering Cedar and Firs above, soft ferns and moss below, and around a corner, a clearing opens to reveal a piece of Brooklyn basketball history, albeit the western version, Rucker Park West. The owners and their two boys are big basket ball fans, and wanted to incorporate a court into the landscape. Cozy, heavy canvas safari tents perch on platforms as guest accommodations, and further, a bocci court for more sedate activity. The native planting surrounding the additions restores what was once there, the walkways ensure visitors float above the delicate island ecosystem disturbing as little as possible.
Closer to the cabin, the landscape becomes a little more formal. Steel grate walkways lead to a series of outdoor, more garden-like rooms, crafted out of natural clearings in the trees and rock outcroppings to offer spaces for entertaining and lawn games. A vegetable garden provides fresh greens for the long dining table. Swim spots are given names and reinvented as part of a renewed narration of territory. Jagged concrete platforms provide robust counterpoints to the ever changing tide and the jumble of shoreline logs. These elements combine to foster a new understanding of place, the stories it tells and the scripts yet to be written.
Photograph by Sally Painter
The Slabtown Sequence includes the Carson Apartments and the Saltwood Apartments in the Slabtown District of Northwest Portland. One of Portland’s oldest neighborhoods, it is named for the lumber mills that once dominated the area. In 1929, entrepreneur Leland James purchased 12 acres within the district for warehouses, administration buildings and parking, an enterprise that remained in operation until 2010. Soon after, a master plan was completed that established a vision to stitch this underutilized industrial land back into the urban fabric of Northwest Portland. The landscape architect built upon this vision with these four blocks, paying tribute to those who once lived and worked in the area. Simultaneously, the development is future facing, vibrant and sustainable. There are over 1,000 units of housing and 65,000 sf of passive and active open space areas that include pedestrian-ways, courtyards, amenity decks, stormwater facilities and ecoroofs.
Photograph by Marion Brenner
Located a mile north of downtown Seattle, Expedia's new global headquarters has unparalleled sweeping views of the Puget Sound, Mount Rainier, and Downtown Seattle. The design team led the transformation from an under-used biotech campus and post-industrial site into a vibrant, lush, and sophisticated campus that represents a new standard for the future of workplace design.
One of the key components that adds to the resilience of the Expedia HQ campus is the public interface. The Elliott Bay Trail skirts the waterfront edge of the campus and connects downtown Seattle to the Cruise Ship Terminal at Smith Cove. Prior to its improvement, the site’s shared bicycle and pedestrian path had a blind turn that was often submerged during storm events, making cycling or walking along the path dangerous. This new portion of the Elliott Bay Trail separates and expands both a bike and pedestrian path. The paths through The Beach are raised to account for rising seas and flood events.
The upgraded Elliott Bay Trail and provision of public space referred to by the design team as “The Beach” is a celebration of the Seattle coast’s rugged informality at the edge of Elliott Bay on Puget Sound, just north of downtown Seattle. More than a quarter-mile of waterfront inspired by the native coastal landscape, The Beach connects Elliott Bay Trail and carves out spaces for people to gather by the bay.
Photograph by Marion Brenner
Located in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains, the Woodside residence nestles seamlessly its three-acre site. From its conception, the design aimed to blur the line with the surrounding landscape and borrow vistas of the adjacent mountains. The architecture unfolds as a series of low volumes extending towards the distant summits; the main house is organized along a main axis and a series of pavilions recede into the landscape. Mitigating the site’s naturally rolling topography, a series of carefully inserted stairs, terraces, and walls negotiate the grades and create a canvas for a series of garden rooms.
The property is screened from the adjacent streets and bridle trails by a California native palette of woodland trees and shrubs that transition at the main gate to a contemporary Mediterranean planting palette, luring the residents and visitors into the front yard. The entry experience is a winding journey through an orchard of ancient olive trees that are lined by hedges of dwarf olives and rows of lavender. Upon arrival, the entry drive opens into a court of exotic sculptural succulents that frame the main entry to the house.
7th Annual GRAY Awards finalists' announcements began December 18, 2023 and will continue to publish daily until all categories have been announced. For more information, visit our GRAY Awards Party page.
Thank you to our 7th annual GRAY Awards sponsors and industry partners:
