Mikyoung Kim MLA ’92 is the recipient of this year’s Design Medal  from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), one of the most prestigious honors bestowed upon a landscape architect. The Medal recognizes an individual “who has produced a body of exceptional design work at a sustained level for at least ten years,” according to its website.

“It is a tremendous honor to be recognized and supported by my peers and clients. This recognition is an amazing moment for me because it not only honors the work of my office, but also highlights the importance of resiliency, restoration, and creative thinking,” Kim said in a press release.

She is founding principal and design director of Mikyoung Kim Design, an international, woman-owned, landscape architecture and urban design firm based in Boston. The studio’s award-winning body of work addresses the most pressing environmental and health-related issues, while creating artful and immersive experiences. Earlier this year, the firm received the National Design Award from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

In Kim’s nomination materials, author and thought leader Sarah Goldhagen remarked: “Mikyoung shows that landscape design and environmental art can be a public amenity, a social condenser, and a sustainable practice while simultaneously being a poetic art that captures and sustains our all-too-often-distracted attention, confers a graceful sense of play, and instigates deep imaginative thought about the many ways that every day landscapes can enrich peoples individual experience and social congress.” (View all of Kim’s supporting nominations.)

Kim currently serves as a Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at the GSD. She led the fall 2017 option studio “Civic Spaces in an Age of Hyper-Complexity: From Protest to Reverie” with Bryan Chou, Design Leader at Mikyoung Kim Design.

Previous GSD alumni winners of the ASLA Design Medal include Gary Hilderbrand MLA ’85 in 2017, Andrea Cochran MLA ’79 in 2014, Stuart Owen Dawson MLA ’58 in 2013, Peter Walker MLA ’57 in 2012, Richard Shaw MLA ’76 in 2009, Richard Haag MLA ’52 in 2007, and Lawrence Halprin BLA ’44 in 2003.