The 2016 ASLA San Diego Chapter Design Awards were attended by over 120 members and guests who shared a fun evening — Celebrating 40 Years of ASLA – San Diego and honoring the best in the industry on June 9 at the McMillin Event Center at Liberty Station.

These awards are the ultimate recognition of design achievement for firms and projects in the San Diego region, celebrating the innovation and creativity found among the practitioners in San Diego County.

Continuing a traditional started at the 2014 Design Awards, the San Diego Chapter recognized three Student Design Award Winners and presented the San Diego Stewardship Award to Landscape Architect Clay Phillips for his 37 years of support and advocacy in the public realm. Phillips sees one of the key goals of the profession is to connect people to the environment and what better place to do that than at the best state park system in the nation. The skillsets that enable Landscape Architects to do that, allowed Clay to also bridge the gap between conflicting park stakeholders and diverse professional disciplines. Clay Phillips retired after working 37 years for California State Parks.