Students in a fourth-year Texas A&M landscape architecture design studio led by professors Ming-Han Li and Nancy Volkman took five of the 16 awards in a design-for-active-living competition held at the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) conference in Vancouver, Canada in May 2005.

“Active living” design is currently a hot research topic in design and behavior studies. Fueled by such wide-ranging concerns as overuse of automobiles and childhood obesity, many researchers, agencies, and cities are putting greater emphasis on careating places that allow people to incorporate physical activity into their daily schedule.

Holly Dawson’s and Elizabeth Larkin’s town center design earned second place overall in the EDRA competition — the highest prize earned by the participating A&M students.

A sketch of a proposed town center designed by A&M students Holly Dawson and Elizabeth Larkin that was part of the design project that earned second place honors at the Environmental Design Research Association conference last May in Vancouver, Canada.

The land use plan of an “active living” community proposed by Dawson and Larkin for south College Station.