UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Stephen Zimmerer, a 2016 Penn State landscape architecture alumnus, has been named a Landscape Architecture Foundation 2017 National Olmsted Scholar Finalist. Finalists receive a $1,000 award and a certificate at a recognition ceremony at the Landscape Architecture Foundation's annual benefit and Olmsted Scholar Luncheon in October, which coincides with the annual American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) meeting in Los Angeles.
Zimmerer, a Schreyer Honors Scholar and the student marshal for the December 2016 College of Arts and Architecture commencement, is currently in Shenzhen, China, continuing his thesis research and working for a small landscape architecture practice. His thesis also was part of his exhibition “City Rural” at the Woskob Family Gallery in the fall. His work has been exhibited at various locations, including the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture conference and expo, the Barcelona Architecture Center, and the Pittsburgh Zoo.
Raised by an artist and a geographer, Zimmerer creates prints, drawings, collages and fabric works that address the blending of the urban and the rural. In 2015, his team was chosen as a finalist in the national World War I competition in Washington, D.C. Zimmerer also spent a semester at Hong Kong University in the spring of 2016, where he studied ecological planning and design in industrializing Myanmar. He returned to Hong Kong this fall to complete his thesis on the Pearl River Delta.
Zimmerer and the other Landscape Architecture Foundation 2017 National Olmsted Scholar Finalists are featured in the June issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine and ASLA’s LAND e-news.
To learn more, visit www.lafoundation.org.