At the Annual A+Awards, Dutch landscape architecture company OKRA has won the Popular Vote for Best Landscape Design Firm. The award reflects the specific design approach of OKRA, which is aimed at providing resilient foundations fostering meaningful daily lives of people across the globe. The internationally oriented firm works worldwide on solutions for healthy climate-proof cities, water management, and resilient landscapes at every scale.

Designing meaningful places
“Winning popular-vote awards and user-driven recognitions is always special to us”, explains associate Nefeli Kalantzi,

“We work on urgent, climate-related and complex challenges of every scale. Yet at the core of our work is the drive to design places that provide people with opportunities to live healthy, inspired and meaningful lives. It is rewarding to see this design approach recognized”.

Innovative solutions for water challenges worldwide
As a Dutch firm, OKRA is steeped in the centuries of experience with water management of its home country – especially relevant with regard to today’s urgent climate challenges. The firm designs for coastal and riverine protection, potable water chains and blue-green infrastructures. In its designs, OKRA has developed an expertise in nature-based solutions that integrate naturally with local landscapes, cultures and communities worldwide. Currently under construction, Marina Park in Cork, Ireland, is where OKRA’s water-based design turned a brownfield area into a thriving and welcoming natural space for the city. Water becomes the backbone of the park that now also plays a vital role in managing key stormwater runoff for the surrounding areas. Another recent example of OKRA’s approach to water resilience is the internationally awarded masterplan for the coastal protection of the city of Shenzhen in China.

Healthy cities as natural habitats
Also stemming from OKRA’s Dutch roots is a focus on innovative design for high-density areas. With a growing world population that will largely live in urban areas, cities need to reinvent themselves as places where both humanity and nature can thrive. OKRA’s nature-based designs, and concepts such as the urban biotope, aim to bring about vibrant, resilient and socially inclusive environments with a true connection with nature. At the core of this approach lies the conviction that our cities need not be barriers to nature, but can be flourishing habitats for humans, plants and animals.

“We have shifted from designing planting schemes to initiating planting populations and creating the conditions where organisms coexist harmoniously and support each other”,

says associate Giuliana Sibilia. A decennia-long collaboration with the Belgian city Mechelen to perpetually improve and integrate water systems, city nature and the city’s historical beauty highlights OKRA’s approach.

A diverse, international team
OKRA’s approach and range of expertise is enhanced by a truly diverse, international team, with young and talented employees and associates from all around the globe working closely together. In this way OKRA combines thirty years of experience with the ability to put out innovative, pioneering work at the forefront of their field. International recognition for OKRA’s achievements has been coming in the form of a wide variety of awards, the most recent being the European Prize for Urban Public Space 2022; ARCH22 Urbanism Award; 1st and 2nd place in Dutch Green Cities Award 2023; and Most inspiring City Centre Project 2024.

Published on August 27, 2024