BCSLA-UBC Scholarships
2026 BCSLA Philip Tattersfield Essay Competition Scholarship:
Who Designs, Who Speaks? Landscape Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, and Distributed Intelligence
Background
The BC Society of Landscape Architects (BCSLA) Philip Tattersfield Essay Competition promotes design writing, diversifies student skill sets, and elevates the level of writing within the profession, early in the careers of future landscape architects.
Philip Tattersfield, LMBCSLA #001, FCSLA, had a distinguished career as the first landscape architect registered in British Columbia. Over his career, Tattersfield authored more than 150 publications, briefs, lectures, and television series in North America and overseas covering philosophical and technical aspects of practice. He was integral in shaping the BCSLA and contributed extensively to the BCSLA publication, SITELINES MAGAZINE. This scholarship was established to honour his memory.
Eligibility
Scholarship participants must be a current student of Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA), Master of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (Dual Degree), and Bachelor of Design (BDes) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and must not have previously won the award.
2026 Topic: Who Designs, Who Speaks? Landscape Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, and Distributed Intelligence
This theme openly admits its conditions of production. Written by an artificial intelligence, it invites qualified student participants to confront a discipline increasingly shaped by entities that generate, predict, classify, and decide—often invisibly. The prompt is not a neutral frame but an artifact of the very systems under examination. Essays should interrogate AI as co-author, infrastructure, epistemology, and risk: Who designs when intelligence is distributed across code, datasets, ecologies, and institutions? What landscapes are rendered legible—or erased—by algorithmic vision? Submissions may take scholarly, speculative, critical, or resistant forms, engaging AI’s relationship to colonial legacies, climate governance, labor, and non-human agency. This theme does not ask students to celebrate or reject AI, but to situate it—carefully, politically, and creatively—within the living, contested field of landscape architecture.
Submission Requirements
The essay is to be original and 1,000 words, submitted in PDF format. We encourage participants to include images to support the written argument. Images and quotations must include credits. The prompt asks participants to take a critical stance on the use of AI; therefore, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for writing will not be permitted and may be grounds for disqualification if determined by any of the judges.
Timeline
February 13, 2026 -> Competition Opens
May 1, 2026 -> Deadline for Submissions
May 2 – May 15, 2026 -> Judges Review / Deliberation
May 25, 2026 -> Winner Announced
October 2, 2026 -> Awarding Ceremony at the BCSLA Conference & Tradeshow
Submission Date
Please submit essays to Jim Dema-ala, BCSLA Intern & Associate Rep at [email protected] with the subject line “2026 Tattersfield – [Your Name]” by 2:00 p.m. PT on Friday, May 1, 2026.
Judging
Entries will be judged based on clarity of writing, visionary content, and the author’s ability to engage the reader. A winner will be declared, and honourable mentions may be noted. The panel of judges will consist of:
• 2 BCSLA Directors
• BCSLA Intern & Associate Representative
• BCSLA SALA Representative / UBC Landscape Architecture Program
• President-elect / Public and Professional Relations Committee Chair
Evaluation Criteria
Entries will be evaluated based on clarity of writing, visionary content, and the author’s ability to engage the reader. One winning essay will be chosen, and an honourable mention may be noted. The winning essay will be announced in May 25, 2026, and the award/prize will be given at the BCSLA Annual Conference.
Prize
The winner will receive a $2,000 cash prize paid by the BCSLA.