Landscape Architecture Alum Wins ASLA Honor Award

Jake Morris ‘25, a recent graduate of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA), earned a 2025 Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

A person wearing a blue checkered shirt stands outdoors with arms crossed, smiling at the camera. Trees without leaves are visible in the background.
Jake Morris

Morris received the award for his project “The Haunt of Mobile: Reconnecting Down the Bay,” an analysis and plan of the Down the Bay community in Mobile’s industrial waterfront.

“My project’s original goal was to illustrate the importance of the Port of Mobile in relationship to the growth of the city,” he said. “After discovering the Down the Bay community, my project shifted lenses towards the goal of creating awareness of the unspoken realities of the cost of growth Mobile and other port cities face.”

Morris considered Avery Gordon’s concept of haunting—a state in which repressed or unresolved social violence comes to the forefront to prompt restorative action—in the Port of Mobile, where Black and immigrant communities were pushed out for infrastructural development.

A man stands at the front of a classroom, pointing to design plans on the wall, while several people seated face him and a monitor displaying related images.
Morris presented “The Haunt of Mobile” during his final review of his master’s degree.
Three people pose in front of a blue ASLA-branded backdrop, with one wearing a green dress, one in a suit with a conference badge, and one in a black suit.
Morris received the award from the Jury Chair Haley Blakeman, left, and ASLA President Kona Grey, right.

“I knew from the very first moment I read about Down the Bay it was the story I wanted to tell,” Morris said. “The hard part was figuring out how to communicate that story,” he said, mentioning hours dedicated to workshopping the project’s narrative with LAND Assistant Professor Isaac Cohen.

Aerial view of a waterfront urban ecology project with labeled features, including stormwater wetlands, native plants, and city buildings in the background.
Morris envisioned a new future for Down the Bay, where the land is reclaimed as a public resource.

Through a series of maps, diagrams and renderings, Morris envisioned a new future for Down the Bay—one in which 200 acres of port-related land would be transformed into a stratified marsh. By reclaiming haunted land and addressing sea level rise, the design restores not only the ecology but the social and cultural implications of redlining, segregation and industrial expansion on the Mobile. The project acknowledges wrongs made in pursuit of growth and works to reestablish a connection between the city and the waterfront.

A map of Mobile, Alabama port facilities with highlighted sections, overlaid with three black and white aerial photographs of different port areas.
Morris’ analysis traces the port’s industrial history and identifies opportunities for ecological and social repair.

After completing his Master of Landscape Architecture in May 2025, Morris assumed a position as a graduate landscape designer at Gonzales-Strength & Associates in Birmingham, Ala., where he continues to design solutions that consider ecological and geological conditions, community impact and historical relevance—creating spaces that look both forward to the future and back to the past.

“I hope that my project illuminates the price our communities pay in the name of ‘progress’,” he said.

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Related people:
Isaac Cohen