2022 Professional Awards
of the Potomac Chapter ASLA

Branch Brook Park

Rhodeside Harwell

A team of designers, public and provide agencies, and rooted community organizations spent decades in an extraordinary effort to bring great public spaces to life. The jury applauded this amazing effort as transforming public spaces, respecting Olmsted’s original plan while remaining updated and contemporary. 

Merit Award in Historic Preservation

For the past 21 years, an extraordinary public-private partnership has worked to restore and complete a landscape work of art: Essex County Branch Brook Park in Newark, NJ, originally designed by the Olmsted firm between 1898 and1937.

“Nature’s beauty heals the body and lifts the human spirit, strengthening our communities and our civilization.”

“It is a long time since my father had been so much pleased with any proposed park site…”

The landscape architect studied more than 700 Olmsted drawings, ultimately producing a general plan providing a vision for the park. 



By 2022, the community partners had raised more than $50 million and completed over 25 projects, including a pavilion with surrounding parterres that create an intimate spot for weddings and other occasions.



In response to community priorities, the team created outdoor, recreational spaces, developing great fields in beautiful settings that offered respite to the surrounding low-income community.



Project Team
Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr., Essex County Executive
Philip B. Alagia, Chief of Staff

Branch Brook Park Alliance
Rhodeside Harwell
Various Consultants

Photo Credit
Courtesy of Rhodeside Harwell

Congratulations to Rhodeside Harwell.



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