Restoring Dignity and Beauty to the Land: Taiwanese Landscape Architect Chung-twn Kuo Receives Golden Pin Design Award Honorary Award

The Golden Pin Design Award names Taiwanese landscape architect Chung-twn Kuo as this year’s Honorary Award recipient, reflecting her long-standing commitment to public landscape design.

On 5th November, The Golden Pin Design Award announced Taiwanese landscape architect Chung-twn Kuo as the recipient of this year’s Honorary Award, commending her nearly four decades of dedication to public landscape design and her far reaching influence on the discipline in Taiwan through an enduring commitment to environmental conservation and reverence for the land.

The Golden Pin Design Award bestows the “Honorary Award” annually to commend individuals for their outstanding or extraordinary long-term contributions to the research, promotion, or practice of Taiwanese design. Candidates are nominated by Taiwanese design-related associations, organizations, or current jurors of the Golden Pin Design Award, with the laureate selected by the jury. Beyond honoring the recipient’s accumulated achievements and profound impact, the award seeks to establish an inspiring benchmark for the design industry in Taiwan and across Asia, motivating practitioners to dedicate themselves to professional practice and pass down core design values.

A graduate of Tamkang University’s Department of Architecture, Chung-twn Kuo pursued her doctoral studies at Waseda University in Japan during the 1970s, studying under prominent modern architect Takamasa Yoshizaka. Deeply inspired by his philosophy that embraced nature, history, and humanity, she synthesized research on Taiwan’s local architecture within modern Japanese architectural history with water environment planning and design, solidifying her lifelong commitment to environmental conservation.

Following her return to Taiwan in 1986, her first project, the Dongshan River Water Park, a project that integrated river governance, local culture, and recreation through landscape design, transforming a waterfront once engineered strictly for flood control and drainage into an accessible, vibrant public space. Her subsequent leadership in planning the Luodong Sports Park established an exemplary benchmark that harmonized the natural environment with local living. Widely recognized as cornerstones of the “Yilan Experience,” these seminal works have exerted a far reaching influence on Taiwan’s domestic landscape transformation movement.

In 1993, Kuo and her husband, Kenji Horigome, co-founded the Laboratory for Environment & Form (LEF). Over the decades, guided by a deep respect for environmental ecology, history, and culture while attentive to the shared needs of all generations, she has delivered numerous large scale landscape architecture projects spanning Taiwan’s mountains, riverbanks, plains, and coastal harbors. Her representative works include the Mingchi Forest Recreation Area, Peinan Site Park, Beitou Hot Spring Park, Checheng Logging Exhibition Hall in Nantou, Yoichi Hatta Memorial Park in Tainan, Zhongdu Wetlands Park in Kaohsiung, and Nanliao Fishing Port in Hsinchu. These acclaimed projects have consistently garnered major landscape accolades. Capping these professional milestones, Kuo was named a laureate of the 22nd National Award for Arts in the Architecture category.

Dedicated to embedding landscape aesthetics and ecological practices into public infrastructure, Chung-twn Kuo has long sought to collaborate with communities to cultivate beautiful, livable environments, mending the toll exacted on Taiwan’s landscape by decades of rapid economic growth. Her philosophy and practice have not only inspired successive generations of designers, but also heightened public consciousness and aspirations for quality living environments.

Reflecting on the accolade, Kuo remarked that this honor extends far beyond personal recognition, serving as a powerful affirmation of land ethics and ecological landscape values in Taiwan. Looking back on a trajectory spanning the “Yilan Experience” to transformative public works across the island, she remains anchored in her enduring design philosophy: “We do half the work; nature does the other half”, meaning human intervention is merely the beginning, leaving the rest to be gently mended by time and nature.

In her acceptance remarks, Kuo also invoked the maxim, “A landscape takes ten years, scenery a century, and terroir ten thousand,” encapsulating the enduring conviction that has guided her lifelong dedication to public landscape design and the stewardship of land ethics. Expressing heartfelt gratitude to the collaborators who have accompanied her throughout her journey, she reflected: “Looking ahead, we will continue to weave together natural ecology, culture and history, restoring dignity and beauty to this land and joining hands with everyone to safeguard the home where we live and thrive.”

The 2026 Golden Pin Design Award Ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 26, at 19:00 (GMT+8) at the Taipei Performing Arts Center. During the grand event, the Honorary Award will be officially presented to this year’s laureate, Chung-twn Kuo, alongside the much-anticipated unveiling of the winners for the “Best Design Award” and the “Special Award.”

The ceremony will be live-streamed globally in both Chinese and English via the official Golden Pin Design Award YouTube channel, inviting the design community and industry partners worldwide to tune in and celebrate together.

For the latest event updates, visit the official website and follow its official channels on Facebook and Instagram.