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Lifetime Achievement Award to Professor Robin Moore

Each year the Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management at NC State University recognizes a professional who has made an outstanding contribution to the parks, recreation, tourism, sport, or golf profession at the state, national, or international level. This award is intended to recognize leading individuals who are not graduates of NC State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management and who are a practicing professional for twenty years.

The College of Design is pleased to learn that the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of the Natural Learning Initiative  Robin Moore, Honorary ASLA .

Moore holds degrees in architecture (London University) and urban planning (MIT), and for most of his career has worked in the field of landscape architecture as an educator, researcher, and consultant. He is an international authority on the design of children’s play and learning environments, user needs research, and participatory public open space design. His designs for children’s spaces in the USA include the well-known Environmental Yard, in Berkeley, California (recipient in 1988 of the Outstanding Contribution to the Practice of Design Research by the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). Moore is the author or co-author of Childhood’s Domain: Play and Place in Child Development (1986), Plants for Play (1993), the Play for All Guidelines (1987), the Complete Playground Book (1993), Natural Learning (1997), and numerous articles on the use of the outdoor environment by children and youth and families, and their involvement in the planning and design process. He was the principal investigator for the US Access Board update of the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards for Children’s Environments. Professor Moore is past president of the International Association for the Child’s Right to Play (IPA), and for twenty years was editor of the IPA magazine, PlayRights.

As director of research and professional development unit at the NC State University, College of Design Natural Learning Initiative, Moore leads the mission to help communities create stimulating places for play, learning, and environmental education. He and his team collaborate with educators, play leaders, environmental educators, politicians, and all professionals working for and with children.

Listing of past recipients