Four Sand Dollar Awards, Four Different Landscapes
It was an unforgettable night for Outside Productions.
At the 2026 Sand Dollar Awards, OPI was honored with four awards for Best Landscape Design, recognizing GardenView, Casa Palma Azul, Noir Vista Residence, and Seaglass Moorings Estate.
Presented by the Collier Building Industry Association, the Sand Dollar Awards celebrate excellence across Southwest Florida's building and design industry. To have four distinctly different OPI landscapes recognized in the same year is an incredible honor and a reflection of what we believe exceptional landscape architecture can be.
Each winning project tells a different story. One is designed around wellness and aging in place. Another was shaped around the everyday life of a busy family. Others explore the relationship between architecture, disciplined geometry, tropical planting, and the distinct character of Naples.
Together, they represent four very different approaches to one fundamental idea: the landscape should belong to the place, the architecture, and the people who experience it.
A Landscape Designed for Wellness, Connection, and Belonging
GardenView demonstrates that meaningful landscape architecture goes far beyond aesthetics.
Created as part of a senior living community in Naples, the gardens were designed as a series of interconnected outdoor environments supporting wellness, social connection, sensory engagement, memory support, and everyday interaction with nature.
Rather than creating a single garden experience, the landscape unfolds through a collection of distinct destinations. Asian, succulent, bromeliad, butterfly, Florida native, and Caribbean gardens introduce different colors, textures, scents, and experiences throughout the property. A living bromeliad wall, specimen plantings, artwork, and carefully selected materials add moments of discovery along the way.
Accessible circulation was equally important. Meandering rubberized pathways create safer, slip-resistant connections throughout the gardens, while shaded gathering areas and restorative spaces provide opportunities to socialize, explore, or simply find a quiet moment outdoors.
The Reflection Garden was designed specifically as a secure, calming environment for memory support, while Fluffington Park creates space for pet companionship and multigenerational interaction. Native and adapted planting, permeable surfaces, and expanded green space also help the landscape respond responsibly to Southwest Florida's climate.
The result is a landscape where beauty serves a greater purpose. Every planting selection, pathway, gathering space, and garden experience was considered through the lens of dignity, accessibility, joy, and well-being.
Outdoor Living, Designed Around Real Life
Casa Palma Azul proves that luxury and livability do not have to compete.
What began as the landscape for a Naples spec residence evolved when the property was purchased by a large family during the design process. From that point forward, the landscape became increasingly personal, shaped around how the family would actually gather, entertain, play, and move between the main residence and separate casita.
Clean geometry creates the framework, while sculptural palms, layered courtyards, gardens, turf, and water soften the architecture and connect the different areas of the property.
The backyard functions as a collection of outdoor rooms rather than one singular pool terrace. A generous sun deck, pool pavilion, garden moments, gathering spaces, and a large sunken fire lounge create opportunities to come together while still providing places to retreat. Turf inlays were incorporated in areas intended to accommodate the activity of a busy household, while additional parking and recreation areas responded directly to the family's needs.
Throughout the property, water, planting, hardscape, and architecture continually overlap. Large expanses of paving are broken apart by landscape, focal points are carefully composed from inside the home, and the connection between the main house and casita becomes an experience of its own.
Casa Palma Azul is polished without feeling precious. It was designed to be beautiful, but more importantly, it was designed to be lived in.
Modern Planting with a Softer Edge
At Noir Vista Residence, the landscape takes its cues from modern architecture while resisting the temptation to become overly minimal.
The design relies on disciplined repetition and strong plant forms to create structure. A striking row of silver-blue agaves introduces sculptural color and rhythm, while statement palms establish vertical scale against the architecture.
Japanese blueberry trees bring another layer of formality and enclosure, helping frame views and define spaces throughout the property. Below them, manicured planting gradually transitions into deeper layers of tropical greenery.
That layering is what gives Noir Vista its character.
Rather than relying on a single hedge or planting plane, the landscape builds depth through multiple heights, textures, and forms. The result feels lush without becoming visually chaotic and contemporary without feeling stark.
It is a carefully controlled landscape that allows individual plant forms to make an impact while still reading as one complete composition.
Geometry Meets the Garden
Located in The Moorings, Seaglass Moorings Estate explores what happens when landscape becomes part of the architecture.
Strong geometry runs throughout the property, beginning with the arrival. Statement palms give the driveway scale and presence, while turf striping interrupts the hardscape with clean lines of green. Sculptural lollipop silver buttonwoods and carefully manicured hedges reinforce the tailored character of the landscape, leading toward a dedicated entry fountain at the home.
In the backyard, that geometry becomes even more expressive.
A distinctive diamond trellis and turf pattern turns the ground plane into a graphic design element, creating visual interest both at eye level and when viewed from above. The pattern complements the linear pool and elevated spa while giving the outdoor living area its own identity.
Planting is deliberately restrained but highly textural. Horsetail grass reinforces the clean vertical lines of the architecture, while layered hedges and palms provide privacy and softness.
Perhaps the most memorable details are the succulent planter water bowls positioned along the pool. Part planter and part water feature, they introduce sculptural greenery directly into the pool composition and blur the traditional distinction between landscape and waterscape.
Every element feels precise, but never rigid. Architecture, planting, turf, water, and hardscape work together to create a coastal landscape that is refined, graphic, and unmistakably Naples.
Four Awards, Four Different Landscapes
There is no singular formula for an award-winning landscape.
GardenView is rooted in wellness and human connection. Casa Palma Azul is shaped around family life. Noir Vista Residence explores the tension between modern restraint and lush planting. Seaglass Moorings Estate uses geometry and landscape as one integrated composition.
Their differences are exactly what make receiving four Best Landscape Design awards in one evening so meaningful.
For OPI, landscape architecture has never been about applying a recognizable style from one property to the next. It begins by understanding the architecture, the site, the environment, and most importantly, the people who will experience the space.
Sometimes that leads to a private tropical retreat. Sometimes it produces an architectural garden composed in precise lines. And sometimes it creates a place where a resident can walk outside, connect with nature, spend time with family, or find a quiet moment of calm.
We are incredibly proud to see GardenView, Casa Palma Azul, Noir Vista Residence, and Seaglass Moorings Estaterecognized among the 2026 Sand Dollar Award winners, and grateful to the clients, architects, builders, designers, consultants, and project teams who helped bring each landscape to life.
Four projects. Four unique stories. Four Best Landscape Design awards.
A very special night for OPI, and an honor we are proud to bring home to our team in Naples.
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