NIZLA Resene Pride of Place Awards gallery
Judges from the NZILA Resene Pride of Place Landscape Architecture Awards 2013 reflect on this year's entries alongside a gallery of projects distinguished with either an Award of Excellence or Distinction.
This year’s design finalists showcased the best of landscape architecture from around New Zealand. A record 77 projects were entered into the design categories (up 33 per cent on our previous awards) and all were considered by the judges to be high quality landscape architecture work – a testament to the strength of our profession despite the difficult recession environment in which we are all working. In the planning categories, there were many examples of high calibre, international quality work. Many submissions tackled environmental resilience through understanding and implementation of landscape design and systems. Earthquake Cities on the Pacific Rim was a worthy winner of the Charlie Challenger Supreme Award.
Those awarded with either an Excellence or Distinction demonstrated outstanding or excellent approaches and responses. A strong theme was that of restraint – what was deliberately left out of the design was a catalyst to achievement of an aesthetically appropriate outcome that resonated with a strong sense of place. Deep consideration of the way space is used by the public and/or clients also stood out – spaces that drew us in and encouraged us to pause and stay showcased the success of acuity to the blurred boundary between culture and environment.
It was encouraging to see a range of projects in the visionary category that placed the landscape architect in the role of research innovator, with work that generated stunning ideas to facilitate change and re-generation, providing a service to the broader public as well as our industry.
The George Malcolm Supreme Award for design was appropriately presented to a rural project that illustrated all of the above alongside the powerful potential of landscape architecture to be a positive transformative process. Nick’s Head Station gives pause for thought when considering the highly publicised and controversial issue of foreign land ownership in New Zealand. In relation to landscape this fraught issue would be more appropriately viewed from the outcomes achieved in terms of resilience, custodianship and the legacy of sensitive stewardship rather than who has temporary ownership. This work shows that landscape responses can provide for local connections and employment, viable rural land use, conservation and restoration of native eco-systems and all this while achieving a powerful and beautiful aesthetic appropriate to place and time. Alongside the collective award winners, these projects exemplify the invaluable wisdom that our profession contributes to positive outcomes in this world of constant change.
Landscape Design Judges: Renée Davies (lead judge), Niall Simpson, Jan Woodhouse, Gordon Moller, Diane Menzies, Jacky Bowring.
Landscape Planning Judges: Sally Peake (lead judge), Mary Buckland, Hugh Lusk.
Student judging notes:
There were approximately half the number of entries in the Lincoln University Student Division of the NZILA Resene Pride of Place Landscape Architecture Awards when compared to the previous two rounds. Possibly this was due to the IFLA 50 World Congress Student Charrette occurring at the same time, with students focussing their energies on this competition.
On a positive note, all winning entries showed a passion for landscape that came through in their design work and presentations. The winning entries had consistently strong and imaginative ideas, which were well thought through and presented. Overall, however, it was felt that there was a lack of innovation, with many entries not addressing current important landscape issues (climate change, sea level rise, etc). Many entries offered only part of a solution; a number of entries appeared to concentrate on the presentation aesthetic, rather than developing a clear, strong, design-based solution. In addition, many students had strong ideas, however the bigger landscape issues, which provided context to their proposals, were often not addressed. Some proposals represented only a small part of the design process and therefore were not complete projects. The language used by student entries in support of their designs was often overly verbose. In general, students would have benefited from keeping their language simple and clear when describing their design intent and how it was achieved. In addition, many students were let down by simple grammatical errors.
Finally, the judges are not as young as they used to be, and eyesight is challenged when reading a lot of tiny text, which would have been small on an A1 plan, let alone reduced to an A3-sized page. While this may seem a rather small issue, it illustrates that any presentation should be tailored to its page size. Having said all of this, we were impressed with our winning entries which portray well considered and creative landscape architectural design work. Well done to all the successful entrants
Student Judges: Peter Kensington (lead judge), David Irwin, Mandy McMullin.