Victoria University Landscape Architecture success at national awards
18 April 2013
Victoria University Landscape Architecture students took home 3 out of 5 awards in a highly regarded national design competition this month.
Brad Leigh Dobson, Jaime Macfarlane and James Fischer each received a Distinction Award in the Student Division of the NZILA Landscape Architecture Awards. The students are all studying or are graduates of the Master’s in Landscape Architecture (MLA) at Victoria University’s School of Architecture, and the projects submitted for the awards were a part of this programme of study.
Macfarlane's project, Ecological Touchstones of Our Identity, identifies how three uniquely native New Zealand landscapes, the Beach, the Swamp and the Bush, have become lost to New Zealanders through the gradual transitions of time and contested histories, and proposes alternative methods of overcoming this disengagement. The final design creates a strong knowledge base of eco-sourcing and regeneration by developing a functioning seed bank sited between the Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa and Lake Waiwiri (Lake Papaitonga) in the Horowhenua. The lowland forest is regenerated back into a functioning ecosystem, while the site dialogue established by the project acts as a tool for strengthening New Zealand’s sense of ecological and cultural awareness, and thereby, identity.
The successful student projects were the product of an ongoing partnership between the Victoria Landscape Programme and Dr Huhana Smith of MTM Manaaki Taha Moana. This research partnership is funded by the Ministry for Science and Innovation, and is dedicated to enhancing coastal ecosystems for Iwi and Hapu. 'The success of these students reflects the commitment of the school to New Zealand’s status as a bicultural nation and the implications of that for high quality urban and regional landscape design' says Landscape Architecture Programme Director Penny Allan.
Also in the NZILA awards ceremony, Penny Allan and Senior Lecturer Martin Bryant were awarded the Charlie Challenger Supreme Award for their research project, Earthquake Cities on the Pacific Rim.
Images (left to right): Brad Leigh Dobson's Lake Waiorongomai - People Fade Away But The Land Remains, James Fischer's Birdscaping the Horowhenua, and Jaime Macfarlane's The Ecological Touchstones of Our Identity.