NZILA conference and awards - that's a wrap
The NZILA Firth Conference has wrapped up for another year with overwhelmingly positive feedback from delegates.
The event ended in Christchurch last night with the ceremony naming the winners in the Resene New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architecture Awards 2019.
The Resene New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architecture Awards were handed out last night at the Christchurch Art Gallery.
NZILA President Brad Coombs believes the theme of the conference, Disruption, in conjunction with the calibre of the international and local speakers “represents a step change in the quality of our conference events. The profession and the Institute should be very proud.”
Boffa Miskell’s Emma Taylor found the international speakers thought provoking. “ It was a great few days of professional development, inspiration, socialising, finishing with a great awards evening celebrating and profiling the profession.”
NZILA Executive Committee member Megan Ash says the conference has provided a great opportunity to hear from both international and national speakers and hear about all the amazing things that people are working on in different sectors.
Walter Hood at the Christchurch conference yesterday - the founder of Hood Design Studio’s conference appearance was sponsored by LandLAB.
“It’s great to see that we are all striving for the same thing but interesting to see all the different pathways LAs are perusing through their design interventions to get there,” she says.
Mark Fletcher from Studio Pacific says this week’s conference followed on from the success of 2018’s City Tāone.
“Ngāi Tūāhuriri/Ngāi Tahu have made us feel very welcome and it has been great to hear about the many collaborative efforts that have contributed to Christchurch getting its mojo back. Well done to all those involved and to the NZILA Christchurch organising committee who have made it such a great event. Can’t wait for next year’s,” he says.
The good news is the next conference is just over six months away with planning well underway for the Tauranga event in May 2020.
Aroha Reriti Crofts of the Matapopore Charitable Trust takes centre stage at the awards ceremony.
Awards Night
The Resene New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architecture Awards 2019 were handed out at a stunning ceremony at the Christchurch Art Gallery last night.
We will be profiling the winning projects here on LAA in coming days but special mention now to the supreme winner, Te Papa Ōtākaro Avon River Park by LandLAB, Boffa Miskell, WSP-Opus, and Rough & Milne, the Matapopore Charitable Trust and Ōtākaro Limited who were named as the NZILA George Malcolm award winners.
You can see the full list of winners here.
The NZILA George Malcolm award winning project - Te Papa Ōtākaro Avon River Park.
NZILA Vice President Julia Wick, who oversees the awards programme says overall the quality of entrants this year has been of an exceptional standard. She thinks much of the work is world leading.
"The awards programme means a lot to the industry. It's really important that the industry themselves gets the chance to celebrate these projects and that's the individuals as well as the firms who enter.
Some of the winners from last night’s awards ceremony.
"It also helps to really benchmark best practice in the industry. It's really important that we can use some projects that are at the forefront leading in the industry. And it also gives the chance to really celebrate and advertise what landscape architecture is,” she says.
Wick does say though, that she would like to see more entries from solo practitioners and smaller firms enter. She acknowledges there could be many reasons behind their reluctance to take part and the NZILA executive is looking at ways to solve this.
See more from Julia in the video below.
