Oh the places you’ll go! — LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AOTEAROA

This time last year, landscape architecture student Hannah Merrett-Kaufman could not have foreseen just how far afield her studies would take her.

Currently in the first year of the Master of Landscape Architecture programme at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, Hannah was focused on completing her undergraduate degree during 2023 when a seemingly once-in-a-lifetime study-related opportunity opened up to travel to the USA.

With facilitation by Programme Director Victoria Chanse, Hannah and four classmates – Tyler Florance, Luke Gray, Lauren Kendon and Zoe Mason – winged their way to Portland, Oregon in November.

Across a whistlestop week the group not only participated in the Student Design Competition at the 27th Biennial Conference of the Coastal & Estuarine Research Federation (CERF), they achieved a joint first place!

The design challenge, from preparation back in Wellington through to presentation in Portland, was centred on assessing resilience issues faced by the Oregon town of Tillamook due to climate change-related coastal flooding, erosion and other impacts.

Beyond the competition students enjoyed a road trip to Tillamook and were able to visit acclaimed firms such as Greenworks and the Portland office of MIG.

Hannah, a former Hutt Valley High student, did not count on a return trip to the USA but connections made to Louisiana State University opened up another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to intern at the LSU Coastal Ecosystem Design Studio for eight weeks in June/ July this year.

Hannah: “This opportunity put me into a multidisciplinary team as part of a programme called Developing Integrated Engineering and Design Solutions for Coastal Louisiana, or DEEDS for short. It's supported by an initiative of the US Army Corps of Engineers called Engineering with Nature.

Photo supplied by Hannah Merrett-Kaufman

“The intake of 21 Summer interns came from eight different universities and was the largest in the programme’s history. Disciplines ranged from botany and coastal science to environmental psychology and landscape architecture.

“You find out what you’re going to do when you get there which made it quite daunting to start with. It was an exciting group to be part of, with an international mix from Bangladesh, China, Greece, Iran, Nigeria, Peru, Venezuela and across the US.

“We were split into four teams. The area my team was assigned to was Port Fourchon, locally known as ‘The Working Coast of America’.

“This was an incredible opportunity to dive into research around coastal hazards and impacts that this area of the Gulf of Mexico takes the brunt of. The likelihood of devastating events like Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) being repeated are always front of mind.

“I was the only person focused on landscape architecture and was joined by Zhenwei Wu (Watershed Hydrology, LSU), Nina Freeman (Organic Farmer), Chris G. Baos (Architectural Engineer) and Shaharia Jaman Bhuiyan (Data Scientist).

“As well as a large amount of self-directed learning we also went on a number of field visits to multiple sites and we received feedback throughout. I was especially grateful to our group advisor Yao Wang, who is an assistant professor at LSU’s Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture.

Hannah described the internship as a “valuable learning experience that will shape my future endeavours”, adding that the mix of research and applied work had definitely affirmed her choice of career.

“Being in a multidisciplinary team was so interesting. Sometimes we’d be using the same terms but with differences in meanings particular to each of us.

“One thing I didn’t expect was the high level of interest from other interns, including from my own discipline, in the ways that landscape architecture is approached in New Zealand and our important regard for indigenous knowledge and mātauranga Māori”.

While having two intense trips to the USA within 12 months may have put added pressure on Hannah, she has also managed to ‘levee’ herself a string of parallel successes.

These successes notably include walking away with an NZILA Award of Excellence in the Student category at this year’s NZILA Firth Wānanga for the joint work she did with Tyler Florance on ‘Salinity Security’ (focused on Tillamook) and being awarded a 2023 Vectorworks Design Scholarship for a project she titled ‘Retrofitting for the Symbiocene’.

Hannah is extremely appreciative of the learning support she has received from professors, tutors and fellow students.

With a thesis topic to plan for in 2025, Hannah may be revisiting aspects of the ‘Symbiocene’ project, which emphasised restoring balance and promoting habitats for local wildlife, as well as seeking to revitalise water and land ecosystems while connecting people to the wai (water).

And it may not be surprising if another trip to the USA beckons in her future.