Landscape Architecture Aotearoa Issue 2 Issue 2 | Page 18

18 NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS What’s the biggest challenge facing the profession here in NZ and world-wide? J: One of the biggest hurdles facing the profession that I have noticed since being in practice is advocacy. Generally I find the public don’t know what landscape architecture actually is and they immediately assume ‘gardening’ - then you spend a good ten minutes trying to convince them otherwise. Education about the profession will be a long battle but the more we work with communities and involve ourselves across design disciplines then the easier it will become. S: One thing I feel strongly about that Landscape Architects should be promoting is the idea of facilitating community building within cities. With urban areas worldwide becoming increasingly pressurised for space and resource, opportunities for community engagement in the landscape are less common than they once were. My dissertation addressed this by asking how community resilience can be built through landscape-based practices such as community gardening and urban agriculture. It was fascinating to see first hand what a positive influence the inclusion of these participatory spaces in heavily urbanized areas makes to the community cohesion of a place. B: We have a lot of complex layers to digest sometimes. It is ok to simplify and remember the basic values of the design approach, and user of the project. From hand drawing to computer rendering, we must not forget we are designing spaces for people. There are plenty of tools out there now, and the increasing prominence of big data, by which we may become too detached from the living system. Technology including parametricism, coding, virtual environments, photoshop sunsets, and comfortable trajectories all are quite encouraging, even inspiring, but we should always spend some time knowing the space as a visitor/homeowner/client, really getting our hands dirty. Brennan, Your undergraduate studies included a minor in art history… how do you bring that interest into your landscape practice? B: What has art not offered us? It took a number of museum visits, and endless papers on great artists/ designers to understand the importance of method, concept, order (or not), and paradigm to exemplify a critical approach. By this I consider landscape architecture an art form, a practice of a technique that produces remarkable, even moving results. To have such an impressionable effect it IS good to know our masters, but also learn from them. Some landscape projects may be similar to momentous works of art in history (with more meaning than just a plant in the ground), i.e. the renaissance’s The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck, which there is subtle social reflection, historical significance, geometric constructions, and remarkable technique, composed into one heavy, timeless piece. Additionally you have a critical perspective considering things in response to movements, or themes throughout time. Even now, what we are doing in practice and academia, will be deconstructed down the road... what better way than approaching that angle with parallel interest now, while making these projects/ research topics real? Sophie, Your master’s project addressed ideas about landscape and memory. Can you tell us about that? S: One of our final projects (sketch above addressed the very sensitive topic of the holocaust and was based on a former concentration camp on the outskirts of Kraków in Poland. The site was complex both in terms of scale and diversity but with the added dimension of its difficult history the challenge was to rebuild a landscape that has such a delicate connection for so many people. Any intervention was required to be sensitive to respect the memory of the past but bold enough to restore a sense of purpose for a progressive future. Are there lessons can we take from older European and Asian countries, in terms of achieving a good balance between growth/development and heritage/preservation? S: With the rapid expansion of cities there is a risk of loosing the heritage from which the place has grown. I think it is important to protect this character but also appreciate that there can be a need for growth