WINTER 2016
that gaining work experience abroad would give me
advantage to be more competitive in the European job
market and improve my career. But plans changed and
now I am a New Zealand resident still stretching his
Kiwi OE “ad libitum” and not really dying to dive back
in the European job market.
Q: In terms of your career, and day-to-day working
life, what has been the biggest change or challenge?
EC: The biggest challenge was actually the sum of
thousands of small changes. Some might sound silly
but they all added up. The native flora was completely
unknown to me. I was working using a language other
than my mother tongue. I had a little book where
I noted all the new words as I was learning them.
The technical lexicon that you would normally learn
during your studies and your first years of apprenticeship I had to learn, from scratch, in a different language. If I wanted to shade a path I had to place trees
along its northern side! I learned to draw and think in
millimetres (my Autocad standard units have always
been metres before). I met the New Zealand building
code and the NZS8500-2006 that introduced me to
“mandatory pool fencing” (a concept totally unimaginable to me back then).
DG: Learning about the cultural meaning of landscape
for Maori continues to be an area of interest for me,
and a point of difference between practicing as a
designer in New Zealand, as opposed to Australia,
where engagement with Indigenous people is often
limited or non-existent. Australian designers can learn
from New Zealand in this regard.
Q: What projects are you working on now?
EC: Our studio designs high-end residential landscapes. Projects I’m working on range in stages, types,
scales and locations. Planting is going in around a
new building in Queenstown, while we are finalising
a concept for a big landscape renovation in Auckland.
Hardscape construction is bound to start on a fantastic property on Waiheke while we’re drafting details
for the garden of a rebuilt home in Christchurch.
DG: A lot of my current project work is focused on
medium-high density housing, and the design of public and shared space within these developments. Large
scale projects such as Hobsonville Point are interesting as they must continually evolve and respond to the
economic and social context. It’s a complex model of
housing design, where a delicate balance is required
in order to achieve efficiency and affordability, while
also ensuring that each stage reinforces quality design
and fosters a sense of community.
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Q: Is there a distinctive New Zealand style, in terms
of landscape design?
DG: The projects that speak of New Zealand clearest
to me are those which tap into the finer grain of their
context – whether it’s the retention and celebration
of the silos and rail tracks of Auckland’s waterfront, or
the way in which the New Plymouth foreshore walkway engages with the raw energy of the coast, providing users of this trail with a visceral experience of the
landscape.
EC: I think it might take centuries for for a national
style to be strongly recognizable (I’m thinking lines of
cypress along hill roads screaming Tuscany, or lines of
Lombardy poplars screaming… well… Lombardy!). For
a young discipline, in a very young country, in a more
and more globalized world this might be too much to
ask. New Zealand landscape design is recognizable
though, when it embraces native vegetation.
Q: Are there any plantings or materials that strike
you as ‘quintessentially Kiwi’?
DG: I’ve fallen in love with the Pohutukawa tree since
moving to NZ. With an embracing canopy for gathering under, irresistibly climbable (and swingable)
branches and its vibrantly colourful celebration of
summer, I can’t think of anything more ‘Kiwi’.
EC: In addition to the use of endemic vegetation I
think that the use of local materials contributes to
make a landscape feel “native”. If I had to name three
plantings or materials they’d be Nikau palms, crushed
shell used as groundcover and massive solid hardwood picnic benches.
Q: When it comes to conservation of native habitat,
ecology and pollution, climate change and similar
‘big issues’ related to landscape, what do you think
are the most critical for New Zealand?
DG: The development of a more compact and connected city is front and centre for me, thinking about
Auckland. As with many other cities that were built
around the car and sprawled outwards, it’s difficult to
make progress until a viable alternative choice encourages people to change their behaviour. If we can
achieve this, then the impact on the landscape and
people’s quality of life will be diminished.
EC: What sets New Zealand apart is that its native
habitat is incredibly unique and ‘relatively’ untouched.
This might seem like an additional burden to care
about. But it would actually be an advantage when this
expensive-to-run global heritage (that belongs to humanity but happens to sit here) becomes a fly-wheel
for the national economy.