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NZILA 50th - That's a wrap
Posted 17 10 2022
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“Inspiring yet challenging” was a common catch cry from delegates as the 2022 NZILA Firth Conference came to an end last week.
For organiser, NZILA Chief Operating Officer Vicki Clague, it was an extremely important event. “Having around half our membership gather in Tāmaki Makaurau to take part in the Institutes 50th celebrations was a milestone in itself.
“After a covid enforced hiatus it was fantastic to celebrate our people and profession in the one place. To our sponsors, thank you, the Institute is forever grateful for your continued support allowing us to come together, learn, enjoy and celebrate,” she says.
Tuia Pito Ora New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects President Henry Crothers says the theme of the conference was to look back, and forward and “to learn from what we've done collectively and speculate on what we might do in the future collectively and what the challenges in the future are going to be.”
He says two key areas of kaupapa came through strongly. “Issues around climate change and resilience, but also issues around culture and how we work towards this idea of moving from New Zealand to Aotearoa and what that means and what that journey might look like”
2022 Resene Institute of Landscape Architecture Award Judges Panel Chair Dr Jacky Bowring agrees.
“The two days of conference were a really interesting journey, I think given the 50th in the fact that we did have the looking back at the beginning and feeling a great sense of pride about where we had come from and seeing our wonderful forefathers and foremothers in terms of the profession and hear them speak and talk about their origins of the profession was really quite uplifting.”
But she says there were some quite challenging presentations. “Some pretty shocking ones in terms of sea level rise, in terms of the challenge of our cultural competency, all these things that we do have to juggle. Decarbonisation, decolonisation, we have a lot that we need to be paying attention to, and this was a really great focus for that.”
Renèe Davies, the Open Spaces Planner at New Plymouth District Council, also found food for thought from the two days of presentations. “Lots of things that have made me think really seriously about how I'm going to practice as a landscape architect and the things I need to think about. It became really apparent that we're entering into a period of a little bit of a mix up shake up in our country, but also globally.”
She says it highlights the opportunity for landscape architects “to think about things very differently, about how we're going to layer together quite conflicting things in some instances, and how they'll work together. Things like positive, bicultural, collaborative partnership approaches we're having with mana whenua but also alongside that, how do you then work with the challenges we face with climate biodiversity?”
Renèe believes landscape architects are well placed as a profession to grab hold of the challenges whole heartedly and move forward.
Sam Bourne of Waka Kotahi says conference for him is always a time to reflect on the practice of landscape architecture here in Aotearoa. “For me it was just reaffirming that we're on the right track. A lot of the things that my team are doing in their landscape practice and the work we're doing at Waka Kotahi touches on a number of the themes that coming through the conference around biodiversity, carbon landscaping, the way we think about the cultural landscape.”
Boffa Miskell’s William Hatton was inspired by conference. “It's really great to see where we've come in the past 50 years and a lot of the korero is all about culture, you know, moving forward. So seeing that hononga, that connection there was really great.
Meg Back is on the NZILA Executive Committe and says there were very challening aspects to some of the presentations, which she thinks is a good thing. “ It's good for us to be uncomfortable. It's about change and it's about moving forward.”
She says the presentations around climate change, flooding and sea level rise were important. “Loved Martin (O’Dea) coming over from AILA to talk to us about their work. I mean it's not Santa Claus. It's not something that you believe in or not. It's happening. And we can't just be saying we’ll do something in 2050. We've got to really be doing it now.”
Watch more conference feedback in the video below
