Karl Langer (1903-1969)
announcing the winner of the Karl Langer 2008 award
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Good Evening my name is Shaun Walsh, I am AILA member as well as being Associate and Landscape Manager for the Brisbane Office of PLACE Design Group. AILA asked me to be on on the judging panel for the Karl Langer Awards this year and it is my pleasure to present to you each of the nominees for the award and tell you about their submissions.
From a personal perspective I actually found the Karl Langer Awards quite affirming. As a boss you get tied up in monthly billables, client relationships and strategic direction – the more successful you become the more divorced you get from the thing that you wanted to do in the first place – landscape architecture.
I found being exposed to 4 talented, young and energetic landscape architects quite affirming – their enthusiasm rubbed off on me – so that I have become a more involved and passionate landscape architect in my business– so thank you to the four entrants Robyn, Beau and Jane, Katherine!
Thank you also to my fellow judges Alison Eshelby from Chenoweth Environmental Planning and Tullio Ricci from Brisbane City Council City Planning and Sustainability for being utterly professional and critical in fair and rigorous assessment of the entrants – I also enjoyed your company – it made the judging day very pleasant. Thank you also to their employers Chenoweth and Brisbane City Council in being so free with Alison’s and Tullio time to allow them to participate in the judging day.
I didn’t realize it before the awards, but the judging panel is only made up of industry representatives, judging from their personal perspective. QUT and AILA are not on the panel, and neither where they looking over our shoulders through out the judging day. I think this is a really good thing to give these awards objectivity and therefore status.
But at the same time QUT and Jeannie Sims in particular has to be thanked for organizing the entrants, compiling the folios and providing the interview and jugging facilities. Jeannie thankyou in particular for showing us how to work the coffee machine, making us fell very comfortable, but at the same time giving space to get on with judging.
Our four entrants were recommended by QUT for assessment for the Karl Langer awards. They were required to compile a folio of their best QUT work and present it to judging panel, who then also subject the participants to an interview. The criteria were as follows:
- technical and design skills
- Graphic, oral and technical presentation skills
- Commitment to and aptitude for the professional of Landscape Architecture
- Evidence of a sustaining philosophy that will guide future contribution
So in a nutshell the criteria are not just about the quality of their current design work but how they will contribute to our profession in the future. On that note that I want to make a points that all entrants show a clear commitment to the Landscape Architecture profession at this stage of their career. I hope they live up to their statements of continuing to be involved in AILA for decades to come.
I have some notes on each of the entrants that I wanted to share with you while we looked though a power point presentation of their work.
Jane Hulme (Hume)
The quality of Jane’s design and graphic skills are immediately obvious from both the obvious and rich presentation standard but also the more you look into her work - the comprehensive you see the level of resolved detailed design.
She has a clear philosophy based around one of professional growth as an individual in the landscape architecture, intertwined with her interest in the growth of nature and culture. Again and again throughout her presentation she referenced back to her philosophy as a means of checking the design status but also providing a mean\s to go forward.
The jury were very impressed by her work on Mooloolaba – firstly by tackling such a complex topic, applying clear design philosophy though out the design stages with rigor, executing such a well conceived and presented design response shows an aptitude of great promise for the landscape architecture profession in south east Queensland for leading integrated design outcomes of multi-disciplinary teams, but critically linked to philosophy and academic though proceses.
presentation to be uploaded
Robyn Butcher
Having Robyn as an entrant in the Karl Langer is again a joyous celebration of the diversity in personalities and design approaches that our profession contains. She has a lateral and creative design process that whilst very different to many, leads to resolved and accomplished design.
Her presentation style is one of clarity and approachability – she has a presentation style and manner that would win over the most daunting of clients including engineers!
Her philosophy is linked to inventive reinvention of unused spaces. She has an inherent interest in the unwanted and untouchable and then matched with the ability to bring joy to those spaces and interaction
Robyn is a designer that I would want to work on the most difficult projects – what to do with the emerging unwanted spaces in our cities like under and around freeways and bus ways, infrastructure projections, like ventilation tunnels, dark inner city laneways and the temporal spaces like vacant development sites. She also has the right personality and quirky approach to work with a team of engineers and architect to wrangle innovative and design outcomes to make such unwanted spaces wanted and cherished.
presentation to be uploaded
Beau Hillier
Beau approaches his tasks as an accomplished Landscape Architect – he already has many years experience as a Landscape Architect in a practice - he is already successful and deservedly so.
His presentation style is crisp and professional and effective. His philosophy is about all projects having the opportunity to create something brilliant, and exploiting opportunity rather than solving problems…. but I think the most interesting thing is his perspective on modernity and contemporary – if something is going to be designed it should be new and fresh – looking forward not backwards.
I can really see Beau leading the way on modern signature and iconic design of the future in our contemporary city and I would personally like to push in that direction at any available opportunity for him– to match his absolute accomplished professional approach with the most cutting edge design - and I think he will make it look easy.
presentation to be uploaded
Katherine English
Katherine is also an accomplished Landscape Architect in a practice - she is already successful landscape architect and deservedly so.
She has a contemporary and accomplished presentation style.
Katherine has an ethic that design does not produce an outcome… it produces a direction, an opportunity, and the start of a new story. An impressive part of her presentation was its strength and conviction for her design responses. She is very passionate with her design responses.
I can see Katherine leading the design approach on a major and possibly controversial piece of infrastructure projects that require strong consistent and unwavering conviction to the end design in the belief that the end will be much better. Many of our problems in Queensland require revolution and radical change as the design culture - I can see that Katherine having a very important role in those projects.
The Winner
The winner is Jane Hulme (Hume).
Her professional approach combined with the audacity to take on a design problem as complex as Mooloolaba, and then achieve an accomplished and highly resolved design outcome says buckets about her capabilities on real issues facing our regions landscape architects.
Combining that to the repeated insistence to stick to the rigor of her chosen design philosophy shows a deep seated conviction to the academia and profession of landscape architecture.
We can only encourage her to continue that conversation between academic philosophy and real accomplished landscape design – that is what we think that she deserved winner of the Karl Langer Award.
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(above) Andrew Green
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