Queensland Projects
2007 EDAW Intern Program
introduction / overview / images / location / Qld-Projects
Landscape Architect: EDAW Intern Program
Location: Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, Queensland
Overview
Since 1980, the EDAW Intern Program has brought together 197 students from 15 countries and 55 universities to 21 locations across the globe. Continuing a dedication to the professions in which we practice, EDAW hosts the innovative Intern Program, with a commitment to the growth of a work-study environment.
The program is designed to challenge university students from a range of disciplines, including landscape architecture, architecture, urban planning, and design, and coastal and watershed management.
It offers them an opportunity to strengthen their skills and broaden their perspectives. In a supportive environment that emphasises research, planning, deductive reasoning, creative problem solving and teamwork, the students pool their efforts to find solutions for real client groups on locally significant projects.
In 2007, EDAW, in partnership with the Gold Coast City Council, hosted the two-week charette-style workshop at Surfers Paradise. Students were immersed in an intensive learning environment and were challenged by local planning issues. They explored issues and potential solutions for Surfers Paradise through site visits, client discussions and studio work sessions. The ideas produced from the program, presented to the Council, stakeholders and the community at the completion of the program, have the potential to influence the development of Council’s own planning documents, and the future of Surfers Paradise.
2007 marked the first year the Intern Program has been held in the southern hemisphere.
The group of 23 students were chosen from a pool of over 300 applicants from around the world. To apply, students had to complete an essay on their motivation to join the program, and provide a detailed description of a sample of their work.
The 2007 EDAW Intern Program handbook was printed on local recycled stock, using biodegradable binding material, and all promotional apparel was purchased from local providers.
Central to the practice of landscape architecture is the ability to collaborate in a multi-disciplinary setting. Often, it operates as the connective tissue between the many interests behind city and community development. The Intern Program established a concentrated version of professional practice, bringing together landscape architecture students with some of the world’s brightest architecture, planning, design and engineering students.
The landscape architecture students were challenged by the programme to develop, with their fellow students, an integrated vision for the future of the coastal public realm. They were able to apply the thinking emerging from dozens of public-realm-focused university courses to Surfers Paradise.
Surfers is faced with substantial population growth, with a range of complex cultural and ecological issues. The resolution of these issues into a viable vision for the future calls for an approach which integrates a wide range of skills, information and community values. Through the intense two week workshop the role of landscape architecture was confirmed as a leading community design profession and key element in this process.
EDAW were also able to expose the students to a broad range of presentations from planning and design experts, both internal and external to EDAW, brought in from around the world. This allowed the students in the Intern Program to test and discuss their thinking with that of global experts in a workshop setting, explore different practice responses and understand the challenges of applying their findings to a real community.
Finally, the landscape students engaged in a range of different approaches concerned with the expression and articulation of the final outcomes, including public presentations, publications, and individual advocacy of a collective position to key decision makers.
Innovation was central to the success of the Intern Program. The program was designed to select the best students from an international cohort, extend them in a challenging and real professional practice environment, and provide practitioners with an interface to debate and mentor a new generation fo landscape architects. The students’ fresh approach to planning and design challenges everyone involved in the program to think about the issues at an new level.
From this process, the student group was able to deliver to the client a provocative, far-reaching response to the future of Surfers Paradise – a response that could not be delivered under traditional consultancy methods.
EDAW also provided layers of expertise from its global network of design, planning and environment studios into the mix to bring the best out of each intern student. Central to this was the principle of EDAW staff providing a guiding role, giving the students a real sense of ownership over the final outcome, which was driven by the intern group themselves.
The ultimate purpose of the Intern Program was for the students to develop a vision and conceptual master plan for the core of Surfers Paradise for the next 100 years.
The Intern Program was structured so that a final presentation of the vision and conceptual master plan could be delivered to the Gold Coast City Council, stakeholders and community members at the end of the two-week charette process.
A team of six core EDAW staff worked in Brisbane for 12 months planning the event, in close coordination with Gold Coast City Council. Logistical arrangements undertaken included all local travel for students, work visas, accommodation and catering. A website was also developed, as was a range of collateral, resources and merchandise that completed the immersion experience for the students involved in the Intern Program.
For the program itself, students were presented with a range of local issues, including extensive briefings by Council officers and stakeholder groups, and then required to workshop potential solutions. The timetable for the program was established down to hourly intervals, including site tours, lectures and presentations. It is worth noting that none of the interns had met beyond a few conference calls leading up to the event.
Key EDAW staff members with specialisations in landscape architecture, architecture, ecological engineering, urban planning and design offered guidance to the students on the latest thinking in private and public practice. The participation of Gold Coast City Council’s professional and administration staff, along with local community stakeholders, provided students with access to a large amount of relevant local information.
The vision and conceptual master plan was delivered by the Intern group at the completion of the two weeks in a two hour presentation to the Gold Coast City Council, key local stakeholders, international EDAW management and members of the public at Surfers Paradise’s newest public plaza, Circle on Cavill.
Two students from the Intern program also presented the vision and conceptual master plan in a presentation to the Gold Coast City Council’s first International Urban Design Conference in September 2007.
While the primary audience of the Intern Program’s final presentation was the Gold Coast City Council, the public setting for the event meant other stakeholders and the wider Gold Coast community could also engage with the outcomes. This public forum, which encouraged the further incubation of the outcomes of the Intern Program, allowed the students, EDAW staff, the Council and the community to further debate and discuss the future of Surfers Paradise.
The global nature of the Intern Program also meant that each student could deliver the final presentation and outcomes to a range of audiences around the world.
Following the Intern Program each student undertook a further internship in an international EDAW studio for a period of three months, allowing the students to deliver the final presentation to their intern EDAW studio, and their home EDAW studio at the completion of their internship.
The students were also encouraged to deliver the Intern Program’s final presentation to university students and staff, promoting both the program and the thinking behind its outcomes.
To ensure the quality of the final presentation, the Intern group presented several draft versions to key Council stakeholders prior to the final event. Work prepared by the Interns across the two-week workshop was carefully focused towards this high impact final event.
The final vision and conceptual master plan presented illustrated a network of productive and sustainable landscapes and buildings, connected through a web of movement systems. Catalyst sites for future centres of development were identified and recommendations on future steps to realise the Gold Coast’s local area plan were presented.
The Interns’ final thought provoking vision was drawn from the area’s unique setting and captured by the term ‘Intertidal Urbanity’, with the following quote: “Much like adaptations of intertidal organisms to daily climatic variability, the future of the Gold Coast depends on how the city adapts to the rising tide of environmental, social and cultural change over the next 100 years”.
Following the final presentation and completion of the program, EDAW has driven a number of other initiatives to deliver the outcomes of the Intern Program to a wider audience. These include:
Production of a high quality book, capturing the process, outcomes and spirit of the 2007 Intern Program; and
Production of a short film demonstrating the process and experience of the 2007 Intern Program.
One of the chief overarching goals for the Intern Program was to produce ideas that will encourage the community to think broadly in their future planning actions, and in doing so creatively input to the Gold Coast City Council’s review of the local area plan and other guiding documents for Surfers Paradise.
The vision and conceptual master plan for Surfers Paradise developed by the students during the program has already been used within several Council documents and will form an important internal reference document for the ongoing planning and design of Surfers Paradise. These planning documents may also impact future open space, transport and tourism opportunities for the wider Gold Coast region.
The global, multi-disciplinary influence of the Intern Program model significantly benefits the profession of landscape architecture. For students of Landscape architecture, the Intern Program is an introduction to the contribution their field makes to the planning and design processes of cities and urban spaces, and the concept of maintaining a global outlook on issues facing local areas.
For students of other disciplines in attendance, including architecture, urban planning and design, and engineering, the Program demonstrates the value that can be delivered by incorporating landscape architecture practices and principles when conceptualising the cities of the future.
In addition, the program provides current practitioners of landscape architecture exposure to fresh opinions and unbridled optimism towards the planning of tomorrow’s cities, as well as the opportunity to engage with thinking from universities and other EDAW studios around the world.
The collaborative model of the Intern Program, between an international firm, EDAW, and a local authority, the Gold Coast City Council, provided a vision that also open debate within the broader community. The final presentation, held in the public arena, exemplified this approach. It was an opportunity for the wider community to understand the role landscape architecture plays in the planning and development of cities and urban spaces, and how increasingly landscape architects are working with practitioners of other disciplines to achieve outstanding planning and design results.
Significant media coverage of the program in the local and national press also contributed to the community’s understanding of both the program and the profession of landscape architecture. A selection of this media coverage has been included as an attachment to this submission.
As a process, the EDAW Intern Program has already proven to be an invaluable part of urban development worldwide over the last 27 years. The global nature of the program, with students and experts coming from around the world to participate, means that the outcomes of the program are disseminated through global professional, industry and academic networks.
Specifically, the 2007 Intern Program also demonstrated how a local authority and the community can engage with the latest design and planning thinking. It is hoped that this process will encourage the Gold Coast City Council and other local authorities worldwide to consider a multi-disciplinary, incubation-style approach to their urban design and planning challenges.
All promotional apparel was purchased from local providers, reducing the need for transport to the location and supporting the local economy
The distribution of information to participants, including the application process, was done electronically via the EDAW website, reducing paper usage and waste
introduction / overview / images / location / Qld-Projects
2008
