2009 AILA SA Awards Jury Report

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AILA SA would like to acknowledge and thank this year’s jury for their efforts and generous donation of time to adjudicate on the jury panel. 

On the 2009 jury panel were the following members:

Graeme Hopkins (Chairperson)
Mandy Rounsenfell
Amy Ford
Heike Rahmann
Rick Atkinson
Martin Corbin

Jury Chair Report

Chairing the AILA SA Awards jury has been a rewarding experience, sharing discussions and decisions with the jury members on such a diverse range of projects.

The jury acknowledged the high level of professionalism in all submissions.  However, the jury took the decision to set an exceptionally high standard of innovation and design for the SA Medal for Landscape Architecture, as it deserves.  This year the jury agreed that no single project reached this exceptional standard, therefore no SA Medal for Landscape Architecture would be awarded this year.

The landscape architecture profession acknowledges the realities of climate change and has produced the Australian Landscape Principles to guide the profession towards practices that best respond to this critical global concern.  Given this national emphasis, the jury was disappointed by the general lack of effort by submitters to address the Australian Landscape Principles criteria.  For those who did submit well considered answers to these criteria, we thank you for your efforts which were appreciated.  In future awards submissions we strongly encourage all submitters to address all the criteria in such a way that responses can be easily found and evaluated by the judging panel.

The submissions showed that landscape architects are expanding the scope of their responsibilities and roles, from leading large infrastructure consultancy teams through to projects where care for cultural, social and ecological concerns is demonstrated.  This breadth of practice only strengthens the profession and places it in a good position to address the future challenges of the profession, including climate change with its complex social and physical implications.

Graeme Hopkins

As the awards committee chair I would also like to thank the awards committee for their tireless efforts and donation of personal time in organising this years events.  The committee was made up of the following people:

Ben Willsmore
Heath Edwards
Beth Mason
Carina Green
Janelle Arbon
Frank Smith
Josh Palmer
Aleck Whittam

Nick Pearson – Awards Committee chair