Over the past week the IUCN World Parks Congress has taken place in Sydney with approximately 5000 in attendance. The AILA Pop-up Park was featured at the Congress, designed by RMIT’s Office of Urban Transformations Research, who won the design competition earlier this year. The bold design certainly had an impact on Congress participants. 

The AILA NSW Chapter also facilitated the Creating Living Places session at the Congress which focussed on the increasing density of our cities which requires public spaces to be high performance to deliver a range of community benefits. It was great to see AILA strongly represented at a significant international event.

Speaking of RMIT, I recently participated in the review sessions for final year students. It was great to see the breadth of student work which was on display in the fantastic RMIT Design Hub. I participated in 8 student presentations each of which had a different site and explored a different area of landscape architecture practice. This time of year is a busy period in the academic calendar. Congratulations to all students for their hard work and especially those students completing their final year of landscape architecture studies.

Thank you to the members who have provided feedback on the new AILA website. The new look is extremely popular and the format of the site is a lot more user friendly. Thanks also for the feedback on the combined state/national AILA eNews. They might seem like small steps but they reflect the collaborative, one-voice approach AILA is taking.

AILA will soon be launching a new membership campaign: #AreYouReady? The campaign aims to entice new members and re-engage past members along with celebrating the revitalisation of AILA. Further information is available on the website and I would encourage all members to get involved – there is still time to submit your photos.

Mark Frisby FAILA
National President
Australian Institute of Landscape Architects