In this series, we celebrate the work of graduating students on our LI-accredited landscape courses. Interested in studying landscape? Visit the courses page for the full list of our accredited universities.
Birmingham City University
This year’s landscape architecture graduate show for Birmingham School of Architecture & Design showcased the latest work from final-year students for courses in BA Landscape Architecture and Masters of Landscape Architecture. Collectively, the work celebrates the variety and dynamism of the discipline of Landscape Architecture.
The work illustrates speculative projects undertaken across various levels under the themes of Community, Health & Wellbeing, Future Living and Post Industrial Landscapes on the BA programme and Climate Change in Transit, Urban Futures & Air Quality and Visions: West-Midlands National Park on the MA Programme.
The year’s exhibition coincided with the Landscape Institute’s 90th birthday celebrations. We teamed up with the Landscape Institute and local practice Define to produce a virtual reality activity where the audience were able to step into the students’ designs for an immersive experience.
Over the summer before commencing year 3, BA students were tasked with defining a subject of personal, particular interest related to important issues in contemporary landscape architecture theory and practice. Students’ research project and theoretical exploration underpinned their choice of site and inspired each design concept. The concepts have been rigorously tested and applied across the scales from regional to detail design within their site. Students will take these ideas and values with them into their future careers in landscape architecture.
Showcase and prize-giving:
FUTURE LIVING
Oliver Haring: Winner of the Landscape Institute ‘John Knight Award’; Runner up of the Tyler Grange ‘Strategic Landscape Award’
Adam Rumble: Winner of the Tyler Grange ‘Strategic Landscape Award’; Winner of the BA Landscape Architecture, Studentship Awards
POST INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES
Alison Harrison-Dean: Runner up of the Tyler Grange ‘Strategic Landscape Award’
Jack Wells
COMMUNITY HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Alexandra Ford
Vestina Cizecskaja
Sujana Uddin
Leeds Beckett University
Students of the BA Hons Landscape Architecture and Design course were tasked to explore Design and Community as part of a larger studio project, and a future regenerative vision for the Leeds South Bank area.
Design and Community
Design and Community examines the concepts of communities in landscape design focusing principally on community involvement and participation in design through a live project. Developing knowledge and understanding of processes for engaging with community in the planning, design and management of the environment. They then extend the design narrative to include site-based design work, through to technical resolution and documentation to aid implementation, as appropriate to meet the needs of the specific communities involved.
This year final year students were involved in two community projects, both in the Burley, Kirkstall area of the Aire Valley; West Leeds. Both, to an extent, form elements of live, interrelated projects being pursued by Kirkstall Valley Park, Kirkstall Valley Development Trust, Kirkstall Island Farm, Leeds FAS2 and others.
Leeds South Bank
The former industrial land and developments on the south bank of Leeds is currently severed from the city centre. Opportunities such as the revamp of Leeds City Station, the proposals for HS2, new eco residential developments, and the arrival of a new bridge in Hunslet, provided an opportune moment for students to develop a future vision for the evolution of this important space.
Showcase:
Amy Duffy
Andrew Jackson
Ed Golding
Will Laufs
Jorden Millar
Carley White
Becca Wren
Sarah Evans
Rhian Jones
Sammie Strickland
Mel Nicholson
University of Sheffield
The theme of this year’s exhibition was ‘Process’, which was chosen for its significance to landscape architecture, as both method of crafting a successful design and a description of living landscape, with which our students work. The theme also reflects our students’ own journeys, during their time at University, towards becoming confident practitioners of landscape architecture.
We were delighted to welcome over 50 international practices to our Arts Tower home on Friday 7 June, where they were able to meet this year’s graduating classes and see, not just the students’ polished designs, but also some of their working practices, which were showcased in video.
At the evening prize giving – packed out with families, friends and practitioners, along with staff and students – Head of Department Professor Anna Jorgensen congratulated our students on their hard work to date and wished them well in their future careers.
We had a record number of sponsored prizes – 13 in total – available to outstanding students, thanks to the generosity of the practices who had sponsored them.
Showcase and prize-giving:
The Wardell Armstrong Prize in Landscape Planning – Emma Beaumont and Rebecca Simpson (joint winners)
The Landscape Institute Design Excellence Award Wing Sze Yuen (undergraduate) Chieh Yun Yin (postgraduate)
The Experimental Landscape Design Award Kexin Zhu (undergraduate) Kelci Vittachi (postgraduate)
AECOM Undergraduate Student of the Year – Zoe Dobson
The Urban Wilderness Inspirational Planting Prize – Joshua Howes
The Rosie Reynolds Prize for Creativity in Design (sponsored by AMEC) – Oliver Pike and Abel Mclinden
The Sustainable Landscape Award (sponsored by Arcus) – Ed Etheridge
The Ares Prize for Excellence in Landscape Design – Sarah Brookes
The LDA Design Prize for Most Creative Final Project – Dhrumil Kantharia
The Landscape Design Trust Management Prize – Liang Lu The MBELC Landscape Planning Award – Yalan Xu
View the exhibition photos in full
University of Edinburgh
This year’s degree show at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture exhibited the work of 3 graduating cohorts: The undergraduate MA and MSc in landscape architecture, and the postgraduate Master of Landscape Architecture.
The sites of focus for design work this year ranged across three Scottish contexts, a former explosives site in Ayrshire, explorations of the coastal landscapes of the North West Highland region and the Orkney Isles, alongside projects set in international contexts including Manhattan Island in New York and a former concentration camp in Krakow, Poland.
Based at Edinburgh College of Art, the studio work prioritises a deep commitment to reading the site and existing landscape context through meaningful fieldwork and analysis; students are carefully supported in finding a critical perspective and positioning their work within an extended disciplinary field. Students are encouraged to find their own original means of representing their ideas so that they enter the next stage of their career as confident and leading landscape architectural designers.
Athena Preen, Year 4 MA Landscape Architecture, who has been jointly awarded the Landscape Institute Scotland, Peter Daniels Prize for the best skills in site analysis, reflects here upon her experience studying at Edinburgh:
“The final year project was a challenge of balance. Equipped with the things I had learnt, remembering the things I wanted to explore and doing my best to communicate and create in this intricate language of landscape architecture. Starting out from the catchment scale of the river Garnock in Ayrshire, we had the freedom and responsibility to fully direct the project, to frame problems and discover opportunities on site and in the studio. Looking at an everyday landscape with a design intent, looking for the hidden in the ordinary, and independently navigating the design process were the aspects I valued most and simultaneously the greatest challenges of this final year of study at Edinburgh College of Art.”
