Catherine Hamilton is a principal landscape architect at WSP Opus and was the lead designer for the hugely popular Takaro a Poi/Margaret Mahy Family Playground in Christchurch, a key investment in the post-earthquake regeneration of Christchurch.

A postgraduate landscape architecture student at Victoria University of Wellington has won a major international award for her landscape architecture project to help redevelop Carterton’s Hurunui-o-Rangi Marae.

For Canadian landscape architect Jenna Wouters a work exchange programme to New Zealand with WSP has opened up a world of new plant species and landscape environments.

Last month (September 2018) IFLA president James Hayter was in the country - delivering a series of presentations on the redevelopment of past manufacturing and institutional sites in our cities and how this compels us to readjust our understanding of nature, people and culture.

The NZILA’s Auckland branch is hosting a presentation by international designer, Martin Rein-Cano on October 8. Born in Buenos Aires in 1967, Rein-Cano studied History of Art at Frankfurt University and Landscape Architecture at the Technical Universities of Hannover and Karlsruhe.

Landscape architect Dennis Scott has made the trip to Waiheke Island countless times. On a Saturday morning in August we make the trip together so he can show me his island - the place where he reimagined and responded to it’s growing popularity - leading and collaborating in an applied landscape planning approach that lead to a sustainable landscape transformation for the once “bohemian community.”

Mark Ames from Sydney-based Strategic Cities specialises in media management and engagement strategy for cities and government agencies. He played an influential role in London, helping to secure an ambitious and controversial 10-year one billion pound cycling strategy and action plan. Other clients include Auckland Transport, and the cities of Sydney, Adelaide and Vincent (WA).

He recently visited New Zealand courtesy of Boffa Miskell, to discuss how to overcome resistance to change in cities.

Te Aranga Māori Design Principles were developed by Māori design professionals as a response to the New Zealand Urban Design Protocol in 2005. Over time the principles have been developed and adopted by the Auckland Council with the support of Ngā Aho and are being promoted across all council built projects.

The head of the International Federation of Landscape Architects is heading our way.  Australian James Hayter, who was elected to the role of president of IFLA in July,  will be here next week delivering a series of lectures. 

"There is a perception that we pick the plants ... we're the people who come in and put in the green fluff," says Nicole Thompson of Wraight and Associates when LAA posed the question of how the landscape architecture profession is misunderstood.