2023 NZILA Fellows; Rebecca Ryder & Shona McCahon
Shona McCahon and Rebecca Ryder have been named as new NZILA Fellows for their outstanding achievements and contributions to the landscape architecture profession.
Shona says she’s humbled by the honour. “It's great to have the recognition of other landscape architects, especially because my career took some unusual directions that some people might not regard as sort of classic landscape architecture.”
New NZILA Fellow Shona McCahon speaking at the 2023 NZILA President’s Cocktail Evening.
And Shona says NZILA itself represents a remarkable story “that has seen landscape architecture develop in New Zealand from obscurity into a highly respected and growing profession with highly sought after skills.”
Shona is a landscape architect, writer, editor, oral historian, and archivist with over 30 years of professional experience. Her contribution to the profession of landscape architecture and NZILA is distinctive, spanning a wide area of practice.. While Shona has practiced extensively as a landscape architect in local government and as a consultant, she has also made significant contributions to the profession as a writer, editor, oral historian, and archivist. It is through this distinctive combination of skills that makes Shona a worthy recipient of election to Fellow.
Throughout her career as a landscape architect, Shona focused on landscape assessment and open space management and strategy. Her writing and editing skills were highly valued by her colleagues at Boffa Miskell, where she played a key role in the Wellington City Ridgetop and Hilltop Study and management plans for Hutt, Waikanae and Otaki Rivers. Shona’s skilful editing of oral histories for many professional institutes and organisations, including NZILA, captured the development and key milestones in these professional organisations that will endure given that such histories are lodged in the National Library of New Zealand.
New NZILA Fellow Rebecca Ryder (left) with Rachel de Lambert.
For Rebecca, being named a fellow is heartwarming. “To sit alongside those other fellows who've contributed so much to the profession and to the Institute is an important thing for me.
Rebecca has been involved in advancing the profession in her practice and through her involvement in advocacy and Institute affairs. She grew up around horticulture with a strong connection to the land. She studied landscape architecture at Lincoln, graduating with Honours in 1997. Her first move into employment was into the public sector, working for three years at Hamilton City Council. She joined Boffa Miskell's fledgling Tauranga Moana office in 2001 and has had an important influence on many of the key landscape matters across the Bay of Plenty and Central North Island regions including open space planning and development; landscape and natural character evaluation, management, and protection; infrastructure projects; and participating in a number of the region’s important cases before the Environment Court.
Rebecca’s work is characterised by an active advocacy for landscape architecture and the importance of sustainable and quality design. As she explains, “I believe that landscape architecture has a vital role in shaping our communities to be resilient, healthy, and to contribute positively to the wider environment and community.”
She also says the Institute has an enormous part to play for the landscape architecture profession.
“It's advocating for landscape architecture in all facets, whether that be from policy, central government policy planning all the way through to the site design and implementation.”
You can see more from Rebecca and Shona in the videos below.
