2016 Firth NZILA conference: impacts of climate change

The 2016 Firth New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects conference will provide a rich opportunity to exercise the creative and intellectual muscles in a charrette¹ format, focusing on creative responses to the threats and opportunities of climate change on New Zealand cities.

At the opening of the conference on Thursday evening, the keynote address will be provided by Emeritus Professor Sir Alan Mark, focusing on the anticipated effects of climate change on New Zealand.

Sir Alan has a long history of involvement in environmental issues in New Zealand from the Save Manapouri Campaign of the 1960’s and 70’s to his current role as the Chair of ‘Wise Response’, a broad coalition of New Zealanders concerned with climate change, our reliance on fossil fuels, and economic uncertainty.

The second day is for exploration and analysis. Your selected field tour will explore the city and its environs examining the themes of either biodiversity, food security or city form under the guidance of and with challenges from local experts.

The third day is for daring design within a charrette format. On this day small groups will have the opportunity to work with some of New Zealand’s most experienced and knowledgeable landscape architects finding design solutions (or maybe more questions?) to the issues analysed on the field tours.

This will be intense, focused and very exciting! The results will be presented to the full conference group and we hope to be able to display the work to the general public following the conference.

More information on the conference can be found here. To register, see here. For full programme, click here.

^{1. A charrette is an intensive planning session where citizens, designers and others collaborate on a vision for development. It provides a forum for ideas and offers the unique advantage of giving immediate feedback to the designers. More importantly, it allows everyone who participates to be a mutual author of the plan.}