On October 13th, LILA – Landezine International Landscape Award 2018 winners and jury members met at HafenCity University at the 4th Landezine LIVE. You can find the lectures and all our past events documented in video at landezine.com/live/

Landezine thanks to all the speakers, HafenCity University for a very successful collaboration, all visitors that decided to attend the programme on such a hot and sunny Saturday and of course our sponsors Vestre and Streetlife.

So a brief report: Antje Stokman (Chair of Landscape Architecture at HafenCity University), Zaš Brezar (editor of Landezine) and Robert Schäfer (adviser to Landezine) gave introductory speech. Jan Christian Vestre (CEO of Vestre, sponsor of the event) followed and told us how Vestre, Norwegian manufacturer of urban equipment, approach public space. Instead of talking about their furniture directly, Jan-Christian focused on the challenges and ideas that drive Vestre. The vision he presented could easily drive a landscape architecture office fit for the future.

In Russia, 75% of the population live in urban environment, which was mainly designed and built during Soviet era, where the attention to the quality of public spaces across Russia was limited. Strelka’s task is to analyze these special conditions and develop tools and find solutions to this issue. Denis Leontiev, CEO of the company presented Strelka KB and also Strelka Institute. They are active on many different fields that comprise the design of urban space; economics, anthropology, GIS, participatory programmes etc.

The first part was concluded with the discussion about Strelka KB with Denis Leontiev, Sylvia Karres (karres+brands) who was later joined by Darius Reznek (also karres+brands). The discussion was moderated by Robert Schäfer. (video)

The second section focused in gardens. Chloe Humphreys from The Landscape Studio presented their works in Africa. They are fairly young studio based out of Nairobi, Kenya and already opening its European branch. Chloe explained the LILA 2018 recognized project Salaam House Garden among other projects by TLS, proving that this fresh office can answer a diverse set of complex challenges.

Shane Coen of COEN+PARTNERS

The Garden part was concluded with the discussion on what is the meaning of gardens today. The panel comprised jury members Mark Pouzol (atelier le balto) and Karin Standler (Standler Landscape Architecture, Private Plots) and representatives of both recognized practices: Chloe Humphreys from The Landscape Studio and Shane Coen from COEN+PARTNERS. (video)

The third part focused on LILA 2018 jury award for office. Catherine Mosbach from the winning office Mosbach Paysagistes presented her most recent works. She was later joined by LILA 2018 jury member Ken Smith for a talk about her portfolio and approach to practice. (video)

The last part was dedicated to LILA 2018 jury award for projects. Georges Descombes presented the famous River Aire Renaturation in Geneva, Switzerland. The introduction part was made by LILA 2018 jury member Thorbjörn Andersson.

We suggest watching the talk between Georges Descombes and Thorbjörn Andersson, they discussed, well, a lot of nice things, hear it for yourself …