PROJECTS By Dr Wei Deng CMLI
Big ambition Dr Wei Deng is a principal landscape architect at AECOM.
The 2018 Landscape Institute Awards were the first to invite international submissions in a new category, the Dame Sylvia Crowe Award. The LI invited Dr Wei Deng, one of 2018’s judges, to give his analysis of what the entries say about the global health of the profession, and we profile the 10 projects that made the judges’ shortlist. 1
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n 2018, the Landscape Institute launched its first-ever international award, named after Dame Sylvia Crowe (1901–1997), one of the most influential landscape architects in the mid-to-late 20th century. She led the development and promotion of the landscape profession in the UK as well as internationally. The name of the award reflects Sylvia Crowe’s substantial contribution and indicates that the entries are required to exhibit an outstanding international contribution to people, places and nature. I was extremely honoured to be a part of the judging panel and to witness one of the most memorable milestones in the awarding history of the Landscape Institute. After two hectic days of judging, I would like to share some of my experiences and thoughts. We set high standards for the entries. The applications were expected to be top-quality landscapeled projects that not only present major achievements that benefit the physical outdoor environment, but also serve as exemplary cases for promoting the landscape profession worldwide. In light of this principle, more detailed criteria were applied and discussed throughout the judging process. The jury mainly focused on three aspects: first, the entry should make a unique and outstanding contribution that improves outcomes for people, places and nature; second, it should represent the best practice outcomes for the profession of landscape design and exhibit great involvement and contribution from relevant professionals; and third, the contribution of the entry should be
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well recognised by third parties in order to provide support. International recognition and contribution to the landscape profession is probably is the key aspect that differentiates the Dame Sylvia Crowe Award from the other Landscape Institute awards. We received entries from Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa. Around half of these came from the People’s Republic of China, which reflects the rapid pace of development and plethora of projects executed in this country in recent years. Privately owned landscape practices dominated the applicants. However, we also received several entries from the public sector, including the Countryside Commission (operated between 1968–1999) that was submitted by Natural England for its unique and outstanding contribution to improving
the outcomes for the affiliated landscape and people. In the future, we would welcome submissions from individuals and organisations globally, given that the entries demonstrate excellence and leadership in the global field of landscape and place.
Landscape operates at all scales and locations Landscape architecture is defined as a discipline that aims to enhance and protect all types of outdoor spaces, regardless of the size or location. The submissions reflected this and exhibit extremely different locations for projects, from public space enhancement to remote villages in untouched mountains and contemporary amenity parks for office buildings in busy city centres.
1 & 2. Quarry Garden in Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden (see p.30).
