REVOLUTIONARY DESIGN AWARDED

Seven nominees vied for the title of the award which is presented to a fourth-year Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Bachelor of Design in Landscape Architecture student who demonstrates the aptitude to make significant contributions to the profession in the future.

First awarded in 1972, the annual The Karl Langer Award is the highest honour awarded to a graduate of landscape architecture by AILA in Queensland.

Nixon’s winning concept focused on her particular interest of coastal disaster management and injecting resilience into communities facing increasing devastation from natural events.

“With conversations of climate change and the Anthropocene era becoming prevalent, I believe landscape architecture is positioned at the forefront of a multidisciplinary team that will contribute revolutionary design solutions in response to society’s pressure on the environment.

“In order to be receptive to the complexity and uncertainty of climate change, my design philosophy utilises and engages a creative lens to ‘think big’ about adaptive and innovative mitigation measures; before filtering these ideas into tangible, site specific solutions,” Ms Nixon said. 

Her presentation to the jury focused on three projects:

Subtle Chaos | a project about manipulating the way people use pace-seeking to create a sub-tropical urban room that responds to the climatic conditions of south-east Queensland and paying tribute to the historical architectural surrounding the site.

Conscious for our Coastline | an environmental project aiming to transform the Gold Coast, allowing humans to populate the beach but at the same time enabling natural processes to manoeuvre and protect the shoreline

Diffusing Disaster | exploring coastal protection measures for horizontal landscapes in Cairns. The project developed a social, economic, and environmental strategy that transformed this fragile community into a risk-free regional centre equipped to handle future natural disasters.

Andrew Green, previous Karl Langer Award winner and Award Panel Chair said the jury was very impressed by all three of Nixon’s projects which clearly demonstrated innovation, creativity, and technical excellence.

“Taneile’s presentation was professional, passionate and thoroughly enjoyable. She firmly believes that landscape architecture has the ability to contribute to innovative design solutions in response to society’s ongoing power struggle with nature.

“She would like to be an advocate for innovative design solutions, to mentor students and help ignite their passion, and to pursue her interest in disaster resilience. She clearly shows an aptitude for the profession, and will no doubt make a significant future contribution to landscape architecture in Australia,” said Andrew Green.

The finalists were nominated by their lecturers at the QUT for academic excellence and then assessed by an AILA jury panel upon presenting a portfolio of their work. Nominees were judged on design skills, technical skills, presentation skills, their commitment to and aptitude for the profession, and the existence of a sustaining philosophy demonstrated in their work over their university degree.

Images (top to bottom): Taneile Nixon; Winner Taneile Nixon, project poster; Finalist Reece Wenzel, project poster; Finalist Olivia McBeth, project poster; Finalist Angie Strachan, project poster.

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