8 October 2001 Student exercise proposes 'eco resort' for Elaine Bay

A hypothetical "eco resort" for Elaine Bay in the Marlborough Sounds is one of the featured designs in a public exhibition in Christchurch by final year landscape architecture students of Lincoln University

The design is the result of four months' work by Brendon Chamberlain of Taranaki and it is titled "Putaringamotu: place of an echo".

All final year students for Lincoln's Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree must undertake a major design project producing a set of hypothetical concepts and plans for a "real life" site somewhere in New Zealand.

The brief for Brendon's hypothetical project invited the designer to 'think laterally and push the boundaries", thus allowing him to be as creative as he wished.

"Elaine Bay, in Tennyson Inlet, is a fine example of what the sounds were like before human settlement," says Brendon.  "The main issues I faced were trying to develop the area as a tourist destination without destroying the environment and character of the location and making use of an eco-design in a human­ friendly way."

Brendon says he gained inspiration from architect Le Corbusier, environmental artists, Joan Nassauer and Harmony Resort in the Virgin Islands.

"The hypothetical design offers a tourist destination that is tranquil and "in tune" with nature. This has been achieved by using natural energy systems and blending nature and culture through the use of the landscape as a canvas and land art as the catalyst for this synthesis."

Brendon says he chose to do an eco-design "because we are becoming more environmentally conscious as designers". However he acknowledged that encouraging communities to support human and natural ecosystems remained a major challenge.

Brendon believes his site would be used by a wide range of people who would live with a better appreciation of the "natural" and an idea of the different way things can be done.

Lincoln University's graduating landscape architecture class exhibit their major design works in the William Sutton and Lovell-Smith rooms of the Christchurch Arts Centre over 20-24 October. The exhibition is titled Threshold.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.