22 August 2000 Exhibition a 'public baptism' for landscape architecture students

Design ideas for public and private spaces up and down New Zealand go on show in an exhibition by Lincoln University landscape architecture students at Christchurch's Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA), in the Mair Gallery, over 23-28 October. CoCA is at 66 Gloucester Street, Christchurch.

The exhibition, titled Terminus, marks the final stepping stone for the graduating class of 39 students as they conclude their university study and look ahead to employment as professional landscape architects.

"The exhibition is the students' public baptism," says Lincoln's head of landscape architecture, Professor Simon Swaffield. "Their work goes out on show for public scrutiny and enjoyment, and naturally, as with any exhibition, it's up for public criticism as well."

Mounting and promoting an exhibition is a course requirement for the final year class and they must produce a well resolved, cohesive package of design ideas for particular sites, going through all the stages from the inception of an idea to broad-scale design, planning, considering feasibility, and into the detailed design of the small elements which reveal the designer's intentions in a microcosm.

The gallery exhibition will feature plans, drawings and models for sites from the Manawatu to Stewart Island, from Wanganui to Otira, and from Hawkes Bay to St Clair Beach, Dunedin. In all there will be thirty-nine displays.

The design solutions are immensely varied and include everything from a ferry terminal to a quarry site, from a ski field to show grounds, and from a co-housing development to a malt works.

The title of the exhibition, Terminus, refers to both the arrival point and the departure point that the students have now reached in their careers – they have arrived at the end of their undergraduate work and are setting out with hopes and aspirations to work in their chosen profession.

"The exhibition is entirely designed, promoted and furnished by the work of these talented students," says Professor Swaffield, "and it is a very worthy showcase to mark 30 years of landscape architecture teaching at Lincoln."

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