4 April 2000 Opotiki redevelopment an award winner

Town centre redevelopment which transformed the heart of Opotiki in 1997 has won national Bronze Medal honours for the two Lincoln graduate landscape architects involved.

In the latest annual New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects Awards, Chris Bentley and Bridgit Diprose of Boffa Miskell Ltd, Auckland, won the Bronze Medal in the Urban Open Space Section of the competition's Landscape Design Category.

The citation for the award described their design as deceptively simple but effective in accommodating a wide range of needs and pressures.

The project demonstrated a commendable integration of infrastructural and spatial development, said the judges. A few critical moves had provided a strong basis around which the growth of the town's main street could evolve.

The judges identified the strongly coloured ground plain, repetitive measuring of the street with new lighting standards, and the marking of the town's key intersection with a carved pou as simple yet effective elements acting as a ‘visual framework’ that could be extended as required without losing their effect at the hands of commercial activity.

Chris, a principal of Boffa Miskell Ltd, Auckland, managed the project, and together with Bridgit Diprose, a Lincoln University first class honours graduate of 1993, they took it from concept in 1996 to completion in 1997.

The concept was presented to the client, Opotiki District Council, in November 1996 and contract drawings and documents prepared for tendering in February 1997. Construction started towards the end of that month and was supervised by the Opotiki District Council with Chris providing technical assistance and being Engineer to the contract. The project was completed in September 1997.

For Chris, who studied Landscape Architecture at Lincoln University in the mid-1980s, this year's NZILA Awards brought double success as he was also a joint winner of a Silver Medal for the design of the Broadway Park housing development in Newmarket, Auckland.

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