5 November 2025 Student-led exhibition explores an alternate future for Aotearoa's landscapes

The event welcomed a large public crowd into the Christchurch Art Centre’s Altiora space. Friends, whānau, industry guests and alumni all came to check out the nine undergraduate BLA, and nine postgraduate MLA projects designed by students.

Guest speaker and Head of the School of Landscape Architecture Shannon Davis called the exhibition an annual highlight.

“Our students are tackling some of the biggest environmental and social issues we face at the moment, and we’re super proud of them.

“There’s been a real focus this year on climate change adaptation issues, like sea-level rise and inundation, flooding, and land use change. Students have had to really get to grips with a lot of technical detail as well as the creative responses to those technical needs.”

The student-led exhibition represented months of mahi addressing challenges across the country, producing comprehensive plans centred on resilience, cultural identity, and connectivity.

For Bachelor of Landscape Architecture students Milla Munro and Grace Foulkes-Austin, that meant confronting the realities of rising tides. Grace’s Before the Flood focused on Greymouth, combining cultural revitalisation with a long-term sea-level rise adaptation plan. Milla’s project, Turanga Inui a Kiwa – A City Retreating with the Tide, reimagined Gisborne’s city centre with flooding, housing and transport in mind.

Josh Whelan’s project, called Mahitahi - Weaving Water, Place and People, explored ways to build flood resilience in Nelson along the Mahitahi or Maitai River, which has experienced repeated flooding.

With much of Nelson sitting on a floodplain, he proposed strategies to allow room for the river, creating channel meanders to slow flood flows, and setting back housing from high-risk zones while supporting growth through selective intensification.

Josh has since accepted a role with a Nelson-based firm, which may see him working in the very area his project focused on.

Olivia Hawtin shifted her focus offshore. Her Bay of Islands project, titled Paihia, examined marine conservation and regenerative tourism, intertwining them together to create a place where whenua, moana and tangata meet.

Olivia found Paihia currently lacks identity and is simply a place you get on the boat to get to the wider area. 

“Oftentimes, as New Zealanders, we preserve our native bush, our beaches, but we don't look beyond that shoreline.

“That was a big part of my project, making those invisible ecosystems visible to the public.”

Olivia designed a network of rotating rāhui areas under Māori protection, allowing marine species to regenerate while maintaining access for mahinga kai (particularly food harvesting). Scaled down, she looks at exactly what’s in those marine areas and what innovative marine devices can be used to reveal them.

Beyond working countless hours to finish the projects, students also managed the entire exhibition as part of one of their courses. Together they learnt to handle finance and location logistics, to marketing and event delivery. 

Each of the students commented on how valuable it was to graduate with a close-knit group of friends and strong connections as they entered the working world.

Other guest speakers on the night were Huia Rereti, President of Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZ Institute of Architects, and Hamish Cochrane, Associate Principal at Boffa Miskell and NZILA Canterbury Branch Chair.