Jury comment
This project constitutes a wonderfully successful place of inclusion where people with disabilities are central to a farm’s operation. The design has created an interactive, family-friendly activity park that provides both tourism and employment opportunities for the local region. As a visitor attraction, Summer-land Farm offers an insight into the regional identity. The design response has evolved out of an understand-ing of the relationship between the site and its context. The resulting campus provides a sensitive and passive landscape and is an excellent example of how a tourism project might be integrated with a working farm. The farm creates jobs and benefits the local economy, using landscape as a tool. Employment opportunities that enable people with disabilities to work have been emphasized, elegantly creating a new socially and economically sustainable facility for the local community.
Summerland Farm is located in Alstonville, New South Wales, on the land of the Bundjalung people.
Project credits
Design team Plummer and Smith with DFJ Architects Structural engineer Westera Partners Civil engineer SDS Engineering Mechanical and electrical engineer Hawkins Jenkins Ross Hydraulic engineer Glen Monteith Play element architect Project Fort Awesome Play element builder Malcolm Graffin Building Play certifier CCEP Consulting Coordination Planner Newton Denny Chapelle Builder Woollam Constructions and Greenwood Landscape Management Photographer Natalie McComas
To view all the winners of the 2021 National Landscape Architecture Awards, go here.
