AILA launches 2018 International Festival of Landscape Architecture website

The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) has launched the website for its 2018 International Festival of Landscape Architecture, which will take place on the Gold Coast from 11 to 14 October.

Themed “The Expanding Field: Charting the future of practice,” the 2018 festival is being curated by Melbourne and Adelaide-based practice TCL. Through an extensive program of talks, panel discussions and festival and fringe events, the conference will survey the edges of the profession with the aim of identifying progressive avenues of enquiry, discovering new territory for design, and inspiring innovative forms of practice.

The conference has been split into six guiding themes and speaker sessions around which the rest of the festival is framed:

Pushing Boundaries
This session will explore creative forms of practice that push the boundaries of the profession. How are practitioners inventing new forms of practice and stepping into new roles traditionally held by those in other fields?

Reimagining Practice
This session will survey emerging landscape architecture practices in Australia who will discuss the agendas, methods and project types they are engaged with.

Synergizing Technologies
This session will consider how new technologies and recovered traditional technologies are being applied to the design and construction of environmental systems and public space. How can technology augment the performance of landscapes?

Expanding Territories
This session will consider potential new territories of landscape architectural practice. How can landscape architects engage with territories traditionally beyond its scope – from large-scale landscapes, to managed ecologies, to food and agricultural systems – in order to address our most pressing environmental challenges?

Cultivating Cultural Intersections
This session will question the way landscape architects might better engage with our country’s intertwined ecological and cultural complexity. How can landscape architects build new understandings and appreciations of the Australian context that are informed by multiple cultural perspectives?

Navigating Political Terrain
This session will explore contemporary social movements, advocacy and the ethics of design. How can landscape practitioners engage with and inform rapidly shifting political conditions and consequences?

Among the local and international speakers for the festival thus-far announced are Charles Massy (author, Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth), Ella Gauci-Seddon (landscape architect, Hassell), Sacha Coles (director, Aspect Studios), Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry (founding directors, Land Art Generator Initiative), Alistair Kirkpatrick and Anthony Sharples (co-directors, AKAS Landscape Architecture), Bonnie Charles and Sarah Hicks (founding partners, Bush Projects), Vanessa Margetts (founding director, MudMap Studio), Kim Mahood (artist and author, Position Doubtful) and Greg Grabasch (principal director, UDLA).

The 2018 National Landscape Architecture Awards will also form part of the festival, and will be held on the evening of Thursday 11 October.

For more information and to stay up to date with the festival line-up as it evolves, visit the festival website here. Early bird tickets to the festival are now on sale.

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