Mike Barthelmeh has recently been to Montreal as the NZ Institute of Landscape Architect’s (NZILA) delegate to the International Federation of Landscape Architect’s (IFLA) World Council meeting. This is the second time he has represented our fair country as delegate, the last was in South Korea in 1992.
Amongst many decisions, the meeting approved a pilot project to undertake an accreditation review of the landscape programme in Bogor, Indonesia, using the process that Mike developed based on work completed last year for the NZILA. This is a great opportunity to test a process that will be able to be used by any landscape programme in the Asia-Pacific Region of IFLA, as a move towards enabling reciprocity of graduate status across the region. The IFLA meeting was followed by the 10th World Design Summit, comprising speakers and attendees from six different design disciplines. Three notable keynote speakers were Dutch landscape architect Dirk Sijmons, who was awarded the IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe prize for 2017, urban designer Jan Gehl, who has a great sense of humour as well as excellent insights into how to prioritise people in urban places, and an amazing presentation from Ginette Caron, a communication designer who includes Benneton and Prada in her cv. Check out her website and be astounded by her design portfolio.
Much about Montreal is big; massive stone buildings, enormously long trucks, and breakfasts at the hotel. In an unprecedented fashion, oaty breakfast pancakes with fruit, pecans and maple syrup have exceeded the capacity of the NZILA delegate to consume vast amounts of food. But there are many human-scale parts of town too, with different boutique shops for fashionable clothing intertwined with cafes and restaurants offering a huge variety of tasty treats, before leading to delightful higher-density residential areas. And the lighting inside the Basilica is spectacular. There is just so much to see and experience in Montreal.
Thanks for sharing your time away with us Mike!
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