Course Instructor
Nancy Rottle + Paul Olson
Course Date
Winter 2020
Course Type
Study Abroad Program
New Zealand
In Winter 2020, fourteen graduate landscape architecture students toured urban design and landscape architecture projects in three distinctly different New Zealand cities—Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington—prior to undertaking a project in post-earthquake Christchurch. Anticipating river corridor inundation from earthquake induced subsidence and projected sea level rise, students proposed new stop bank (levee) configurations to provide both flood protection and ecological restoration, designing to embrace change, in concert with development of multi-faceted public river access points or “landings.” Led by Professor Nancy Rottle and Lecturer Paul Olson, the studio featured the Maori concept of tiaki, or care for people and land, and engaged generous local practitioners and citizens in their process. The student design work was complemented by travel media studies and explorations, and individual independent studies and creative projects. The group finished the trip together by studying and staying at an exemplary eco-resort near Queenstown, established by the visionaries of Puget Sound’s own Islandwood, Paul and Debbi Brainerd. A booklet, Ōtākaro Avon Landings, Tiaki Over Time: Ecocultural Regeneration and Climate Change Resilience for the Ōtākaro Avon Green Spine, documents the group’s design explorations and can be accessed at a new website, www.uwtiakiovertime.wordpress.com. The website also features studio work from the Winter 2019 Christchurch New Zealand program, and a gallery of this year’s independent study projects. We invite you to have a look!