LILA Office Award

Wagon Landscaping is a Paris-based practice that has been featured on Landezine for many years now. They gave lectures for our platform, and our enthusiasm for their work has only been growing with time, mainly because we see it as a more and more relevant and interesting for wider use. Although their projects address a narrow niche of small-scale situations, the modes of attention and engagement with landscape that Wagon practices offer pertinent answers to how we could rethink the approach to landscape in other typologies and scales.

Their work is often conceptually intriguing and bold, yet based on minimal transformation, mainly dealing with conditions for growth and studying dynamics of the soil, plants and water. A range of projects address asphalt opening and investigate the aesthetics that emerge from an ethical position of leaving the material in place. Although it could be seen as a reference to artist Lois Weinberger’s work titled Burning and Walking (1992), Wagon took the approach further into research and a range of diverse applications. They build most of their projects by themselves; the office is also well-equipped with shovels, rakes and hoes.

The questions that arise from this position are a discussion we need to have. How much should we change our engagement with landscape, program, transformation, and maintenance to minimize negative environmental impact? Where is the sensible and possible line between emission-heavy constructions and Wagon’s DIY reuse approach?

Through their clever landscape ideas and the masterful Versailles School-educated practice, Wagon addresses big issues on a small scale and establishes itself as a unique voice that should be heard widely in our global professional community.

Battleiroig is a multidisciplinary firm celebrated for its innovative and sustainable designs that have made a significant impact on the field of landscape architecture both within Spain and Europe. Founded in Barcelona, Spain, by Enric Batlle and Joan Roig in 1981, the firm has gained international recognition for its progressive approach to design. They have been at the forefront of the ‘Catalan wave’ of the nineties, pushed by Oriol Bohigas’ plans for The Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games, which made spectacular never seen before projects possible. The ‘wave’ included names such as EMBT, RCR Arquitectes, Arriola & Fiol arquitectes, Manuel Ruisánchez, MICHELE & MIQUEL, Bet Figueras, Beth Gali, Teresa Galí-Izard, later EMF and others. Already in that time, the work of Batlleiroig helped bring contemporary design attitudes from the region into an international focus and also influence.

The editors of Landezine recognize Batlleiroig’s multidisciplinary approach that has been continuously bringing projects that challenge their briefs, find smart answers and materialize in aesthetically convincing creations fit to their time and context. There is an evident omnipresent quality in the design language of their work – a mix of subtle but still joyful play and, at the same time, calm sobriety that often supports witty solutions.

The project for Garraf Landfill, also awarded LILA 2023 in Revisited Projects category, was based on a landscape idea that served as the main guideline for this very technical transformation. The Forest Path cemetery questions the very structure of symbolic particularities of landscape in terms of our relationship to life and death and proposes a shift of the spiritual to the immediate nature. The Scenic Path Along Igualada’s Old Gypsum Mines was awarded LILA 2019 in Public Category for its unique blend of subtle design that explores existing landscape qualities and a new layer of playfulness that gives the project a new frame. In Esplugues de Llobregat’s modification of the General Metropolitan Plan, they questioned how a productive landscape could be made fit for public use in an innovative way.

The editors of Landezine appreciate the office’s fitness to conquer complex problems and come up with solutions that can move visitors rather than entertain them.

Bureau B+B has been around for more than 40 years. In The Netherlands it is righteously considered a cradle of successful landscape architects. Despite the vast portfolio and the inseparable heritage of B+B, the editors of Landezine were convinced and impressed by the latest projects that were designed by a team of young designers.

We recognize the work of Bureau B+B, mainly for their ability of combining innovative engineering approaches with context based design. They master a diverse span of attitudes; from being subtle and quiet, to making radical changes, or being playful. B+B’s recent designs reflect all the needed skills for handling complex tasks; from a busy urban train station to residential landscapes fit for the future, to wetlands.

But it is the work that tackles heritage sites that really separates B+B from an already remarkable crowd of Dutch landscape architects. The precision that is found in Tempel and Nieuw Rhodenrijs Estates or the conceptual clarity of the LILA 2019 winning project Objets Trouvés reflects the ability to untangle time-related complexities, to curate and to offer new, meaningful experiences.

The editors of Landezine were charmed by the portfolio of simple and well-thought-out spaces. But what made us fall for the office completely were their writings that reveal a liberating spirit and refreshing attitude behind their actions. TERREMOTO has the power to effortlessly challenge the old certainties and recipes our profession is based on. The result are spaces that are simply generous and look incredibly comfortable. This is everyday landscape architecture at its best. Every community needs a TERREMOTO. And our global professional community needs TERREMOTO even more – in their manifesto they write:
“TERREMOTO mines the omnipotence of intentional inexactitude, and flirts openly with illegibility. We strive, in many cases, to do as little as possible. We revere the history of landscape architecture, but also kind of want to destroy it.”
and:
“TERREMOTO believes that physical form is reason made visible, and thus philosophical subtexts and exploratory dialogues will eternally guide our work. Material daydreams, scientific walkabouts and the musical anarchy of horticulture, ecology, and art inform and inspire us.”
Epic! TERREMOTO 4ever!

Landezine team recognizes Berlin based landscape architecture and architecture office Topotek 1 as the winner of the LILA 2020 Office Award. The portfolio of Topotek 1 reflects a unique conceptual approach that is dedicated to solving social issues and practicing landscape architecture as a multilayered and creative cultural discipline. Besides their landscape projects, the editors of Landezine acknowledge their exhibition and book Creative Infidelities, which is a playful yet sober reflection on both their own work and landscape architecture as an open-ended design profession. A quote from Jorge Luis Borges featured in the exhibition perfectly illustrates Topotek 1’s approach to the notions of identity, honesty, and context in terms of landscape design: “The original is unfaithful to the translation”.

LILA Office Award 2020 goes to Topotek 1 for their ability to design layered projects and above all for their refreshing and daring colorfulness in conceptual thinking, which the Landezine team would truly wish to see more of in landscape architecture offices around the world.

Studio Vulkan is a Zürich based landscape architecture practice. They are not bound to finding a formula for their projects, but rather seem to be more interested in re-questioning everything a project might bring: context, ambience and all available tools for solving problems and making an experience. They are not committed to finding a style, although there is a notion of ‘relaxed aesthetics’ present in most of their projects that is well-anchored in the project narrative.

Toni Areal, for example, is a roof garden, an urban oasis that uses only time to make itself more defined by natural forces, and one in particular – decay. Exposing the beauty of decay, or decay itself, is still a taboo across our profession; oddly enough, in an age when nature is in focus. Similarly, Park Naturmuseum St. Gallen is dealing with ‘artificial naturalness’. It aims to question the occurrence of nature in an entirely artificial/urban context. Studio Vulkan seem to enjoy introducing intentional imperfections, knowing that in this way, their works are far more interesting. For Park Naturmuseum they wrote in the project narrative: “In addition to the predominantly native plants, exotic hydrangeas stand for the paradox of the place.”

In times, when our profession still produces a monoculture of ideas resulting in sameness, Studio Vulkan is showing the way to keep landscape architecture interesting. Their work provokes an endless curiosity while also featuring a catalogue of solutions to a range of relevant issues.

Jury members recognized Catherine Mosbach as an outstanding and talented creative force who pushes the profession beyond excellence, revealing hidden layers of designing and also thinking about landscape. The result is a portfolio of unique and strong conceptual works. They remind us that there will always be infinite opportunities to find and express an original personal vocation whilst practicing environmentally and socially responsible work.

H+N+S has through an engineering approach successfully developed large scale thinking about landscape, integrating aspects concerning energy, environment, well-being and aesthetics. They feature a consistent opus of brave interventions in landscape, often with ingenious and innovative solutions. H+N+S is a relevant force in our common task to find and develop new tools for overcoming the challenges concerning landscape today and in the future.

Marti Franch is in his projects not only successfully solving spatial, environmental and physical problems concerning the sites he works on but with very respectful interventions manages to nurture landscape architecture also as a cultural discipline. His landscapes offer educational and experiential richness, often in fragile environments.

EMF designed landscapes are a result of a curious design approach that emphasises the curiosity also in the visitor by leaving landscape features and stories hidden enough to be discovered rather than just put on display. The narrative in Cap de Creus projects awaits the user in suggestion and not in the direct message. This way the user interacts with the meaning, making the experience far more intense and memorable.

La Tancada Salt Fields and Cap de Creus, are blending ecology, natural and cultural memory into harmonious and at the same time very powerful experience. The grounds of Can Framis museum illustrate EMF’s ability to intervene in dense urban fabric. A green, almost forest like ambience in the middle of Barcelona, again with a direct connection to the site’s past and ecological measures for cooling down the site with dense planting.

With Les Echasses project Marti Franch is effectively using natural processes to create a lake for a nature like resort. Instead of just creating a lake the landscape is proposed that first creates natural conditions for a lake to take place as a consequence.

EMF is practicing excellent scientific and technical work, but most importantly also proves well manifested paradigm that visiting landscapes must mean a culturally fulfilling experience. In the times when ecosystems are constantly being challenged by the consequences of human activity preservation and restoration of nature are vital for the wellbeing of all species. Marti Franch is aware that promoting subtle change in order to emphasise overwhelming natural forces and features left ‘as they are’ in nature plays a very important role in establishing a bond between the user and the landscape – people and environment.