I am a 29 year old landscape architect, now living in Oslo, Norway after living and working a year in Amsterdam, two years in London and one year in NYC.
Originally heralding from Nelson, New Zealand I am still loving exploring the design industry within the European + Scandinavian contexts of the northern hemisphere.
I have a very strong affinity for construction and detailing - having taught it for two subsequent years at my previous university - Victoria University of Wellington. This knowledge combined with my ability to spatialise through drawings, renders and inherently understand spaces through materiality and planting creates the basis of my design skills which have been honed through each country and job I have resided within.
Gillespies, London, GB, Landscape Architect
Developing conceptual designs for large street scapes, shared residential courtyards and large rooftop terraces. During this period I worked on a variety of different projects between the concept/planning stages as well as brought a large scale public realm and small scale community garden through on-site construction stages.
Managing smaller projects with my own small teams of 1-2 people ensured high quality outcome to the work.
Grain Collective, New York, NY, US, Part-time designer
Working closely with firm owner and director Runit Chhaya this position involved a lot of design conceptualisation for projects of a large scale. I was lucky enough to be involved in the initial stages of two big master plan projects for residential developments in India. Each of these involved a period of spatialising; working with the architectural firm involved to find the most intelligent use of communal space, plus then a period of visualisation work to convey the feeling of each area.
Grain Collective (http://graincollective.com/category/projects/current)
Zuzu's Petals, New York, NY, US, Florist
Designing loose pieces, pieces in vases to send to homes, wedding bouquets and funeral pieces. Working with all manner of colours, textures, types of flowers and foliage. Zuzu's also had a small nursery space full with plants of which I looked after daily and also created plant palettes for customers wanting to add to their small brownstone gardens.
Studio Prospect, New York, NY, US, Part-time designer
Part-time designer working directly with the two talented and proficient directors. During this time I assisted with a series of small residential projects in Brooklyn and Manhattan plus a medium scale beer and leisure garden. Typically this would involve a degree of research, conceptualisation and drawing up in CAD. In particular the beer garden involved a series of evolving construction details plus spatial conceptualisation.
Studio Prospect (http://www.studioprospect.com/project/)
Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, NZ, Teaching Fellow
Position included the formation and execution of two core courses for the 2nd year level of the landscape architectural programme.
Teaching 53 students the ways and means of landscape architectural design (LAND211 - The Three Lenses of Landscape Architecture) The second course was teaching the same students a wide range of programmes (Adobe Suite, AutoCAD, Rhino and 3dsMax) for their communications paper. A paper which essentially was all about honing their ability to communicate their design and intent in a intelligent, evocative and understandable means.
Wraight and Associates Ltd, Wellington, NZ, Student Landscape Architect (part-time)
Wraight and Associates (or WA) (http://waal.co.nz/) hired me as a part-time employee during the course of my degree. During this period I was involved with project documentation, competition entries, image generation, CD generation, tender and RFP processes and even had a stint running the office while the office manager was on leave.
This work helped me to learn to work self sufficiently, work within small interchangeable teams and how to organise my work in a simple and coherent method.
Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, NZ, Masters, Landscape Architecture
NZILA distinction award - student division, 2nd Place
An award for my Masters project; The Ecological Touchstones of Our Identity. NZILA is the landscape architecture association for New Zealand, making the competition a nation wide one. Students from Victoria University, Auckland University and Lincoln University all entered their works to compete.
