Three Bartlett Students Shortlisted for Landscape Institute Awards

The Landscape Institute Awards celebrate the most accomplished work across the UK in landscape architecture, recognising student and professional Landscape Institute members, and other non-members working in landscape disciplines. This year’s awards saw more than 150 entries. There are two student categories, open to students or alumni who have graduated in the last three years, with Bartlett students and alumni being nominated in both categories.

The Student Portfolio Award recognises portfolios created by students as part of an undergraduate or post-graduate course accredited by the Landscape Institute, while the Student Dissertation Award is for thesis work created within the same parameters.

Jinming Wei, who graduated in 2022 from Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 6, was nominated for the Student Portfolio Award, for “Design With the Power of Nature – Using Nature Sediment Movements to Protect Nuclear Power Station” - associated with her project “Protecting Sizewell through Sedimentation”.

“Design With the Power of Nature – Using Nature Sediment Movements to Protect Nuclear Power Station”

by Jinming Wei
Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 6

More than 40% of nuclear power plants are located adjacent to the sea. Under the projected conditions of climate change, it is essential to rethink the relationship between nuclear power plants and the coast. Due to increased flooding and erosion risks, this project aims to protect Sizewell power station through the utilisation of natural sedimentation processes along the Suffolk coastline. This project begins with the design of a sediment supply system which will reinforce a natural subtidal dune serving as a natural breakwater offshore. The controlled sedimentation patterns will also form new islands for occupation. Over a large timescale, this project takes landscape design as a variation process and offers different experiences for people and animals.

In the Student Dissertation Award, Nyima Murry (Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 8, graduating 2023) has been nominated for “The Herring Girls: Surfacing a Heritage of Landscape Through Folk Song”, which accompanied her project “The Herring Girls: A Critical Heritage Masterplan”, supervised by Stamatis Zografos; and Paloma Martínez Solares Callejas (Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 4), who graduated in 2022, was nominated for “The Lost Rivers of Mexico City”, which was supervised by Elin Eyborg Lund and written alongside her graduating project “An Amphibious Utopia”.

“The Herring Girls: Surfacing a Heritage of Landscape Through Folk Song”

by Nyima Murry
Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 8

This research explores the heritage of the ‘Herring Girls’ – a group of migrant women labourers who worked gutting and pickling herring fish between 1860 – 1977. As a working-class women’s history, the ‘Herring Girls’ story has not been well told. Although at the height of the herring industry in 1913, fourteen-thousand ‘Herring Girls’ were employed in this itinerant labour, the heritage of these women has been obscured by the story of British fishermen within the hegemonic authorized heritage discourse (Smith, 2006) of British fishing. Working with the folk songs of the ‘Herring Girls’, this research moves across, along, and between, the landscapes of their annual route that followed the migrating herring fish down the UK’s east coast. Gips, Khlandkye, Farlanes and Swills - these words that were used by the ‘Herring Girls’ to describe gutting, packing, and collectively living have been slowly lost. By structuring the work through these lost words, the language of these women are employed as a feminist, critical spatial practice (Rendell, 2003). Surfacing the folk songs, as a suppressed form of intangible heritage, this research seeks to recognise these women’s labour within this industry, and the resulting landscape they produced that can still be experienced today. Writing this critical heritage from below (Robertson, 2016) I seek to respond to Ursula le Guin’s (2019) call to ‘tell the untold story’, in the hope of finding new, and more inclusive ways of relating to this landscape today.

“The Lost Rivers of Mexico City”

by Paloma Martínez Solares Callejas
Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 4

Due to the drastic hydrological and territorial transformations Mexico City has undergone, the city suffers from severe issues such as seasonal floodings, water scarcity and ground subsidence. This dissertation will evaluate how the restoration of lost or polluted urban rivers in Mexico City could aid in the city’s water crisis. Focusing specifically on the Magdalena-Eslava River System, and through a review of its current conditions and the history of the rivers in Mexico City, this research will argue that the restoration of this river system could transform it into a flood alleviating landscape which would also serve as a sustainable water supply. Such landscape strategy could shift Mexico City’s relationship with its hydrological systems, to a more sustainable one in harmony with the city’s lacustrine spirit.

The award winners will be announced at a ceremony on 03 November.

More information

• See all the nominations for this year’s Landscape Institute Awards
• Find out more about Landscape Architecture MA/MLA

Images: 
1. 'Protecting Sizewell Through Sedimentation' by by Jinming Wei Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 6
2. 'The Herring Girls: A Critical Heritage Masterplan' by Nyima Murry, Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 8
3. 'An Amphibious Utopia' by Paloma Martínez Solares Callejas Landscape Architecture MLA, Design Studio 4