2025 Highlights: He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata
What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.
Over the summer of 2025-2026 Landscape Architecture Aotearoa (LAA) will be surfacing a series of vignettes of our encounters during the last 12 months with people who have kindly provided generous insights into their contributions to the pūrākau of landscapes and landscape architecture around the motu in Aotearoa New Zealand, and around the world.
As part of this series the initial introductions to Bridget Gilbert, Peter Sergel and Rod Barnett below will be extended and expanded upon.
Bridget Gilbert speaks after being presented as a new NZILA Fellow. Photo credit: Duncan Brown.
Bridget Gilbert
When Bridget Gilbert became a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects Tuia Pito Ora (NZILA) at the NZILA Firth Wānanga 2025 in Heretaunga Hastings in May it coincided neatly with her independent firm BGLA - Bridget Gilbert Landscape Architecture, reaching a 20-year milestone.
In conversation with LAA, Bridget happily reflected on her roots growing up on a small dairy farm at Ramarama, just south of Auckland, and spoke about the path she has been on as a landscape architect after first gaining a degree in horticulture at Massey followed by a post-graduate diploma in landscape architecture at Lincoln in 1986.
The citation for her elevation to NZILA Fellow status put Bridget’s demonstrated excellence in landscape assessment, policy development, and design practice front and centre.
It spoke to the work she has done in “shaping planning frameworks and development strategies throughout the country, combining a deep respect for the land with exceptional analytical and communication skills”, adding that her influence is visible across rural, coastal, and urban environments.
As with profiles that have appeared on LAA this year of Richard Bain and Nik Kneale, Bridget hasn’t had a career exposed to the limelight. She shared that her preference is “doing the work”, not self or business promotion.
“I’m just trying to do my best at my work, rather than selling it and I’ve never been big on the whole marketing thing. That’s a really worthwhile skill but I just don’t have it”.
Bridget spoke about the “broad church” of the profession and shared her gratitude to Boffa Miskell in the period of her career from 1997-2005 for their openness to enabling a flexible employment environment, recalling it as “quite groundbreaking and very forward thinking at the time”. This allowed her to work part-time while being a devoted parent to children Ben and Anna, before later setting up her own practice.
From that point on - as noted in her Fellow citation - she went on to provide strategic landscape advice and peer review for numerous territorial authorities, including Auckland Council and Queenstown Lakes District Council, earning her a “national reputation as a trusted expert in landscape matters”.
Peter Sergel speaking in Heretaunga Hastings before receiving recognition from NZILA as an Honorary Fellow. Photo: Duncan Brown
Peter Sergel
For anyone at all familiar with the history of the Hamilton Gardens no introduction is needed for Peter Sergel as the horticulturally-trained designer and architect of the gardens’ world-renowned form and function.
The nominator for Peter’s NZILA Honorary Fellow award this year was industry legend and NZILA Life Member, Frank Boffa - also pictured above.
Talking to LAA it was revealed that Frank had once - “in the early days” - tried to recruit Peter to Boffa Miskell. Instead the career Peter embarked on with the Hamilton Gardens in 1978 became his life’s work.
By the time of his retirement in 2020, Peter had been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Landscape Design and the Community (2005), had been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Waikato University (2009) and was awarded the Hamilton Kirikirioa Medal in 2021 by the then Mayor of Hamilton Paula Southgate.
In part the citation given at his Honorary Fellow presentation in May 2025 reads:
One of Peter’s first tasks at the Hamilton Gardens was to prepare a Management Plan for what was then little more than a riverside park. Given limited resources, the plan was confined to a more traditional botanical garden theme.
However, Peter had a different longer term vision for the site, and with his drive, enthusiasm and landscape design flair, in a relatively short period of time he demonstrated to and convinced Council that they could create a world-class garden concept that “would enhance the city’s identity, prosperity and quality of life.” Subsequently Peter’s vision and energy have seen the 58 hectare site become a major attraction and visitor destination, cherished by residents and tourists… While Peter has officially retired, he has laid the foundation and left plans for the ongoing development phases yet to be initiated and completed.
And Peter’s story definitely hasn’t stopped with the word ‘retirement’. First there was the book The Time Traveller’s Guide to Hamilton Gardens, published by Phantom House Books & Films with photos by Grant Sheehan. And yes, a documentary film is now on the cusp of release - hopefully in time for the 15th edition of the Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival in 2026. It’s fitting title is A Museum for Humanity.
Rod Barnett is ending his term as Head of the School of Architecture at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington on 19 December 2025.
Rod Barnett
Every now and then you encounter people for whom an epithet like ‘undersung’ is fitting.
Dr Rod Barnett (Ngāti Raukawa) is just such a person, the first Professor of Landscape Architecture to head the School of Architecture at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.
His working life traces back to the hands-on and self-taught running of Barnett Garden Design for 12 years, and his trajectory hasn’t been that of a strictly linear lifelong academic.
When he did take up life in the world of tertiary education it took him to places like Unitec, later followed by a decade in the USA; first at Auburn University in Alabama where he was the MLA Program Chair (2008-14) and then on to five years as Chair of the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.
In addition to the demands of a challenging Head of School role, Rod has, since returning to Aotearoa, been bringing his commitment to global Indigeneity to his consultancy practice and range of exploratory research discoverable on his deeply considered website.
All the while his turangawaewae of Putaruru has been an anchor, and with the three-year term at Te Herenga Waka behind him he’ll be happily heading to Kawhia to rejoin partner Jacqueline Margetts, also a landscape educator, to put his shoulders to the wheel of Te Taiao o Kāwhia Moana - a coast care group.
From linear back to nonlinear.