An awards wrap from Barcelona, London, Miami … and back to Aotearoa
Welcome to an end-of-year wrap on a recent flurry of awards from around the world, and included further below some pointers from around the motu …
Barcelona Biennial - or the BILB for short
Following on from the heads up provided here on LAA to the Barcelona International Landscape Biennial by guest contributor Carles Martinez-Almoyna Gual last month, news has arrived of the major winners.
The Rosa Barba Prize
First of all Grønningen–Bisperparken (Grønningen Bishop’s Park), located in Copenhagen, has been awarded the 13th Rosa Barba International Landscape Architecture Prize from a field of more than two hundred and thirty submissions (all selected projects are published in the Biennial’s Catalogue Book and included in the online PAISATECA archive). The prize purse is €15,000.
Designed by the SLA studio, Grønningen–Bisperparken, located in a 1950s social housing development, has seen 20,000 m² area of barren lawns transformed into an undulating natural landscape that brings nature into the city in its most wild and beneficial form. It has won praise for being “a paradigm shift in urban development — a statement about how cities can adapt to climate change while improving quality of life and celebrating nature”.
The project incorporates 18 natural drainage channels that collect and filter rainwater, protecting the area from flooding and turning this water into a social and ecological resource for residents. In addition, the park offers safe and inclusive spaces, with typologies that combine biodiversity and community life: wetlands, open meadows, social spaces between buildings, and former bunkers that become terraces in summer and sledding slopes in winter.
The project also includes the artistic intervention ‘Concerning a Meadow’, which over four years involved residents and artists in the creation of wooden structures integrated into the landscape.
See more images and information here.
Separately a People’s Choice Award went to the stunning project The Dark Line, by Michèle Orliac, Miquel Batlle and dA VISION Chung-Hsun WU Landscape Architect, located in Taiwan.
In addition the IFLA Mention was a tribute to the visionary spirit of Professor Kongjian Yu. This was constituted by an award to the project Urban Balcony Embracing Rewilded Nature, by his firm Turenscape. (It also received an Honor Award for Urban Design in the 2024 ASLA Professional Awards).
The Manuel Ribas Piera International Landscape Schools Award
The Manuel Ribas Piera International Landscape Schools Award was awarded to New Coasts, a Masters Landscape Architecture and Urbanism studio at University of Greenwich (London, United Kingdom) for five projects that represent the culmination of three years of creating landscapes as tapestries that tell stories of the Thames and the North Sea, impacted by climate change. With the support of the Banc Sabadell Foundation, the winning university receives a €1,500 grant.
The jury highlighted “the project’s unique and rigorous pedagogy, the representation of a highly collaborative and empathetic studio culture, and the recognition of the urgency of coastal adaptation projects within the context of contemporary regulatory environments.”
The jury also gave an Honourable Mention to the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. This university, together with ETH Zurich, were selected ex aequo for the People’s Choice Award.
See more information on the winning School of the 2025 Ribas Piera Award here.
Landscape Institute Awards 2025
The Landscape Institute (LI) Awards are an annual event held in the UK celebrating the vital contribution of landscape professionals in addressing societal challenges related to climate, nature, and health and wellbeing.
More than 150 entrants put their work forward in 2025 in an awards programme of 17 categories, including 6 Open category awards, 9 redesigned Professional category awards, and 2 Student category awards. There were 66 judges.
The President’s Award for 2025 went to a publication from the Welsh Government Llywodraeth Cymru, titled Good Practice Guidance: Planning for the Conservation and Enhancement of Dark Skies in Wales (available to download as a PDF here.
The full slate of award winners and finalists is:
Open Category
Z’scape won the Dame Sylvia Crowe International Award for Large Scale Projects (10ha and above) for Jiaxing Station Park
Also shortlisted: Round Island Route Phase 1A; Haitang River Eco Park Phase II – Through the Tropics, Seeking Miracles
Z’scape won the Dame Sylvia Crowe International Award for Small to Medium Scale Projects (up to 10ha) for Aranya Stream Park
Also shortlisted: Suzhou Mountain Kingston School; Taikoo Place; Regeneration of vitality——Shenzhen Guanlan Riverside Plaza
The Levitt Bernstein and Haringey Council won the Excellence in Collaboration, Engagement & Influence award for Down Lane Park
Also shortlisted: Runnymede Explored; Re-imagining Leeds Eastside
The Environment Partnership (TEP) Ltd won the Landscape and Parks Management Award for A Landscape Vision for Bedgebury
Also shortlisted: Transforming Coventry – grey morass into a green oasis, for people and wildlife; City of London North London Open Spaces Management Plans
Lab D+H SH won the Landscape Legacy award for Reviving NAN TOU: A Place Caught in the Pitfall of Gentrification
Also shortlisted: Kingsbrook; Yongqing Fang, Guangzhou – historical and cultural district “micro transformation” sample; OPDC Public Realm and Green Infrastructure Supplementary Planning Document (SPD)
South China Agricultural University won the Landscape Research and Digital Innovation Award for its Seeking Resilience and Equity in Transforming Cultural Landscapes
Also shortlisted: Digital National Character Area Profiles; Nature Talk To Me - Digital Environmental Education of Bogong Island
Professional Category
Excellence in Biodiversity Conservation and Enhancement was won by HTA Design for Eden Dock
Project finalists included: Lost Wetlands Landscape Recovery; Sharaan National Park; Beckenham Place Park East
Excellence in Climate, Environment, and Social outcomes was won by BDP for Beckenham Place Park East
Project finalists included: Lower Darent Riverside Strategy; West Dean Landscape Strategy; Jersey Marine Spatial Plan
Excellence in Heritage and Culture was won by The Royal Parks for Greenwich Park Revealed
Project finalists included: Plant, Basingstoke; Saving South Cliff Gardens; Belsay Awakes
Excellence in Landscape Design was won by J&L Gibbons for the Urban Nature Project, Natural History Museum
Project finalists included: TTP Campus; Lost Shore Surf Resort; Terminal 2 at Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru
Excellence in Landscape Planning and Assessment was won by Natural Resources Wales for Good Practice for Guidance Planning for Dark Skies
Project finalists included: New National Character Area Profiles Website; University of East Anglia Green Infrastructure Strategy; Englishcombe Lane Supported Housing, Bath
Excellence in Masterplanning and Urban Design was won by LUC for the AELTC Wimbledon Park Project
Project finalists included: Thimphu Green Infrastructure and Open Space Masterplan; Wellcome Genome Campus; Maryhill North TRA Glasgow
Excellence in Place Regeneration was won by City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council for its Bradford Transforming Cities Fund
Project finalists included: Hainault Forest; The Canal Quarter, Cardiff; Black Rock, Brighton Seafront
Excellence in Public Health and Wellbeing was won by Grant Associates for Appleby Blue Almshouse, Bermondsey, London
Project finalists included: Royal Docks Corridor; SolarFlora; Neath Hill Health Centre
Excellence in Small Landscape and Garden Design was won by Robert Myers Associates for the Turing Locke Hotel, Cambridge
Project finalists included: Belfast City Quays Gardens; The Paddock; King Charles Street Quad
Student Portfolio winner: Tides of Heritage: A Journey through the Scilly Landscape - Aditi Sunder Nair. (Other finalists were: Water Bodies: Reading Landscape Through Swimming; Zemlya – Resilience Through Gardening and Land use in Conflict-Affected Ukraine; Dementia Gardens)
Student Dissertation winner: Living with the wild: Navigating the Human-Leopard Dynamics in Mumbai - Aditi Nair. (Other finalists were: Embodied Landscape Explorations; Landscapes of Memory and Resistance; Design in the Territory of Water / At the End of Atomic Age)
The WAF in Miami
At the World Architecture Festival in Miami in November the Landscape of the Year 2025 award went to embracing Flood: Xinjiang River Ecological Corridor by Turenscape.
Three projects were highly commended:
• Eden Dock by Howells (Architect) & HTA Design (Landscape Architect)
• Taikoo Place by Gustafson Porter + Bowman & Urbis Limited
• The Osona Viewpoint Network by Batlleiroig
… but wait, there’s more…
With awards and associated forms of recognition there is always a reservoir in reserve to research, retrieve and review. Other quick pointers from 2025, unavoidably incomplete, are:
Further listings of GLOBAL AWARD WINNERS
• The Landezine International Landscape (LILA) Awards in June - LINK
• The WLA awards in August - LINK
• The ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) awards in Sept/ October - LINK
NOTable local achievements
The Parks Awards 2025 in May - where Resilio, with Auckland Council, claimed the title of ‘Healthy Park of the Year’ for Kaipātiki Reserve.
In August an Award of Excellence in the Build Small Public Space category of the WLA Awards went to LandLAB for its mahi on the Karanga Plaza Jump Platform.
In November the Dunedin City Council received a Planning & Urban Design Award from NZIA for its transformation of George Street spanning four blocks and surrounding side streets. The project was designed and delivered by the Ō3 Collective, comprising Jasmax, AECOM and Isaac Construction.
See also the awards page of Boffa Miskell - particularly for accolades associated with Punangairi Visitor Experience Centre at Punakaiki | Dolomite Point, Myers Park Underpass, Heke Rua Archives (work on the latter site made the cover of the November/December 2025 issue of Architecture New Zealand) and more.
Not noted?: Let laaotearoa@nzila.co.nz know.
______
See also these awards-related stories previously featured on LAA in 2025:
Te Ara Tukutuku resonates at 2025 WAF Festival in Miami - LINK
A second win for Reset at the IFLA APR awards - LINK
Hastings' Waiaroha project keeps sending ripples around the motu and around the world - LINK
Landscape architecture shines at 2025 RMLA Awards event - LINK
Hayman Park Playground proceeds to NZIA’s 2025 Awards shortlist - LINK
Marking World Landscape Architecture Month with an Aotearoa index of excellence - LINK
Community, Country and Climate all big winners at the AILA National Awards - LINK
Awards of Excellence across Australia - LINK
A peek at the Australian Urban Design Awards 2025 - LINK
'Awards Atlas' puts Canadian projects on the map - LINK
The imprint of Günther Vogt - the 2025 Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award recipient - LINK
Drawing attention to drawing: Archisource - LINK