Te Ara Tukutuku resonates at 2025 WAF Festival in Miami

2025 is ending on a high note for the international profile of the Te Ara Tukutuku project being steered into place in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland by LandLAB and SCAPE as part of the Toi Waihanga design collective.

Scott Greenhalgh and Henry Crothers at the podium in a breakout crit session at WAF 2025. (Supplied photos).

LandLAB’s Henry Crothers and Scott Greenhalgh were on hand to receive recognition for the excellence of Te Ara Tukutuku as winners in the WAF Future Project: Urban Design and Cultural Identity categories at the World Architecture Festival held in Miami from 12-14 November. 

The company they sat alongside as Cultural Identity winners included future projects such as an Islamic World District in Saudi Arabia (Pinnacle Design Studio) and the Woodson African American Museum of Florida (STORYN Studio for Architecture), while overall the WAF Future Project of the Year went to BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group for the infrastructure work achieved towards designing and building the Gelephu International Airport in Bhutan. 

LandLAB’s Scott Greenhalgh emerged from the bright lights of Miami with an appreciation of the staging of an event like WAF, where, within tight timeframes, the shortlisted finalists present in live jury sessions.

Scott: “A lot of the quickfire questions from the judges were about delving into the why of a project, including the environmental and also social benefits”.

This accorded well with the time spent by LandLAB and its partners on their approach to the design process. “Our discovery phase was like a reverse brief to draw out the why of the project and its aspirations. This was a process between everyone really - the design team, the client, mana whenua and the public. This solidified the approach of a regenerative landscape”.

Scott noted that many of the projects that resonated at WAF were landscape-led, commenting that “it definitely seems that landscape is driving the genesis of a lot of the work being done”.

“One of my takeaways from being at WAF for the first time was a reassurance that we’re doing the right things in our part of the world … that many of our projects around the motu fit in with and aren’t glazing over the bigger issues of our times … and are, in a lot of ways, more environmentally, socially and culturally responsive than some of the big, big projects in other locations”.

Scott and Henry took some time out after Miami to spend two days “walking around everywhere” in New York City, before Henry - now also heading the LandLAB office in Melbourne - flew off separately to the Barcelona Biennial to join SCAPE founder Kate Orff on the International Jury for the Rosa Barba Landscape Architecture Prize (along with IFLA President Bruno Marques, Michel Desvigne and Laura Campieri).

With 2026 clearly on the horizon Scott spoke further to LAA about the progress being made on Te Ara Tukutuku into the future.

“I’m looking forward to keeping this moving into the consenting stage next year. Enabling works are underway this summer, including remediation and in-ground works to set up the site. It really is about 10 projects in one”.

Further Background

Now acknowledged as one of the most significant architectural events on the world calendar, the first WAF was held in Barcelona in 2008, with the Future Projects category - known as WAFX - being introduced in 2017. This is the first win for LandLAB at the festival, having been shortlisted in the past for work going back to 2018/19 - including an earlier take on a Tank Park/ Wynyard Point reimagining.   

Projects from Aotearoa New Zealand that are listed in the entrants’ database under the WAF / World Buildings Directory umbrella currently number 146 - with just six countries featuring higher numbers of entries: Taiwan (149), Canada (150), USA (282), UK (305), Australia (502) and China (1,451). 

Architecture Now ran a review of WAF 2025 by Darryl Church of  DCA Architects of Transformation earlier this week here.

As summarised on Landscape Architecture Aotearoa last year, WAF 2024 added to a growing track record of achievement. For a signal of combined trans-Tasman successes see also History made at WAF 2024.

Additional LAA links:

Awards, Urban Design, #Around-the-worldStephen Olsen