LAP 2021 awarded

The 2021 winners of the LandscapeArchitecturePrize for Students (LAP) have been announced. The ÖGLA awarded this year’s winners at the beginning of April. The motto of the LAP 2021 was “immoderate“. After times of austerity during the pandemic, restraint was allowed to fall. The designs had to break all norms!

The LAP is an ideas competition aimed at students and young graduates of landscape architecture and planning. This year, the Austrian Society for Landscape Architecture (ÖGLA) called on these young people to be boundless. After the recent times of hardship, the aim was to think beyond the minimum and most necessary. Accordingly, the ideas competition invited them to think freely and freshly about ideas and perspectives for open spaces in the city. The winners of the LAP2021 have now been announced.

The ÖGLA awards the LAP every two years. This prize, designed as an ideas competition, is aimed at students and young practitioners in landscape architecture and landscape planning. This competition regularly gives them the opportunity to work creatively, present their ideas publiclyand compete with their peers. For the LAP 2021, the participants were asked to think about open spaces without limits or restrictions. The up-and-coming colleagues were asked to leave all demand figures, norms, limits and economicconstraints behind them. They were allowed to dream up and design large, lush open spaces. Because the motto of LAP 2021 is: Think bigger! Reach for the stars! Let’s show that freedom is not only a valuable asset in emergency situations!

Impressions of the award ceremony (Photo: Johannes Hloch)

The jury for the prize met in Vienna in November 2021. On April 7, 2022, the winners were awarded their prizes. The jury unanimously selected Michael Tulio Bühler from the University of Applied Sciences Eastern Switzerland as the winner of the third prize. His entry is entitled “Canton Rösti”. Second prize in 2021 went to the team of Djordje Ilic and Moritz Blümel from BOKU Vienna, who impressed the jury with their entry “Tanja needs your help!”. The first prize of the LAP 2021 went to the work “NO NAME (Tangentiale Est)“, submitted by David Biegl from BOKU Vienna.

NO NAME (Tangential Est)

In the work NO NAME (Tangentiale Est) by David Biegl, the jury was particularly impressed by how the old excessiveness of a functional building is overwritten by the reinterpreted excessiveness of green infrastructure. In David Biegl ‘s work, an old city highway is planted, connecting the city’s large green spaces for cyclists and pedestrians. This gives it a sculptural character and at the same time elevates it to monumental status by painting it gold.

In this design for the LAP 2021, a new excessiveness becomes the norm. The jury found the handling of the existing building, the consistent approach and the excitingcultural and spatial context of the entry very appealing. In addition, David Biegl graphically created a space of longing that does not claim to improve the world from below. According to the LAP 2021 jury, the author knew how to recognize and understand a problem and to cast it into a monument through reinterpretation. Accordingly, the jury unanimously decided to award David Biegl first prize.

The second prize in 2021 was awarded to the contribution of Djordje Ilic and Moritz Blümel from BOKU Vienna. The jury initially debated the eligibility of the work, which was accessible via a videolinkedto a QR code. But in the end, the judges decided that this method and planning approach did not contradict the competition brief. In the end, the storytelling and innovative approach were even praised.

On the poster submitted for the LAP 2021, Tanja reflects the call of the competition: planners should act in a self-determined, courageous and unrestrained way. Tanja calls on them to free themselves from narrow-mindedness and shackles and, together with many other allies, to act radically, courageously and without restraint. The authors illustrate their approach of thinking beyond boundaries in a video. The LAP 2021 jury honored the contribution as an initial spark that can be taken further. It also praised the progressive approach to transporting ideas, which pushes the boundaries of the competition brief and forces the organizing team torethinkthe brief for the next competition of this kind.

The third prize of the LAP 2021 goes to Switzerland. The author impressed the jury with his suggestion to think about the challenges of the 21st century in terms of a new spatial-social construct. Accordingly, a new planning dimension for landscape architects was created. To this end, the work designs a progressive super-canton that easily achieves climate targets, welcomes migrants and shows how to deal with scarce resources. All of this becomes the engine of a model region with radiance, which makes the idea of boundlessness recognizable.

The jury recognizes that the contribution of the student from the University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland is a purely internal view of Switzerland that does not highlight opportunities for the surrounding area. Accordingly, the work did not look outside the box and failed to show the impact on Europe. Although the jury also lacks the landscape planning approach of such a model region, they honor the borderless thought model. They see a special appeal in the scale and possibilities, which is why the visionary power reached the LAP 2021 jury members and they concluded the award with a third place.

You might also be interested in: the winners of the Landscape Architecture Prize Baden-Württemberg 2022.