Lifetime Achievement Awards 2019: At the ECLAS conference at NMBU Norway we honored Professor Jala Makhzoumi from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon for her achievement in introducing landscape conceptually and operationally into education and practice into the middle east context, within a difficult political conflict zone and where it was formerly unheard of. While Jala’s work as a whole during the past 40 years is impressive, the following four themes were particularly relevant for her nomination: The development of an Ecological Landscape Design Methodology as an integrative landscape approach well applicable in the Middle East; her pioneering of an innovative landscape approach to postwar recovery; her major leadership role in the establishment of the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management (LDEM) AUB; and her role in driving processes for international professional recognition, leading to the establishment of the Lebanese Landscape Association LELA (of which she is president).
The second 2019 lifetime achievement award goes to Prof. Dr. Jan Supuka from Slovakia. He graduated in Landscaping from the Technical University in Zvolen in 1967 where he later became senior researcher, founder and head of the research unit Department of Park and Landscape Design. From 1993 until 1999 he was employed at TU Zvolen as head of the Department of Landscape Design and Planning. He then founded the study programme Landscape Engineering and Landscape Design. Since 2000 until his partial retirement in 2018, he has been working at the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra as full professor of Landscape Architecture. He founded and personally guaranteed the new study programme Landscape Architecture at all three levels of study (bachelor, master, doctoral) and guaranteed the rights for the habilitation (Associate Professor) and inauguration (Full Professor) in Landscape Architecture. He further initiated wide-ranging international cooperation, both in research and education. To recognize his significant achievements and contribution to the development, establishment and recognition of landscape architecture practice in Slovakia, and to honor him on his recent 75th birthday jubilee, ECLAS is glad to issue this lifetime achievement award. The award ceremony for professor Supuka will take place in Nitra on Wednesday evening, October 16, 2019.
The third cycle award for outstanding doctoral students goes to assistant professor Fruzsina Zelenák from Szent Istvan University in Budapest, Hungary. As a doctoral student,she entered on a new research field, environmental psychology and worked out an excellent research thesis in the Doctoral School of Landscape Architecture and Landscape Ecology. Her defense presentation in 2018 proved Fruzsina’s exceptional commitment to research and professional presentation. Next to her research work, Fuzsina is already successfully active in teaching and professional practice alike. The full titled of her research is: Zelenak, F.,(2018): Landscape architecture and environmental psychology. Open space quality and place attachment in Budapest housing estates. PhD dissertation. Szent István University, Landscape Architecture and Landscape Ecology Doctoral School, Budapest.
Ignacio Gubianas from the Edinburgh College of Art, UK, holds the 2019 ECLAS outstanding master students award. The main reason for nominating Ignacio encircles his completion of a design, planning and management project that he has undertaken at the University of Edinburgh in the period from January 2019 to May 2019. The project demonstrates creativity, flair and an absolute commitment to applying contemporary theory through his design work. Ignacio decided that he wanted to work in the city of Medellin, Columbia in a project that bridged between social and environmental concerns. The site is particularly challenging due to social fragmentation, crime, natural hazard, and extreme topography. The levels of critical thinking within the project, demonstrated through an associated piece of theoretical work (combining a complex and detailed landscape manifesto, and a website) was designed to be cumulative as the project advanced so that Ignacio could ‘hold’ his investigative themes together in an original communicative form.
- Link to his theory in relation to key design moves
- Link to landscape manifesto
The ECLAS outstanding bachelor student award goes to Codruț Papina who has completed his degree in urban and landscape planning at the Ion Mincu University for Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest, Romania, where he currently pursues a master degree.