Two Student Winners in the GLDA Student & Graduate Design Competition 2022
Tuesday, 1 March, 2022
Good news is coming once again from the GLDA Student & Graduate Design Competition.
2022 GLDA Award winner Joseph Eustace
2022 GLDA Award winner Cillian O'Croinin
Two LARC students, 2nd year student Joseph Eustace and 4th year student Cillian O'Croinin, have been awarded joint winners in the categories "Best Category One (Student) Concept Master Plan Design" and "Best Innovative Concept Detail Design" in the 2022 Awards
This year’s design brief was asking "to spark debate and explore how landscape architecture and garden design can improve our cemeteries to create spaces that provide comfort and consolation to the bereaved.
The site was located in the North-East corner of Deansgrange Cemetery, Blackrock Co. Dublin.
BRIEF
Entrants were asked to design Design a ‘Garden of Reflection’ to include:
- Seating for 30 people
- Shelter from the win
- Sense of privacy (whilst maintaining passive surveillance)
- Planting plan
The consideration of following social, environmental and technical aspects should be reflected in the design:
- The role that landscape design has in consoling and comforting the bereaved.
- The utmost respect for the people resting there and visiting.
- Children who are visiting loved ones.
- Universal access: (wheelchairs, buggies and walking aid users).
- The environment and how to create a space that is beneficial to both people and wildlife including planting for pollinators.
- Surrounding landscape and borrowed views.
- Water collection and reduce surface runoff within this predominantly hard surface area.
- (Minimal) maintenance
CONTEXT / SITE
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (DLRCC) recently created a rear entrance to the cemetery and it is now possible to walk through from the residential areas to the amenities and shops in the village.
This has created more activity within the space and walkers and commuters can now utilise the space.
The cemetery has gates on all boundaries that are locked at night and a café at the main entrance which is well used. While the south side of the cemetery is more established with graves dating back to 1865 with mature trees and planting, the northern section (the area this competition focuses on) is younger and is mainly hard landscaping with sparse patches of planting. It is desolate, windswept and cold. It is not a place of comfort or compassion. There is no visual unity to the space, with individual graves containing artificial plants, gravel and weed suppressant material. It is also disorientating, with many sections looking the same. It is hard to navigate oneself within the space.
In previous years, weeds were kept under control with the aggressive use of herbicides. DLRCC have subsequently banned pesticide and herbicide usage within the cemetery, but this has caused some concerns by visitors that the cemetery is looking untidy.
CATEGORIES
Applications were open to two categories:
Any STUDENT on the Island of Ireland currently studying an (accredited) garden design, landscape architecture, horticulture related course or landscape skills training course.
Any GRADUATE from the above approved courses who qualified in 2020 – 2021.
The prize awards were:
Best Category One (Student) Concept Master Plan Design – iPad & trophy. Winners 2022: Joseph Eustace, UCD Landscape Architecture, 2nd year & Cillian O'Croinin, UCD Landscape Architecture, 4th year
Best Category Two (Graduate) Concept Master Plan Design – iPad & trophy
Best Innovative Concept Detail Award 2020 – trophy. Winners 2022: Joseph Eustace, UCD Landscape Architecture, 2nd year & Cillian O'Croinin, UCD Landscape Architecture, 4th year
Best Planting Design 2022 – trophy