Topos Landscape Award 2014 goes to LOLA

This year’s Topos Landscape Award will be presented at the Rolex Education Centre of EPFL university in Lausanne on October 8th. The ceremony will be held as a special event of a conference on “The Narrative of Landscape”, organized by Archizoom. The symposium will focus on the significance of the ground for landscape; approaches to, and observations on, this subject will be interdisciplinary in character. Among the invited speakers will be Richard Sennett, Saskia Sassen, Adriaan Geuze, and David R. Montgomery. For a detailed conference programme and to register, please visit http://archizoom-nls.epfl.ch

The Topos Landscape Award 2014 will be presented to landscape architects LOLA (Lost Landscapes) from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. LOLA researches and designs the never ending development of the landscape, city as well as countryside. Founded by Peter Veenstra, Eric-Jan Pleijster en Cees van der Veeken in 2006, LOLA designs and researches public space at different scales. A total of 15 people work at the office.
The three partners share their ideas and views on landscape with great enthusiasm as lecturers and teachers at various international academies and universities. Characteristic for LOLA’s work is the fusion of urban and natural landscape and the integration of innovative spatial phenomena. From our backyards to regional extend, they design ‘green’ urbanity, maximize the accessibility of the landscape and enrich of our daily environment. LOLA’s goal is to recognize new design challenges at an early stage and to propose creative solutions. Every project is approached as an unique part of an endless landscape (www.lolaweb.nl).

Since 2002, the Topos Landscape Award has been conferred annually by the editorial team of the journal Topos. The award is to honour a landscape architecture practice that has made significant contributions to high-quality and up-to-date designs of cities and landscapes, has enriched the landscape architecture scene through its innovative ideas, and whose work has come to be representative of the best of contemporary landscape architecture. The Topos Landscape Award aims to highlight that the landscape architectural challenges of our time are characterized by a lively dynamic and display a wide range of facets.
Past awards have gone to Stig L. Anderssons Tegnestue (Copenhagen), Karres en Brands (Hilversum), Gross.Max. (Edinburgh), McGregor and Coxall (Sydney), Stoss LU (Boston), Antje Stokman (Hamburg), and Taktyk (Brussels/Paris).
The 2013 award, in a deviation from the criteria, was not given to a young practice but to a successful landscape architect of international standing: Peter Latz from Kranzberg near Freising in Bavaria, Germany.
The conference as well as the award presentation are thematically related to the work Lausanne Jardins. Their temporary landscape interventions are still open to the public until October 14th.

Kindly supported by Lorberg Nurseries