Youth competition 2018

2018 IFLA Europe Youth Competition

Jury Statement

The competition theme this year was ‘Valuing Landscape – connecting people, place and nature’ and the Jury was impressed by the inspiring, well-researched and creative submissions proposed by students and young professionals from projects based all over Europe.

The common core of the projects examined the intersection between man and nature in a space. However the theme allowed some interpretation and each of the projects sought
different personal meaning for each individual, which was shown through the breadth of subject themes and solutions.

Projects spanned subjects rooted in nature, both actively and passively, such as water restoration, biodiversity, seed propagation, hanging gardens and algae culture. Others focused more on our needs and values as people in both urban and natural environments; using sensitive design for the visually impaired or mental health, flood strategies directly linked to climate change, guerrilla gardening, recycling rainwater and permaculture.

There were as many urban proposals as large green spaces, which shows how the value of our landscapes and its connectivity to us is constantly evolving with our change in
lifestyle. Furthermore despite the varied entries there was a strong theme in many of natural environments combined with man-made processes to activate, remediate and heal a space – both the environment itself or to benefit mental health. Even though our values of landscape can change, our lifestyles are more connected with nature and place than ever.

2018 Winners:

Category A: Conceptual projects/ideas
Project Revealing the Water by Caroline Wiles

Category B: Realised Projects
Project Hanging Garden by Céline Baumann

People’s choice Award
Project Silnica river restoration by Magdalena Wojnowska, Heciak Jakub and Mateusz Omanski