Landscape Architecture Graduate Honoured at Landscape Institute Awards 2022

The Landscape Institute Awards celebrate work across the professional and academic spectrum in the field of landscape architecture. In particular, it focuses on outstanding projects that combat climate change, support health and wellbeing, promote biodiversity and “level up” local spaces at a global scale. The Landscape Institute is the chartered body for the landscape profession, as well as a registered charity, and is the professional home for all landscape practitioners including landscape architects, landscape and parks managers, landscape planners and urban designers. 

The two student categories (Student Dissertation and Student Portfolio) are open to undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses accredited by the Landscape Institute.

Alexandra was presented with her award by landscape architect and Landscape Institute Fellow Nick Harrison at a ceremony in London. She is the first Bartlett Landscape Architecture student to receive a Landscape Institute Award since the programme’s founding in 2018.

Alexandra’s final project studied Mount Ymittos on the outskirts of Athens, whose wildfires pose a threat to the communities in its vicinity. The proposal creates a protective and nurturing ebb and flow between the human world and the Mount, inviting residents to engage in stewardship of the land's firebreak, resulting in a metropolitan landscape that hosts social practices and promotes the ideals of pyrodiversity. Describing the relationship between her project and her dissertation, Alexandra explained, “The dissertation sums up the research and theories that lie behind the design, presented under the methodology of a 'topographic practice'.” Her dissertation, 'Flourishing through the Ashes; Mount Ymittos as a Landscape Ruin', invites the reader to join in a walking exploration of the Mount, beginning at the edge of the city and crossing into the terrain of Ymittos, before discovering the traces of past wildfires and the landscape of the mountain, including ruins, forests and monumental gardens. Along with the written text, Alexandra provided QR codes and physical artefacts to enable the reader to experience interactive media. Through images, maps, video and smells of aromatic vegetation, the reader can experience the mountainous landscape for themselves.

Commenting on the award, Alexandra said,

“To my point of view it is more important that the new Landscape Architecture MLA programme at The Bartlett now has a Landscape Institute Award, than a personal success. I am just glad to bring it over!"

Alexandra studied Landscape Architecture MLA in Design Studio 9, and her thesis was supervised by Tom Keeley, while her design tutors were Tim Waterman and Emma Colthrust. She is now a landscape architect at London-based practice Alexandra Steed URBAN.

More information

Read more about The Landscape Institute Awards 2022
Explore Alexandra Souvatzi’s project at The Bartlett Autumn Show Archive
Find out more about Landscape Architecture MA/MLA

Lead image: Paul Upward Photography
Project images: Alexandra Souvatzi