SLIC aims to encourage students to become more involved in a nationwide student community, sharing knowledge and opinions between students and promoting landscape architecture amongst the wider community of schools, colleges and the public.
We help link students to courses and offer a bridge between students and the Landscape Institute and practices, h05elping with year out placements, job offers and general information.
Since SLIC began in 2002 we have aimed to achieve our goals by organising a range of events and competitions.
In 2003 we ran a competition to design the Landscape Institute Calendar.
In 2004 we organised a Landscape Summer School which saw a variety of practices getting involved in running workshops and seminars over a weekend that coincided with the Landscape Institute’s 75th anniversary.
In 2005 we ran a Landscape Festival, Paint the Town Red, alongside the IFLA conference in Edinburgh; students ran a cross city challenge involving the public and delegates of the conference in design interventions across Edinburgh, work produced then became part of an exhibition of student work shown at the Botanical Gardens.
Our website has been revamped and we currently have over 100 student subscribers allowing us to talk directly to students, passing on info on student competitions, events coming up and swapping information.
We have formed alliances and partnerships with a number of organisations allowing us to maintain a presence in the wider community, exhibiting student work at a range of exhibitions and events like Cityscape in 2005 and Regenex in 2006.
This year the emphasis has been on making available a series of smaller events to foster a sense of community between students; there have been trips to arboretums, urban design lectures and tree top walking in Sherwood Forest. We have a lecture from EDAW on the Lea Valley Regeneration happening in May and a trip to Cornwall planned for June, we break for the summer and then come back to another talk and tour on Green Roofs in London due to take place in September.
We are currently in talks with the organisers of Cityscape 2007, which, as well as hosting another Student Exhibition will give an opportunity for SLIC to steer a working group to design a full sized ‘Streetscape’ for the event and we are planning a joint event to comprise workshops, seminars and exhibitions with ELASA for Summer 2007.
SLIC is run and represented by a series of hard working individuals who give up valuable free time to make sure Landscape Architecture Students feel they have a source of support, a link to other organisations and a way to provide connections between universities. With the unerring support of the LI, SLIC have achieved an incredible amount so far and have a great future ahead; continuing support from heads of schools, practices and past students are all vital to making sure SLIC can achieve their best.
Laura Bradley
SLIC Chair 2005-2006