Wintec’s design students to show their skills at Home and Garden Show

Wintec will be represented at the Waikato Home and Garden Show later this week when students take part in the interior design and landscape design competitions.

Five landscape design students are hoping to continue Wintec’s successful run in the New Zealand Landscape Design Awards – last year Wintec students took out both the gold and bronze medals at the same event.

The competition, which is a regular part of the annual event, requires landscape designers to create a 10 x 6 metre garden space designed to a specific theme, with this year’s brief being ‘Café Garden Bar’.

Wintec landscape design tutor, Jan Latham said the students will be working together to create the garden bar based on a combination of their individual ideas.

She said they will also have the opportunity to see their concept in a real-world situation later on as they have teamed up with Vilagrad Winery to bring it to life.

“Each student spent a week researching and coming up with concept ideas for a garden bar at Vilagrad Winery. As a team we then worked on putting these ideas together and presented the final concept to the Vilagrad team.”

They loved the idea and after the Home and Garden Show the bar will be recreated at the winery in Ngahinapouri.

The public can also make the most of the students’ skills at the show as they will be offering on site design solutions. Simply bring in a photo of your back yard and they will provide assistance with design ideas.

Jan said the landscape diploma was largely project based with many real-world learning opportunities for students, this being one of them.

“Through the show experience they’ll gain great connections with other industry partners, and get to make worthwhile future work and client connections.

“It is also a great experience for the students to work with a 'real' client for this project and create something that has a future.”

The students will be up against three other entries by designers from Rotorua, Taranaki and the West Coast and they will be judged on design, construction, planting scheme, and finishing touches.

Meanwhile four Wintec interior design students have teamed up with Wintec tutors to create a space that symbolises the beautiful landscape of New Zealand as part of the New Zealand Interior Design Awards.

Under the theme “My Dream Space”, all entrants to the competition will be allocated one of five rooms measuring 4x5 metres and asked to prepare a brief to accompany the judging.

The students will be creating an installation that depicts a contemporary outdoor bathroom set up in amongst a traditional ‘kiwi’ backyard, a space that many New Zealanders are familiar with.

The combination of new and recycled materials will give the public the opportunity to see how they could transform their very own outdoor space using re-purposed materials.

They will be up against other designers from Hamilton, Cambridge, Franklin and Mount Maunganui.

Head along and support our students at the Claudeland’s Event Centre from Thursday 6 to Sunday 9 October. You also vote for your favourite design in each competition for the People’s Choice Award to go into the draw to win some great prizes.

More information on the Waikato Home and Garden Show can be found at: www.waikatohomeshow.co.nz