REALMstudios Celebrates With Three National Awards at the 2025 AILA Awards

REALMstudios is proud to celebrate an incredible result at the 2025 AILA National Landscape Architecture Awards, receiving three Awards of Excellence across diverse project categories — recognising our studio’s commitment to design that regenerates, connects, and gives back to Country.

Our Wagonga Inlet Living Shoreline project received two Awards of Excellence, in both the Climate Positive Design and Land Management categories. Located on Yuin Country in Narooma, NSW, the project reimagines the foreshore of Wagonga Inlet as a living, breathing coastal edge — transforming a failing seawall into a resilient ecosystem that protects, restores, and connects.

Designed in collaboration with Eurobodalla Shire Council, the initiative integrates nature-based coastal protection, saltmarsh rehabilitation, and oyster reef restoration to build ecological resilience and strengthen community connection to Country.

“The Wagonga Inlet Living Shoreline is an outstanding example of coastal protection in harmony with nature, culture and community. The design is to be commended for leading the replacement of a failing seawall with innovative nature-based solutions that restored over 3,000 square metres of saltmarsh, brought back rare oyster reefs, and created vital habitats for marine and birdlife... It sets a benchmark for regenerative shoreline design and demonstrates how leadership and genuine collaboration can transform a degraded site into a thriving, climate-resilient landscape.” — 2025 AILA National Awards Jury

We’re incredibly proud to have contributed to this innovative, adaptive coastal landscape — one that demonstrates the power of collaboration and ecological design to shape climate-positive futures. Congratulations to Eurobodalla Shire Council, NSW DPI Fisheries, and all project collaborators whose commitment and expertise helped achieve such meaningful outcomes for Country, community and coast.

Our work at Moondani Balluk at Victoria University’s Footscray Campus was also honoured with the National Award of Excellence for Health and Education Landscape.

Located on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country, the project transforms an urbanised campus into a culturally safe, regenerative landscape that reconnects people to Country. Designed in close collaboration with First Nations clients, the courtyard integrates perched wetland planters fed by captured roof water, endemic plantings, and spatial strategies that support learning, gathering, and cultural connection.

“Moondani Balluk is an exceptional project that exemplifies a respectful process of collaborative dialogue with First Nations clients in developing the design. The success of the project is evidenced by the client’s feedback that visiting Elders feel ‘warm and connected and belonging in here.’... The team’s commitment to regenerating Country, in a space that might otherwise appear too urbanised to be restored, is highly commended.” — 2025 AILA National Awards Jury

Congratulations to Victoria University, Paola Balla (Artistic Merit / Art Coordinator), E2DesignLab (Hydrology), Grounded Studios (Architecture), Falcetti (Structural Engineering), Conner Pincas (Electrical and Hydraulic), and Paul Thompson (Planting) — whose guidance and commitment brought this project to life.