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Landscape Architecture Award for Landscape Planning

AILA NSW Landscape Architecture Awards 2023

Award for Regional Achievement

AILA NSW Landscape Architecture Awards 2023

Landscape Architecture Award of Excellence for Land Management 

AILA NSW Landscape Architecture Awards 2025

Landscape Architecture Minister for Planning Award

AILA NSW Landscape Architecture Awards 2025

Landscape Architecture Award for Climate Positive Award

AILA NSW Landscape Architecture Awards 2025

wagonga inlet living foreshore

This small but seminal project addresses Council’s aspirations and the community’s vision, combining the delivery of open space, environmental performance, resilient infrastructure and community amenity.  The need to replace an obsolete seawall was an opportunity to explore instead the restoration of the estuarine edge, as both expanded ecosystem and a unique catalyser of activity, for a diverse range of constituents, human and non-human.


Instead of a new seawall, we proposed a living foreshore, expanding salt marsh and mangrove habitats and offshore oyster reefs.   Investment in hard infrastructure was obviated in favour of establishing overlays of social infrastructure, allowing for a radical co-existence between human inhabitants and existing and re-established coastal ecologies.  The network of bank habitats, saltmarsh, mangrove and oyster reefs are overlaid with walking and kayak access, boardwalks, viewing platforms and a pier and jetty reinstating access to a historic swimming hole.


At the heart of our response is a recognition of the uniqueness of place, and its  ecologies, at the threshold between land and sea.  The integration of diverse ecosystems with human systems creates a new foreshore, offering a civic place responsive to changing conditions, now and into the future.

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The Wagonga Inlet Living Foreshore sets a new benchmark in coastal resilience, combining ecological restoration, community stewardship and technical innovation. Reimagining a degraded estuarine edge as a regenerative landscape, the project pioneers Australia’s first adjacent intertidal and subtidal reefs and NSW’s first native angasi oyster reef. Through collaborative leadership, it delivers tangible ecological outcomes — improved water quality, revived habitat networks and strengthened shoreline protection — while honouring cultural values and empowering local participation. This living shoreline exemplifies how landscape architecture can lead transformative climate responses, shifting from hard infrastructure to nature-based design. Deeply embedded in Country, the project reconciles coastal pressures with environmental performance and social connection — demonstrating the profound role of landscape in shaping a resilient future. -  Award Citation

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Country

Yuin

Location

Wagonga Inlet, Narooma NSW

Client

The Nature Conservancy, The Oyster Reef Project, NSW DPIE Fisheries, Eurobodalla Shire Council

Year

2021 - Ongoing

Budget

$2.1mil

Collaborators

Royal Haskoning, Short Pants Consulting, Nicole Larkin

© 2025

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