The New Zealand Institute of Surveyors (NZIS) Awards of Excellence were presented at the NZIS annual conference dinner held at Te Papa in Wellington last week. The awards are open to all Institute members with the aim of encouraging and identifying excellent performance by the surveying profession.
The Award judges, led by Dr WA Roberston and Jayne Perrin, were delighted and impressed with the quality of this year’s entries from a diversity of projects. The projects reflect the wide range of complex skills that surveyors need; including urban design, spatial sciences, resource consent planning, engineering design, project management, and communication, amongst others.
The Gold, Silver and Merit award winning entries cover a state highway roading connection project, National Land Development Standards, a new surf lifesaving clubhouse and a residential 128 lot subdivision. Other entries detailed rural, coastal, business park, and residential subdivisions.
This year’s Gold winning entry was a joint effort by Brett Gawn of CPG Wellington and Greg McBride of Harrison and Grierson. It was a project to deliver a review of the NZ Land Development and Subdivision Infrastructure Standard. The resulting work will assist in the delivery of high quality land development results for years to come.
The judging panel found this entry worthy of the Gold award after considering the “professional and technical challenges, complexity, innovation, environmental considerations and client satisfaction” factors of the project. The resulting Standard, NZS4404:2010 contains a complete rewrite of the road, and landscape and reserve sections and an update of the stormwater management, impact of climate change and sea level rise and utilities sections.
The Silver award was presented to Mike Pinkerton and Geoff Munns of Aurecon for delivery of a massive, complex state highway connection tunnel and road interchange project in Waterview, Auckland. The judges particularly noted “the challenging schedules and high standard of deliverables” and the “innovative approach using Google earth, internet delivery of results, laser scanning and software adaptation”. Client satisfaction was also a high rating factor with amongst other things an adherence to timeframes and the project coming in below budget to the client’s benefit.
Two Merit awards were presented to entries by Paul Newton, Newton Survey in Nelson and Paul Turner from Landlink Ltd, Waikanae. Respectively, these two awards were for a challenging 128 lot subdivision project in Nelson covering all aspects of topographical, engineering and cadastral set out and a complex resource management consent involving a high profile site in a challenging coastal environment.
An important part of supporting the career progression of young surveyors is the Bogle Young Surveyor of the Year Award. This year Andrew Perry of Tauranga and Todd Airey of Christchurch are the recipients. This award acknowledges members 35 years or under who have made a significant contribution to the surveying profession.
Details of the award entries are available on the NZIS webpage http://www.surveyors.org.nz/node/89835
