Michelle Zacharias wins AILA Victoria Future Leader Award

14 Aug 2020 | News

A big congratulations to Michelle Thomas Zacharias, from the Arcadia Melbourne studio, who received the 2020 Future Leaders Award in the Student category of the AILA Victoria Awards.

This award recognises achievement in design, planning, communications and research, based upon the development of innovative, creative and practical solutions to landscape architectural challenges.

Michelle joined Arcadia Melbourne as a Landscape Architect early this year. With a strong architecture background, she brings to the table proficient knowledge of both built and unbuilt spaces and how they could be synced to foster community connections. Michelle is also the winner of the 2020 Hassell Travelling Scholarship Robin Edmund Award, receiving the award based on her project on improving the social conditions of people living in red light districts in New Delhi, India.

“I was so excited to hear that I’d won the AILA Award as it’s especially rewarding to be recognised by industry peers. I’m looking forward to continuing to build experience working in landscape architecture and urban design, and I’m really fortunate to be working with a great team of well-respected landscape architects at Arcadia Melbourne, who all share a passion for designing meaningful public spaces that focus on enhancing people’s experiences,” says Michelle.

Arcadia Melbourne commenced operations in February 2020 and has built a strong team who offer proven experience across a diverse portfolio of urban design and landscape architectural projects.

“Congratulations to Michelle – she is an exceptional part of the Arcadia Melbourne team and these recent award wins reflect the dedication, creativity and professionalism that she brings to the studio. It was really positive for the team to be able to celebrate Michelle’s AILA Award win – even if we had to do it remotely,” says Nelson Gomes, Principal of Arcadia Melbourne.

No one could have predicted these early months for our Victorian studio, but our team, which also includes Associate Duyen Nguyen, has achieved some really impressive results, given that they’ve been working apart from each other for almost the entire existence of the business. This speaks so highly of their abilities and industry reputation. From the outset, everyone has shown a willingness to embrace the situation and the positive outcome is certainly a stronger collaborative working relationship both within our team, with our clients and between the Arcadia studios in Sydney and Brisbane.”

More about Michelle’s award-winning project is in this profile piece by RMIT and you can find out more about the Melbourne team here.