Vivian+Espie welcomed Stephen Quin back to their Queenstown office more than 10 years after first working there.  Stephen completed his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree from Unitec in 2006 and set out to start his landscape architecture career in Queenstown with Vivian+Espie.

Following his wife back to Auckland so that she could complete her studies, he worked for Auckland City Council and then Auckland Council as a landscape architect in parks and open spaces policy and design teams. Whilst there he undertook large scale spatial planning, greenways planning, development planning for parks, and was involved with many high profile open space projects.

When an opportunity presented to come back to Queenstown, Stephen joined the Queenstown Lakes District Council, which led to him securing a role as the Parks Planning Manager. In this role he was responsible for building the capacity of the parks planning team and resources, and implementing strategic open space objectives. After three years in this role, Stephen missed the creative opportunities practising in landscape architecture and has recently rejoined the Vivian+Espie team.

Stephen is passionate about ensuring landscapes meet the social and environmental needs of current and future generations, and is enjoying again working with Ben Espie and the rest of the team. He believes that reaching good outcomes takes a team effort and he enjoys the collaborative approach. Most of the work he is currently involved with is landscape assessment and planning work in the Queenstown Lakes district including work related to the review of the Queenstown Lakes District Plan. He is also undertaking work in the Waitaki, Mackenzie and Central Otago districts.