Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 179 August 2023 i Landscape Architecture Australia

Barnaby Bennett Barnaby Bennett is a senior design advisor at Government Architect NSW. Bede Brennan Bede Brennan is a senior landscape architect at Pollen Studio. He is interested in urban ecologies and designing for the non-human world. Natalia Krysiak Natalia Krysiak is an associate at Hayball and has a keen interest in designing community-oriented spaces. She is the founder of Cities for Play. Jerry de Gryse In 2019, Jerry de Gryse celebrated 40 years as a landscape architect promoting the need to link nature, culture and community in the creation of inspiring places. Lucy Salt Lucy Salt is a writer, editor and landscape architect. She lives in Melbourne with her family. Jen Lynch Jen Lynch is a lecturer in landscape architecture at RMIT University. Her research explores the commons as…

Cultural load can be defined in different ways. For me as a Wiradjuri woman, it’s the load of having to explain and educate others in Aboriginal* cultures, identities and ways of thinking and being. It can be the load of having to choose the “right” terminology to speak about Aboriginal communities that is accepted by everyone (there isn’t really one). It’s the load of trying to educate but not pretend to speak on behalf of everyone. (Here, I am speaking from my own personal, lived experience and some of my fellow design practitioners.) It’s the load that we carry, when bringing work into our communities, to make sure that we (and you) act in ways that will not put our Elders, families and friends in harm’s way. It’s the load…

This issue of Landscape Architecture Australia shifts away from the large-scale, the well-known and the grandiose aspects of our environments to focus on the smaller, often less visually spectacular elements. Big projects, large moves and expansive sites have a tendency to draw our attention, yet we know that the texture of our cities and surrounds derives largely from the smaller details. We can plan and execute hefty moves, but the way these play out is grounded in the modest gestures and little actions that accumulate to form greater outcomes over time and space. Arguably, small projects make up most of practising landscape architects’ work in Australia. In this issue, we unpack two design projects: The Roundtable, an installation by Common and Enlocus (page 50); and the evolution of a residential…

Suburbs could be viewed as ecological refugia, especially in times of extreme climatic cycles and unpredictable weather events. Cities across Australia have been trying to reverse the trend of urban sprawl by densifying. In Melbourne this is being enacted through the principle of the “20-minute neighbourhood.”1 The “middle belt” areas – those between 10 and 20 kilometres from the CBD – that are well serviced by public transport are the site of rapid and intense densification. Reservoir, the suburb where I live, is one of those development hotspots. Although the logic of increasing density in my suburb makes sense, what happens to the suburban ecology? And can small interventions make a meaningful ecological difference? First, two questions need to be posed: what organisms can be found in the suburban ecological…

“When fungi course through the soil – looking for food, growing, dividing – they hold its particles apart, making it aerobic and inhabitable for worms, snails and insects.” Alison Pouliot is an ecologist and environmental photographer based in Australia and Switzerland. She has authored numerous books, including The Allure of Fungi (2018), Underground Lovers: Encounters with Fungi (2023) and, most recently, Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms: Forays with Fungi across Hemispheres, to be released in September 2023. Here, she discusses the importance of fungi to ecosystems and the relationship between fungi and landscape restoration. Emily Wong – Where do our common misunderstandings and misconceptions about what fungi are or do come from? Alison Pouliot – It all begins with language, and fungi are not part of our vernacular … we don’t…

The agenda to improve ecological function in hostile urban sites such as railway corridors, roadside verges, roundabouts and nature strips has often been undermined by limited budgets and maintenance access, along with failures of imagination. However, given that these sites add up to more than a third of public green space in Melbourne alone, it’s a mission that holds plenty of promise.1 Established in 2015, the Woody Meadow Project set out to find a low-cost, low-maintenance and resilient approach to urban greening.2 “Woody Meadows” are multi-layered and diverse shrub plantings using Australian native species, which are coppiced every two to four years to achieve rapid canopy cover, exclude weeds and promote flowering. The original research project evaluated the performances of 22 species planted at two Melbourne pilot sites: Birrarung Marr…

Jim Sinatra – provocateur, humanist, artist, landscape architect, educator, inspiration, family man, friend and more – has left for larger landscapes. He was equally at ease whether meeting a presidential candidate, sitting on the ground with an Aboriginal Elder, walking the paddocks with a farmer or working with refugees. Exuding a delight with life, Jim had a cheeky smile and a habit of lifting his eyebrows when speaking, looking at his listeners as if he were inviting them in on a secret. In fact, Jim’s larrikin charm made him seem so much like a native-born Australian that his United States upbringing was only noticeable in his accent – it hinted at his New York roots – and stories of his early years. Jim came to Australia in 1981 with Curtis…

Landscape Architects as Change Makers, an exhibition curated by Jillian Walliss and Heike Rahmann in collaboration with Saran Kim, was a layered sensory experience of interviews, site footage, sketches, construction drawings and photographs. A comparative conversation of culture, practice and place, the display of eight Japanese and Australian projects by award-winning landscape architects, paralleled by a series of recorded conversations with practitioners, created a snapshot of landscape architectural practice in 2023. It is rare to see an exhibition showcasing landscape architecture, especially one that communicates the multi-sensual nature and dynamism of place. The proposition of landscape architects as change makers is not in itself a new idea; I would argue that by nature, all designers make change. However, through its use of audiovisual media alongside traditional representations of design, this…

As an AILA director, I recently asked a group of landscape architects in public practice about their experience with our membership organization. They offered me an analogy of whisky and landscape architecture, which I’ll get to later. But first, I want to talk about AILA’s commitment to engage landscape architects working in public practice and ensure an increasing value proposition for them within our membership. To further this commitment, I sought the advice of more than a dozen very senior landscape architects in public practice on a range of topics related to AILA and beyond. What became clear from these discussions is that many public practice landscape architects were feeling disconnected from the institute. While AILA has about 3,000 members, it seemed that public practice landscape architects outside the tent…

The Melbourne Pollinator Corridor (MPC) is a large-scale landscape project undertaken by a non-landscape architect. The eight-kilometre wildlife corridor links Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens and Westgate Park via a growing number of small, community-led street gardens. Its founder, Emma Cutting, says it is held together by the transformative effects of care. The project has established interconnections across ecology and community in South Melbourne and rewritten the rules of streetscape design in the local council area, demonstrating levels of community investment and empowerment not typically achieved through landscape architecture projects. And it all started small. The MPC was initiated in 2019 with a prototype garden. It currently comprises 20 gardens; Cutting aims to realize 200 by the end of 2024 and has distributed 40 “Corridor Kits” to support this process. The…