Innehållsförteckning för Issue 163 August 2019 från Landscape Architecture Australia

The renewal of the high street of Barcaldine, in rural Queensland, has won the top award at the 2019 Minister’s Award for Urban Design. Fifteen nominations were received for the third iteration of the program, which recognizes contemporary Queensland urban design projects of the highest quality, with one project winning an award and two others receiving commendations. Main Street Barcaldine by M3 Architecture and Brian Hooper Architect (architects in association) with Barcaldine Regional Council was named the sole award winner. The long-term redevelopment involved two major architectural projects – the Tree of Knowledge Memorial and The Globe Hotel. “The Main Street of Barcaldine is an exemplar project,” said the jury in its citation. “This targeted investment in high-quality urban design values the distinctive qualities of place and has delivered an…

Victoria Square, Kerang Kerang, Victoria Hansen Partnership The pace changed a hundred years ago along the main streets of Australian country towns as automobiles proliferated, demanding and obtaining better roads. The roads became sealed, increasing the automobiles speeds and making claims for their own space, for the sole purpose of parking convenience. Each parking spot on the ground was delineated by white paint outside the shop or business one had driven to visit. The adjoining sidewalk became a stepping stone between car door and shop door, rather than a promenade. While today automobiles remain vitally important to rural life, the digital age has bypassed the main street with only a couple of exceptions: cafes thriving on the nation’s coffee addiction and post offices surviving on Ebay’s back amid dwindling piles…

Interview Landscape Architecture Australia: Your Landscapes of Cohabitation project considers the integration of a residential estate into a highly sensitive environment. How did that project begin? Thomas Doxiadis: It began with me coming back [to Greece] from [studying landscape architecture in the States] with a head full of ideas, but not a lot of practical experience, and being faced with a problem. A friend, a developer, had decided to buy property on a completely pristine part of the island of Antiparos. My first reaction when visiting the site was that the development was going to destroy this amazing place. The landscape of Antiparos is not natural, it’s a synthesis of nature and culture and has been cultivated and influenced by humans for a long time. We were about to go…

Europeans have wrought enormous changes to grasslands associated with eucalypt woodlands (“grassy woodlands”) since the nineteenth century. Virtually all of the species that we consider native to Australia have been managed for tens of thousands of years by means of Aboriginal burning and hunting practices. From the mid-twentieth century these same grasslands have been subject to industrial farming and have undergone dramatic changes, which, while striking to a botanist, are often invisible to the untrained eye. The setting for these photos is south-eastern Australia – the modestly watered tablelands and slopes, which sit between the Great Dividing Range and the country’s semi-arid interior. Here, temperate grassy woodlands once reigned, typified by well spaced eucalypts, with a ground layer of perennial grasses dominated by kangaroo grass and Poa tussocks and many…

Scarborough Foreshore Redevelopment Scarborough, Western Australia TCL (Taylor Cullity Lethlean) and UDLA “…the beaches ran north and south, white and broad as highways in a dream, and men and babies stood in the surf while gulls hung in the haze above, casting shadows on the immodest backs of the oilslicked women.” – Tim Winton As in much of coastal Australia, beach culture is ingrained in the psyche of Perth. Those born in the city seem to inherit their beach preferences, while imported residents test the varied sand strips via proximity and activity – the linear development of Perth has put the beach within cooee of everyone, just head west. Whether it’s for swimming, surfing or snorkelling, the beach remains a highly egalitarian place, with beachgoers quite literally stripped bare of…

Clifftop Garden Vaucluse, New South Wales Jane Irwin Landscape Architecture Suburbs in Sydney come burdened with associations. Vaucluse, in Sydney’s east, is no exception. Poised at the entrance to Sydney Harbour, and edged on two sides by clifftops boasting jaw-dropping views of either the Tasman Sea or the harbour, Vaucluse is a place perhaps more renowned for its trophy homes than for sensitive, introspective spaces such as gardens. Visiting a garden designed by Jane Irwin Landscape Architecture (JILA) and perched on these very eastern clifftops, however, I’m refreshed by what I find. Prior to JILA’s engagement by the current owner, both the shape of the house and the physical dimensions of the garden had been predetermined, with the house designed by the late Australian architect Paul Pholeros. The garden’s design…

Rosalea Monacella spoke with Chris Reed from Stoss Landscape Urbanism (Boston), Lisa Switkin and Richard Kennedy from James Corner Field Operations (New York), Bryna Lipper of 100 Resilient Cities (New York) and Sacha Coles of Aspect Studios (Sydney). See Landscape Architecture Australia issue 162 for part one of the interview. Rosalea Monacella: Who or which organization do you think is in the best position to catalyse change? Sacha Coles (Aspect Studios, Sydney): Previously, responsibility lay with the government to make policies that encourage and enable the private sector to implement resilient designs in a cost-effective way. However, this has not happened fast enough. Although rare, there are recent examples of committed private sector organizations driving change, for their own reasons: for branding, market definition or whatever else. Landscape architects working…

Janet Laurence: After Nature, a survey of the work of an artist noted for her three-decade-long exploration of ecological issues, is both timely and of a time. Occupying two galleries within the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, many of the assembled works – and much of Laurence’s wider oeuvre – draw attention to the threatened state of many of the world’s plant and animal species in an era of accelerated anthropogenic change. The exhibition reflects the politically driven nature of much of Laurence’s work that resonates with recent mounting evidence highlighting widespread and accelerating biodiversity loss. Filling one of the spaces, Theatre of Trees (2018–19) – a new work by Laurence – is the most immersive on display, and offers visitors an alternative perspective, as a step toward reimagining the…

At GLAS we like to experiment with gardening, but our inner-Melbourne office has limited space. Fitting out a footpath planter as a veggie box was fun, but a lack of water made it a graveyard, even for succulents. Concerned about urban biodiversity, we decided to transform it into a wetland. We refitted the box with a pond liner and created a series of soil terraces to experiment with different marginal species. A friendly client loaned us some plants. Our first problems were brown water and a mosquito infestation, so we installed a water fountain and four goldfish. Now we have a tiny, thriving urban wetland with seven species of plants engaged in a constant battle for supremacy. Our current favourite is the water plantain (Alisma plantago-aquatica), which, almost every week…

AILA FESTIVAL 2019 LAUNCHES The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) has launched the website for its 2019 International Festival of Landscape Architecture, which will take place in Melbourne from 10 to 13 October. The 2019 festival which will be themed “The Square and the Park,” is being curated by Cassandra Chilton of Rush Wright Associates, Kirsten Bauer of Aspect Studios and Jillian Wallis of the University of Melbourne. Through an extensive program of talks, panel discussions and events, the conference will investigate two landscape typologies – the square and the park – through the lens of contemporary landscape architectural concerns including design, politics, ecology and management. aila.org.au/2019festival INDIGENOUS ROOFTOP GARDEN OPENS Mirvac and cultural start-up Yerrabingin have launched Australia’s first Indigenous urban food production farm on the rooftop of…

Caulfield to Dandenong Level Crossing Removal Project Victoria Aspect Studios Attention to scale and a coordinated approach to colour have created an inviting series of spaces, well-suited to individual and collective inhabitation. Text Beau Beza Living near the Caulfield to Dandenong Level Crossing Removal Project and having seen (and heard) its construction, I was curious to experience this project’s outcome. The $1.6 billion project has involved the removal of nine level crossings, the realization of five new train stations and the creation of 22.5 hectares of public space for the community in Melbourne’s suburban south-east. At the heart of the project has been the design of a linear park stretching 8.4 kilometres from Carnegie to Hughesdale, Clayton and Noble Park, twelve kilometres of new shared-use pathways and thousands of new…

The physical and aesthetic qualities of concrete make it a highly flexible construction material, ideally suited to Australia’s harsh climate. When combined with robust and imaginative design and construction practices, concrete can be used to sculpt visually pleasing and exceptionally durable landscapes in both urban and coastal environments. Concrete is available in a wide range of colours and treatments and is suitable for a vast array of uses, ranging from bespoke interior artworks to expansive public infrastructure. The strength and malleability of concrete render it a popular choice among designers in search of a material with a reputation for durability, efficiency and architectural flexibility. Port Coogee Hassell designed the public domain for the Port Coogee marina and residential estate, an extensive coastal renewal project in a coastal and parkland setting,…

Sai Sandstone is the producer of some of the finest and most spectacular natural sandstone and bluestone. Prized for their unique colour, texture, durability, and versatility, Sai Sandstone products are ideally suited for use in the construction of Australian homes and stone buildings. The visual sensuousness of Sai Sandstone’s bluestone makes it suitable for both interior and exterior design. Sai Sandstone pavers and coping stones are robust options for swimming pool and spa landscapes due to their anti-slip characteristics, diversity of hues that complement the tones of the water, and salt-tolerant nature. Sai Sandstone is a member of SPASA (Swimming Pool and Spa Association of Victoria) – an assurance of quality products and services. Sai Sandstone pavers also present excellent choices for gardens and driveways. Highly durable, elegantly fitted and…

“What is your intention for being here?” N’arweet Carolyn Briggs, Boon Wurrung senior elder and chairperson and founder of the Boon Wurrung Foundation asked as she welcomed us to Country on that cool, autumnal Melbourne day. She called on us, the audience, to step away from “unreliable sources and books,” and learn from our environment by engaging with it through our senses. She reminded us that we, as designers of place, are “shaping culture, engaging and informing [it] and celebrating and protecting [it].” But, she continued, “I don’t see me in the city” – a phrase that has stayed with me ever since. While having heard the sentiment shared before, this was about context, about listening in a room full of hundreds of people who through their various engagements with…