Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 154 May 2017 i Landscape Architecture Australia

I look from the fifth-floor office window and wonder at the human thinking that produces a landscape of mown grass, mass-planted Lomandra spp. and a scattering of identical street trees interspersed with roads, concrete and buildings. What is supposed to live there? I drive through the suburban streets planted with endless Pyrus spp. in all shapes and sizes. When did we decide that landscapes needed to be tidied, with grass mown and nature dominated? And why? In the bustle and rush of getting landscape projects designed, it might seem expedient to stick to a limited palette of known plant performers. The result is often a bit boring, but mass plantings of reliable plants give the best chance of a predictable outcome with minimum effort. Some clients even demand this approach…

Research used to create the Olympic Park meadow in London is now informing research here in Australia. The Woody Meadow Project is pioneered by Dr Audrey Gerber and Professor James Hitchmough at the University of Sheffield in England and is now a joint research project with the University of Melbourne and the City of Melbourne. It is headed by John Rayner and Dr Claire Farrell from the university’s School of the Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, along with research assistant Leanne Hanrahan and Master of Urban Horticulture student Ahmed Ashraf. The Melbourne-based project is also being supported by the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and the Trawalla Foundation. The Woody Meadow research project has been developed in the context of other innovative City of Melbourne initiatives, such as the 2013 Wild Flower…

Courtyards at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, Victoria Rush\Wright Associates, ARM Architecture For seventy years Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance was entered by climbing up its many steep steps. But, after walking to the shrine through the broad surrounding reserve, which opens your mind to the delight of strong trees and green grass, the building can now also be entered through a slightly sunken ground level at each of four courtyards designed by ARM Architecture and Rush\Wright Associates. Above, the historic building rears up in a dramatic new juxtaposition. Of course, you can still use those steep steps if you wish. But the symmetrically set-out courtyards are fascinating. Two were opened in 2003, the other two in 2014; two are set out with fast-growing plants from different parts of the world,…

As a botanical artist working at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, I was able to collect this enormous, heavy, three-metre-long flower spike of Doryanthes palmeri (giant spear lily). It was truly the largest I had ever dealt with, bursting with a multitude of crimson red colours. I needed a friend to help me set it up in my studio; we supported it with planks from below and suspended it with ropes from above. Due to the deterioration of the fresh material and the fact I only had one specimen to work with, planning my painting process was critical. Rather than completing one segment at a time, I progressed over the page starting with buds, moving on to flowers and finishing with fruits, stems and bracts. It was so much fun!…

How can landscape architects improve their skills in planting design? The answer is to learn more about plants and to appreciate their full potential as a design material. I have a few ideas about how to help this learning process – all that is required is time and effort and a willingness to experiment. Landscape architects receive effective training in basic design in general and the theoretical underpinnings that explain the difference between good and bad outcomes, but their skills vary as designers using plants. To design with plants a designer must know about plants. Learning about plants takes time. This knowledge building is a combination of documentary research and firsthand experience. A good plant designer is an active gardener and observer of nature and natural processes. While professional horticulturists…

Prince Alfred Park, a 7.5-hectare park in inner Sydney, needs little introduction. Reinvigorated in 2013 by Sue Barnsley Design and Neeson Murcutt Architects for the City of Sydney, the multi-award-winning project has been roundly celebrated and become a treasured open space for the city. While the park’s innovations and inclusions have been thoroughly discussed, its implications, especially in regard to planting design, have received considerably less attention. The project began in 2006 after a period of drought, when the park languished with stressed mature trees and little variety in underplanting. The figs, planted circa 1870 along Cleveland Street, struggled with psyllid attacks while newer tree plantings were damaged by insensitive maintenance.1 The planting scheme proposed for the park, most notably the green roof to the rethought pool and the native…

Charles House Garden, Kew, Victoria Bush Projects Too often in landscape architecture the animate nature of plants is forgotten. Plant “material” is treated like any other in service of a spatial and textural design intent. Using only a minimal selection, plants are used to landscape. The Charles House garden by Bush Projects was designed distinctly as a garden as opposed to a landscape. It employs plants in all their glory and is vividly alive. Rather than mass plantings, it is full of eclectic combinations of diverse species planted in mixed drifts, or collections of plants, some of which are repeated while others are one-off plantings. Plant selection is not limited by categories, such as indigenous, native, exotic – in this garden there is an attunement to the qualities of plants…

ENTER THE AUSTRALIAN URBAN DESIGN AWARDS Enter the 2017 Australian Urban Design Awards from 29 May to 28 July 2017. Founded in 1996 by then-prime minister Paul Keating’s Urban Task Force, the Australian Urban Design Awards program recognizes contemporary Australian urban design projects of the highest quality and aims to encourage cities, towns and communities across the country to strive for best practice in all projects. There are four award categories: Delivered Outcome – Large Scale; Delivered Outcome – Small Scale; Policies, Programs and Concepts – Large Scale; and Policies, Programs and Concepts – Small Scale. Image: Bowen Place Crossing by Lahznimmo Architects and Spackman Mossop Michaels, winner of a 2016 Delivered Outcome – Small Scale award. Photo: Brett Boardman URBANDESIGNAWARDS.COM.AU BALLARAT’S GARDEN OF THE GRIEVING MOTHER OPENS Placemark and…

The use of timber in indoor and outdoor architectural projects is growing in popularity. Porta has introduced a premium and durable hardwood timber to Australia that is versatile, hardwearing and beautiful. Cumaru hardwood is an aesthetically appealing timber with an interlocking grain and red or gold flecks. It is well-suited to the Australian climate, its high durability able to withstand salt, wind, termites and borers. Porta’s Cumaru timber is FSC® certified, making it ideal for use in a range of architecture and landscaping projects across structural, decorative and civil construction. Cumaru is ideal for (but not limited to) applications including decking, screening, fencing, boardwalks, marinas, landscaping, flooring, stairs, cladding and handrails. Cumaru was recently used for a replacement deck in a “Building with Bowens” project in Melbourne’s inner suburb of…

Planting Dreams: Shaping Australian Gardens exhibition, 3 September 2016 – 15 January 2017, State Library of New South Wales, curated by Richard Aitken. If Mark Twain saw fit to comment that Australian history was always picturesque and the “chiefest” novelty the country had to offer, then Richard Aitken’s exhibition Planting Dreams: Shaping Australian Gardens at the State Library of New South Wales shows that, over the last five hundred years (and across a number of different countries), there have been many botanical dreamers who sought to map and explain Twain’s “incongruities, and contradictions.” There is a curatorial elegance about this exhibition as, guided by various themes, we move seamlessly through half a millennium, stopping to explore a 1592 study of the natural history of Brazil, a 1599 map of Africa,…