Practice

Little Ruin highlights the potential of spatially driven narratives to blur definitions of landscape architecture and redefine concrete futures.

Generating narratives

19 Mar 2024, Fiona Johnson

At interdisciplinary architectural visualization studio Lucernal, video game development is driving innovative approaches to both generative design and business development.

Practice
The original safe of Kudan House (now a tatami room) showcases Paddington Reservoir Gardens. Forcing people to take their shoes off to sit, listen and look up was a great conversation starter.

Landscape as Change Makers: A practitioner’s perspective

19 Mar 2024, Kirsten Bauer

The Landscape Architects as Change Makers project brought together the cultures and professional design practices of Japan and Australia through two exhibitions and a program of events. Kirsten Bauer reflects on her experiences as a practitioner, exhibitor and participant in the project.

Practice
Bush Projects designd the landscape for North Melbourne Hill Primary School, Molesworth Campus; architecture by ARM Architecture.

Women in innovation leadership

8 Mar 2024, Jela Ivankovic-Waters

Four women in built environment design leadership talk innovation, incremental change, and communication that helps bring people along for the journey.

Practice
Unreal Engine’s interactive simulation of seasonal change was used to visualize and communicate planting schemes for the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation.

Seeds of change

14 Feb 2024, Michael G White

New tools are popping up that explore the potential of planting design in the digital space. What does this mean for practice, and how do we stay grounded?

Practice
The Oman Botanic Garden, designed by Arup with Grimshaw and Haley Sharpe Design celebrates the country’s botanical diversity.

A global perspective on innovation

8 Feb 2024, Darren Hickmott

Darren Hickmott, global landscape digital leader at Arup, reflects on his career pushing innovation in the landscape architcture profession and what the industry needs to do to move forward.

Practice
A screenshot from the Digital Twin Victoria platform showing the Sunbury Railway Station BIM model.

Duplicating our worlds

8 Feb 2024, Wendy Walls

With their responsive flow of information, digital twin models have the potential to increase efficiences, improve decision-making and optimize performance – but only if used critically.

Practice
Bruce Mackenzie

Vale Bruce Mackenzie (1932–2024)

28 Jan 2024, Andrew Saniga

Andrew Saniga celebrates the legacy of Bruce Mackenzie and reflects on the profound impact Mackenzie had on the development of landscape architecture in Australia.

Practice
The paperbarks (Melaleuca quinquenervia) maturing on their imported sandfill base over the bay, Sir Joseph Banks Reserve, Botany Bay, New South Wales, 1980s.

Remembering Bruce Mackenzie

25 Jan 2024, LandscapeAustralia Editorial Desk

A collection of short reflections on landscape architect Bruce Mackenzie’s extensive influence on the Australian built environment profession contributed by members of the design community.

Practice
Chris Landau’s work on the Land Kit set of tools explores the possibility of planting that is responsive to a simulated site environment.

Reframing innovation

25 Jan 2024, Darren Hickmott, Jela Ivankovic-Waters

Guest editors of the “Reframing innovation” issue Jela Ivankovic-Waters and Darren Hickmott on innovation in the landscape architecture industry.

Practice
The cover of the February 2024 issue of Landscape Architecture Australia is Constructive_botanics_banksia/sketch_06/2023_revision (2023) by Garth Henderson.

Viewpoint: Leading a stronger and more sustainable regional future

24 Jan 2024, Ben Willsmore

A message from AILA President Ben Willsmore

Practice
"Pattern book" development made headlines when proposed recently by Housing Now, an alliance of businesses and lobby groups in New South Wales.

What is pattern book development and how can it help ease the housing crisis?

7 Jan 2024, Susan Galavan, David Kroll

Senior lecturer in architecture at the University of Adelaide, David Kroll, and architecture lecturer at the Atlantic Technological University, Susan Galavan, explore whether “pattern book” development is a viable solution for increasing housing supply.

Practice
The population of Geelong is projected to rise by approximately 40 percent between 2023 and 2041.

Regional visions: Putting together the small pieces of a large puzzle

19 Nov 2023, Cole Hendrigan, Simon Kilbane

With Australia’s “second-tier” cities undergoing rapid growth, an emphasis on small-scale projects is vital to improving quality of life and defining city-wide identity.

Practice
More than 70 gardens make up the eight-kilometre Melbourne Pollinator Corridor.

Collecting the community together: Melbourne Pollinator Corridor

8 Nov 2023, Jen Lynch

This wildlife corridor spanning an area just south of the Melbourne CBD demonstrates the role that open-ended design processes and the fostering of caring relationships with public landscapes can play in the empowerment of ecologies and communities.

Practice
To determine which characteristics help plants thrive after coppicing, the Woody Meadows team evaluated 77 different Australian shrubs and small trees in a trial at Burnley.

Fostering a meadow mentality

26 Oct 2023, Lucy Salt

Eight years on from the project’s beginnings, highly adaptable and resilient Woody Meadows are flourishing in urban green spaces with new research attracting fresh partners across Greater Melbourne.

Practice
The Advanced Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF) – Walking on Country team visit the Grandmother Tree on Dharug country. The AMRF First Building is designed by Hassell in collaboration with Djinjama as part of the Western Sydney Aerotropolis.

Understanding cultural load in design practice

11 Oct 2023, Samantha Rich

Wiradjuri designer Samantha Rich explains the concept of cultural load from a First Nations perspective and explains why it’s important designers consider it in their projects.

Practice
For Le Jardin Niel in Toulouse, France, Michele and Miquel used the spoils from the construction around the site to create a new soil, new topography and a new urban forest that recalls the site's history of being a hill, prior being levelled for use as a parade ground.

Topographical processes: Michele and Miquel

5 Oct 2023, Emily Wong

Architecture and landscape practice Michele and Miquel discuss specificity of site, their fascination with ecological processes and flows, and agricultural practices as inspiration.

Practice
Shinkfield adopted the “Bradley method,” which regenerates bushland through weeding that begins at the least weed-infested areas and progresses to those with higher levels of infestation.

Ground-up transformation: Decolonizing the garden

26 Sep 2023, Jela Ivankovic-Waters

At a residential property in Melbourne’s outer north-east, a design approach grounded in close observation, manual tending and incremental moves embraces the agency of the landscape and its transformative opportunities.

Practice
Ocean rock pools like this one in Wombarra increase community safety, health and wellbeing throughout NSW.

Small infrastructures: Enabling good habits

26 Sep 2023, Barnaby Bennett

Considered interventions in places where long networks and local interfaces overlap can greatly improve our cities. Three small projects from New South Wales illustrate how.

Practice
During heatwaves, the author’s garden functions as a refuge, offering shade and water, and maintaining a cooler temperature than the surrounding landscape.

Suburban refuge: Designing for biodiversity in our cities

13 Sep 2023, Alistair Kirkpatrick

How does increasing density affect our suburban ecologies – and what small interventions can make a meaningful difference?

Practice
Open-ended toy box infrastructure encourages intergenerational play with a range of equipment that engages people of all abilities

Playful expectations

12 Sep 2023, Natalia Krysiak

Natalia Krysiak unpacks how Australian cities are approaching designing for the well-being of younger generations.

Practice
Mycelia provide architecture in soil because their long fibres, or hyphae, collectively form a tapestry.

Network connections

30 Aug 2023, Emily Wong

Fungi play a crucial role in the healthy functioning of our ecosystems, from the underground up. Ecologist Alison Pouliot explores how fungi conservation overlaps with landscape restoration.

Practice
Clockwise, from top left: Dan Plummer, Jane Irwin, Kaylie Salvatori, Marti Fooks, Greg Grabasch and Joel Barker.

Considering small practice

17 Aug 2023, Rosie Halsmith

Joel Barker (See Design Studio), Greg Grabasch (Brave and Curious), Jane Irwin (JILA), Dan Plummer (Plummer and Smith), Kaylie Salvatori (COLA Studio) and Marti Fooks (Fooks) discuss the ins and outs of small practice with Rosie Halsmith.

Practice
Designed by TCL in collaboration with Paul Thompson, the Melbourne Museum’s experiential Forest Gallery is thriving after more than 20 years of growth.

Elevating the minor player

3 Aug 2023, Jess Stewart

Rich in social, aesthetic and environmental worth, small plants yield large rewards – and foster wonder in those who cultivate them.

Practice
Gathering Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.

Has landscape architecture lost its way (in the USA)?

2 Aug 2023, Margaret Grose

Margaret Grose considers the American Society of Landscape Architects’ recent decision to declare landscape architecture a STEM discipline.

Practice
At Sydney’s White Bay Power Station, fast-growing annuals were planted and monitored to test their capacity to remove toxins from contaminated land.

Circling back to circularity

20 Jul 2023, Lucy Salt

Experiments with bio-based construction materials and innovative phytoremediation techniques could inform new ways of designing with purpose to create a more resilient future.

Practice
Bell to Moreland Level Crossing Removal Project – Level Crossing projects challenge the linear axis by adding complexity, such as retracted boundary conditions along the Moreland corridor.

Conceptualizing Melbourne’s Level Crossing Removal projects

26 Jun 2023, Jillian Walliss

Melbourne’s Level Crossing Removal projects have contributed a suite of valuable new civic spaces to the public realm. But what do they contribute to landscape architecture in a broader sense?

Practice
Construction workers in front of the Sydney Opera House.

Worker solidarity in the built environment

23 Jun 2023, Bonnie Gordon, Julia McCann

Collective action by Australian construction workers in the 1970s led to the “green ban” movement, reinforcing in the design profession a sense of responsibility for the impacts of its work.

Practice
In the park, we have invited some nature back into the landscape – but even here, on what was once a wetland, Water Country remained relegated.

Practising ngara in urban Country

8 Jun 2023, Maddison Miller, Matt Novacevski

Maddison Miller and Matt Novacevski take us on a walk through Melbourne’s Docklands, on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, to explore what might happen if we engage with Country as a living entity, even in the built-up heart of the city.

Practice
Sinatra with grazier Bob Purvis at Woodland Station, north of Alice Springs. The image graces the cover of Sinatra and Murphy’s book, Listen to the people, listen to the land, published in 1999.

Vale Jim Sinatra

8 Jun 2023, Jerry de Gryse

Migrating to Australia from the United States in the early 1980s, Jim Sinatra embedded himself in the profession through a prominent teaching position at RMIT and the establishment of his practice, Sinatra Murphy. He was a “pioneer of ideas and creativity” with a deep passion for the Australian landscape.

Practice
A digital model of a large old tree – colours indicate branches preferred by birds. Such modelling can help landscape architects design for and with nonhuman lifeforms.

Tree designers and bird clients

1 Jun 2023, Alexander Holland, Stanislav Roudavski

Using more-than-human design as a theoretical framework and artificial habitats for arboreal wildlife as a case study, Deep Design Lab explores approaches for better inclusion of nonhuman contributions.

Practice
Map of Australia showing level of protection of subregions.

Protecting Australia’s biodiversity

28 May 2023, Simon Kilbane

Addressing species decline is urgent – and if we are serious about planning for a more robust and biodiverse future, we need to rethink how we consider, design and plan for future conservation areas.

Practice
Bradfield city centre concept image by Hatch Roberts Day.

Bold and innovative planning is delivering Australia’s newest city. But it will be hot – and can we ditch the colonial name?

21 May 2023, Tooran Alizadeh, Rebecca Clements

Tooran Alizadeh, Glen Searle and Rebecca Clements of the University of Sydney weigh in on the strengths and flaws of the planning process for Australia’s newest city.

Practice
A series of images created by entering the text: “Creative and unusual concrete bench designs with integrated planter elements and rough gray concrete with fractured or curvilinear forms. Shown in a tiled plaza. Incorporating design elements in the style of Carlo Scarpa or Zaha Hadid. Realistic octane render architecture press publication media photography” into text-to-image model Stable Diffusion.

So predictable? AI and landscape architecture

11 May 2023, Philip Belesky

Artificial intelligence is being harnessed in both the design and management of landscapes, with new generative models creating both fresh opportunities and novel challenges.

Practice
Remediative planting from “Potentials of the post nuclear,” Daniel Ichallalene’s 2021 masters thesis project.

Co-authoring in the digital age

13 Apr 2023, Daniel Ichallalene, Heike Rahmann

Digital technologies are challenging traditional notions of the designer as author, as data is shared and design outcomes are produced in new and evolving ways.

Practice
The Orchid Room from the Singapore Pavilion features four terrariums filled with native orchid species and a backdrop of ornamental orchids.

Rewilding in a post-humanist world: Salad Dressing

12 Apr 2023, Jillian Walliss

The work of the Singapore-based landscape architecture practice envisions a future world in which humans, nature and machines co-exist and co-evolve.

Practice
Non-living components of the Garden of Australian Dreams, such as sculpture, are more likely to receive protection under copyright than living items (for instance, plants).

Who has a right in the copy?

29 Mar 2023, Michael Wright

Discerning which rights and protections a work might receive under copyright law can be a difficult process. For landscape architects, however, unique barriers to moral authorship complicate an already thorny challenge.

Practice
Climate change is worsening, but we have the means to act.

‘It can be done. It must be done’: IPCC delivers definitive report on climate change, and where to now

23 Mar 2023, LandscapeAustralia Editorial Desk

On both climate change mitigation and adaptation, a massive gap remains between what’s needed and what’s being done.

Practice
Monash University’s XYX Lab runs participatory workshops to envision how more inclusive cities might look.

Not neutral: Diverse and inclusive public spaces

15 Mar 2023, Nicole Kalms

Nicole Kalms examines how an intersectional approach to design, which recognizes the value of lived experience, can ensure that minoritized people can safely access public amenity.

Practice
Established planting frames the edges of the seating at Monash University Clayton Campus Eastern Precinct Landscape by TCL.

On crediting the multidisciplinary project

15 Mar 2023, Ricky Ray Ricardo

Faced with grave challenges like climate change, we need to understand what different disciplines are contributing to projects – if we are to design, innovate and collaborate better.

Practice
A formative project for Aspect Studios back in the early 2000s, Canberra’s National Emergency Services Memorial has since been added to by different designers.

What is authorship? Perspectives from a practising landscape architect

1 Mar 2023, Kirsten Bauer

Does authorship matter in a post-truth public realm, when unauthorized digital copies of built projects can be purchased on the international market? Kirsten Bauer teases out the contradictions of “authorship” and calls for generosity in recognizing co-authors.

Practice
The Lake Tyers (Bung Yarnda) Camping and Access Strategy (LTCAS) was undertaken as a joint management project between Parks Victoria and Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation and encourages understanding of culture and Country in the design of a natural landscape.

Shifting grounds

28 Feb 2023, Jen Lynch

Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation and Parks Victoria reflect on more than a decade of joint management and the growing impact of this co-authored approach to the way land is understood, managed and designed.

Practice