Practice

Recent research provides insights into how the design of green space can affect our mental and physical wellbeing.

As we seek new ways to organize our lives in a post-pandemic world challenged by climate change, a number of interconnected opportunites are evident – if we’re prepared to re-examine the values that drive our decisions.

A nine-part series exploring the relationship between everyday living and design practice.

At a station in south-west New South Wales, Traditional Owners and landscape architects are working together to explore ways to restore the degraded landscape, and to re-engage with the cultural and ecological significance of the site.

A nine-part series exploring the relationship between everyday living and design practice.

Aesthetic experiences are embodied and multisensory and influence how we develop as designers. The practices we undertake outside of the studio have the potential to enrich our understandings of landscape and shape our relations with the non-human world.

A nine-part series exploring the relationship between everyday living and design practice.

As we approach the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, the profession of landscape architecture owes much to his work as tireless advocate for design, the environment and social equality.

A nine-part series exploring the relationship between everyday living and design practice.

Australia’s peri-urban areas are too often sites of destruction and loss, where forests and wetlands are paved over with suburban sprawl. Landscape architects can intervene to create real ecological depth on the edges of our cities.

On the southern edge of Perth’s CBD, a new haven created for the iconic Maali (black swan) offers a precedent for considering incremental approaches to regenerating urban river systems.

Simon Leake, Australia’s pre-eminent soil expert, calls for landscape management practices that let soil function and evolve.

In the first segment of our nine-part series exploring the relationship between everyday living and design practice, Cassandra Chilton reveals four personal objects that have influenced the development of her approach to landscape architecture practice.

Projects involving the “rewilding” of cities are being increasingly embraced overseas, particularly in Europe and Asia. But what qualities do we mean when we speak about “wildness” and how can we reconcile these with an Australian context?

A three-part interview series exploring how design practitioners are engaging with biodiversity at the scale of the garden. Fiona Harrisson is a senior lecturer in landscape architecture at RMIT University, a practising designer, a contemplative teacher and a passionate gardener.

Emily Wong speaks to RMIT student Jialin (Mazarine) Wu and her project advisor Heike Rahmann about Vanishing Landscape, Wu’s thesis project which was recently awarded joint national winner of the 2021 Landscape Architecture Australia Student Prize.

A three-part interview series exploring how design practitioners are engaging with biodiversity at the scale of the garden. Christina Nicholson is founding director of Perth-based landscape architecture studio Banksia and Lime and a lecturer at UWA School of Design.

While the work of adaptation to climate change has begun, progress on this is uneven and insufficient given the cascading and compounding risks that Australia is facing.

The New South Wales government’s Biodiversity Offsets Scheme is based on a flawed set of assumptions stemming from the idea that nature is a tradable commodity. What we need is a fundamental shift in perspective.

A three-part interview series exploring how design practitioners are engaging with biodiversity at the scale of the garden. Robyn Barlow is a landscape architect and horticulturist based in Melbourne.

Queensland’s laws fail to protect private conservation areas from the hidden impacts of mining on the groundwater sustaining them.

If urban greening programs are to succeed in a warming climate, we need to focus on selecting the right trees, balancing a species’ tolerance to heat stress and drought, its ability to provide shade and cooling, and the availability of water.

Sue Barnsley reflects on her design for Magney House, Paddington, an elemental garden that frames the landscape beyond.

Anton James reflects on the design of an early multi-use residential project and the ideas it set in motion.

Georgia Vitale compares some different approaches – some mono-generational, others more holistic – to support ageing in place.

Bob Earl, founding partner of Oculus, reflects on the design of Loyalty Square in Sydney’s inner west and the launch of Oculus’s Australian studio in the mid-1990s.

Australia has a problem protecting its Aboriginal cultural heritage, however there are steps we can take to address this situation, including emphasising collaborative approaches to heritage identification and management.

An approach focused on ecological function weighs the cost of protecting natives and combating exotics against the role of new species assemblages shaped by human interference.

At the COP26 climate talks last week, Australia and 123 other countries signed an agreement promising to end deforestation by 2030. Kate Dooley assesses the pros and cons of the deal.

Mathieu Gontier and François Vadepied of Paris-based studio Wagon Landscaping discuss practising landscape architecture with the philosophy of a gardener, fostering community within projects, and the relationship between beauty and economy in design.

Researchers Thami Croeser, Georgia Garrard, and Sarah Bekessy take a look at what’s holding back the greening of cities.

Marti Fooks examines how safety, queerness and public space interact in our cities, the challenges of existing frameworks such as CPTED, and what new approaches are needed to better address groups most at risk.

The idea of wilderness is a destructive concept, and by framing landscapes created and managed by Indigenous and local peoples as wilderness, we are denying the land the care it requires.

Iraqi landscape architect Jala Makhzoumi speaks about learning from vernacular landscapes, restoring human dignity through landscape design and the importance of human-based approaches to ecological planning and conservation.

Artist and photographer Matthew Stanton examines the shifting relations between humans and the environment in a photographic series that documents the ecologically complex landscapes of Queensland’s Wet Tropics.

Words are powerful. If we don’t have the language to describe our relationship with the natural world and our uniquely Australian landscape features, ecologies and systems, can we successfully design for them?

Architect and landscape architect Sean Lally talks about technology and the human body, thinking on expanded time frames and testing designs through gaming.

Janet Conrad was “an energetic, capable and committed advocate” for the landscape architecture profession.

Despite the many benefits of green space, its supply in our Australian cities is being met with a multitude of challenges. Can we develop a more effective approach?

A two-part interview series that examines the work of a group of small, young and nimble overseas studios forging a DIY approach to designing and constructing landscapes that elevates imperfection as an aesthetic choice.