Reviews

The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, Western Australia.

Can we build our way into a new future for higher education, or must something fundamental change?

5 Dec 2023, Julian Raxworthy

Julian Raxworthy considers the evolution of the Australian university upon reviewing Campus: Building Modern Australian Universities, edited by Andrew Saniga and Robert Freestone.

Review
Indigenous fungi specialist and Arrernte woman Sherie Bruce spoke about the role of fungi in healthy ecosystems as part of the session titled "Moss, Mycelia and Micro-ecologies."

Embracing complexity and the unseen: 2023 Festival of Landscape Architecture

19 Nov 2023, Ella Gauci-Seddon

Ella Gauci-Seddon reviews the “Un/Earth” themed Festival of Landscape Architecture that took place in Tarntanya/Adelaide last month.

Review
The circular walkway allows access to the lake’s unique crystalline landscape while limiting damage to the shore’s fragile ecosystems.

Expanding the view: Lake Tyrrell Tourism Infrastructure Design

27 Jul 2023, Katrina Simon

A new system of tourist infrastructure in Victoria’s north-west improves access to a unique landscape while demonstrating the complex relationship between design and social media.

Review
Located opposite North Melbourne Primary School, The Roundtable has quickly become a feature of daily community life.

An adaptive attitude: The Roundtable

20 Jul 2023, Bede Brennan

Circular in more than one sense, The Roundtable demonstrates the power and potential of small, temporary public installations.

Review
Open Nature, a series of roaming workshops presented by Open House Melbourne, included a walk to Yaluk Langa (Woiwurrung for “River’s Edge”), an indigenous garden developed by the site’s Traditional Custodians and the Heide team.

Landscape architecture at Melbourne Design Week 2023

3 Jul 2023, Olivia O'Donnell

Events covered circularity, experimental materials and ecological perspectives – so where were the landscape architects?

Review
The projects were organized in three sets, categorized around familiar landscape themes; tatami mats provided a connection to Japanese culture.

Demonstrating agency: Landscape Architects as Change Makers

14 Jun 2023, Naomi Barun

A recent exhibition held at the Melbourne School of Design as part of Melbourne Design Week 2023 created a space for conversation and knowledge-sharing about design across generations and cultures.

Review
A series of connected gardens and courtyard spaces at the revitalized Bendigo TAFE foreground the endemic flora and fauna of the region.

Supporting community: Bendigo TAFE Campus Revitalization

8 Jun 2023, Katherine Sundermann

The redevelopment of an ageing regional education campus unearths the site’s cultural narratives, creating a rich and convivial public realm that encourages a diversity of users.

Review
The trail ascends, descends and ascends again, constantly affirming that “Peaks” is a well-earned part of its moniker.

Fieldtrip: Grampians Peak Trail

24 May 2023, Matt Caldar

Setting out on a four-day hike along the central section of this dramatic new walk, a group of landscape architects and spatial designers encounters a trail design well grounded in place.

Review
Designing Landscape Architectural Education: Studio Ecologies for Unpredictable Futures edited by Rosalea Monacella and Bridget Keane.

Designing Landscape Architectural Education: Studio Ecologies for Unpredictable Futures

10 May 2023, Martin Bryant

A recent book on landscape architecture education veers away from solutions and ideologies, instead highlighting themes that open possibilities for design practice.

Review
An aerial view of The Drying Green western entry and community terrace, showing the three cascading wetlands surrounding and defining the edges of the park.

An ecological engine: The Drying Green

27 Apr 2023, Scott Hawken

A new park in Sydney’s south integrates natural and high-tech systems to cleanse urban waters and reference past ecologies.

Review
The two dozen boulders at the Southbank play space appear to be alive, a cluster of strange animals scurrying on tiny castor toes.

Discovery and daring: Rocks on Wheels

19 Mar 2023, Bede Brennan

A surreal installation nestled within the urban fabric of Melbourne’s Southbank is a place for risky play, challenging the conventions of playgrounds, public artworks and landscape projects.

Review
Plants: Past, Present and Future, the latest book in the "First Knowledges" series edited by Margo Neale.

Reframing our relationship with plants

25 Nov 2022, Jock Gilbert

Jock Gilbert unpacks the latest book in the “First Knowledges” series edited by Margo Neale.

Review
Sitting between the Stuart Highway and the Spencer Gulf just outside of Port Augusta, the AALBG includes red cliffs, shrublands, dunes, plains and beaches.

Outback ecologies: Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden

24 Nov 2022, Scott Hawken

This under-appreciated garden on the edge of the South Australian desert is a remarkable story of community-driven landscape architecture that foregrounds the extraordinary plant life of arid and semi-arid ecosystems.

Review
Public yet personal, the space can be interpreted and used according to the needs of each visitor.

A space sculpted by landscape: Victorian Family Violence Memorial

10 Oct 2022, Georgia Birks

Beside a busy Melbourne intersection, an understated commemorative space honours the lives of victim survivors, looks to the future with hope and invites incidental engagement.

Review
A path takes visitors to the top of a mound above the old tip, opening up views of the gardens and surrounding trees.

Slow growth: Australian Botanic Gardens Shepparton

30 Sep 2022, Adrian Marshall

On a landfill site in regional Victoria, a botanic gardens masterplan has unfurled over decades, its many layers shaped and maintained by a committed community of volunteers and advocates.

Review
2022 APACE Open Day. Initially a sustainable living demonstration site, APACE now promotes ecological regeneration through a community-focused approach.

Centring ecological regeneration: APACE

30 Sep 2022, Alice Ford

At the heart of North Fremantle community, not-for-profit organization APACE is foregrounding an approach to the environment that fosters ecological and community resilience, embraces change and gives natural systems room to move.

Review
Coccoloba Garden shows Jungles’ skill of imagining the plant forms and their growth.

Beyond Wild: Gardens and Landscapes by Raymond Jungles

22 Jul 2022, Michael Wright

A recent book on the work of American landscape architect Raymond Jungles celebrates the radiant beauty of plants.

Review
The freeway runs through a landscape of mangroves and intertidal samphire ecologies, disturbed over the years by industrial and horticultural activities.

Salt and samphire: Northern Connector

24 Jun 2022, Tanya Court

In Adelaide’s north, a freeway project by Tract carefully negotiates surrounding salt fields, mangroves and wetlands.

Review
The Heide Healing Garden is a sensory garden and programmed destination for visitors.

Light, movement, growth: The Heide Healing Garden

9 Jun 2022, Cassandra Chilton

To rejuvenate the Heide I Kitchen Garden and create a place for wellbeing, experimentation and sensory immersion, Openwork looked to the past for an appropriate design approach.

Review
African marigolds and California poppies are among the many flowers in the meadow that flanks the approach to the site.

Grounds for testing: Delprat Phytoremediation Garden

12 May 2022, Andrew Toland

On a former steelworks site in Newcastle, designers and scientists have created an experimental garden that is furthering knowledge around how plants can respond to contamination.

Review
A stool by Project Poly created using recycled expanded polystyrene.

Reimagining our relationship with waste: Polyphase

6 Apr 2022, Terren (Jiatong) Shi

An exhibition at Melbourne Design Week explored possibilities for repurposing common waste.

Review
A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy.

Adapting and transforming our coastal environments

29 Mar 2022, Rosalea Monacella

Rosalea Monacella reviews a recent book which offers expert insights on responding to climate change.

Review
The Spanish Steps, one of the precinct’s two 
main pedestrian axes, is edged by masses of lush, textured plantings.

Restorative effects: Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS)

3 Mar 2022, Catherin Bull

The design of the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) by Hassell capitalizes on the benefits of greenery on health while laying down the framework for a successful future pedestrian precinct in inner-Brisbane.

Review
The collaborators have taken advantage of the overhead railway line to create a lush, shady sanctuary in the middle of subtropical Brisbane.

Tactical urbanism: Fish Lane

23 Feb 2022, Catherin Bull

A neglected post-industrial area of central Brisbane is transformed into a vibrant arts precinct through a collaborative private delivery model with a nuanced approach at both the strategic and the fine-grain scale.

Review
Country: Future Fire, Future Farming, by Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage.

Country is an urgent call to learn from Indigenous knowledges to care for the land

17 Dec 2021, LandscapeAustralia Editorial Desk

Taylor Coyne reviews ‘Country: Future Fire, Future Farming,’ a recent book by Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage.

Review
COP26: A conference of compromise, consensus, or cause for hope?

COP26: A conference of compromise, consensus, or cause for hope?

6 Dec 2021, Claire Martin

Claire Martin considers some of the gains and setbacks from the recent COP26, which brought together representatives from 194 countries to negotiate urgent action around climate change.

Review
Winner of the Future Landscapes competition at the 2021 Festival of Landscape Architecture, Silicon Gulf: Transition from contaminated post-industrial land to regenerative data centre park by Zhuocheng (Jackie) Gu.

Media, climate change, adaptation and renaissance

22 Nov 2021, Julian Raxworthy

Julian Raxworthy reflects on the 2021 Festival of Landscape Architecture and its themes of “spectacle” and “collapse.”

Review
Children clamber over timber platform seating against the formidable bluestone-wall backdrop of Pentridge Prison’s former mustering yard.

Interpretive acts: Pentridge Piazza, Coburg

22 Oct 2021, Kate Gamble

Aspect Studios’ design for Pentridge Piazza Coburg elegantly interprets the site’s sombre history, yet raises deeper questions about the value of discomfort.

Review
Water Housing and Factory, a proposal by Yasar Demirkol and Brahn Smillie-Fearn, Monash University.

Cataloguing a future city: Melbourne Cool Lines!

12 Oct 2021, Alban Mannisi

An exhibition in Melbourne explored ways to address climate change and the urban heat island effect by retrofitting the city with landscape infrastructures.

Review
A photo taken in 2001, showing the Geomorphological Axis that cuts diagonally across the site, from one corner to a remnant limestone hill.

Gathering community: Booyeembara Park

7 Oct 2021, Anna Chauvel

Designed in the late 1990s on the site of a former limestone quarry, Booyeembara Park was only ever partially constructed. Yet the park has grown relationships between council and community.

Review
Lush subtropical plantings frame the Riverwalk’s edge, separating cyclists from vehicular traffic and softening the architectural forms of the shelters.

Lateral movements: Kingsford Smith Drive Upgrade

10 Sep 2021, Shannon Satherley

The upgrade of Kingsford Smith Drive by Lat27 enhances experiences of the Brisbane River while illuminating women’s contributions to the city’s history.

Review
Within the tidal terrace, sandstone animal “islands” that reference the nearby Bulgandry art site are covered and revealed with the flow of the tide.

Tidal encounters: Gosford Leagues Club Park

26 Aug 2021, Michael Polifrone

On the NSW Central Coast, Turf Design Studio has created a vibrant park and community hub that reconnects the city of Gosford with its pre-European histories and ecologies.

Review
At the south-western tip of Phillip Island, the dramatic cliffs and cobblestone rocks of The Nobbies offer spectacular views over Bass Strait and are home to colonies of fur seals.

Choreographing coastal complexities: Phillip Island

16 Jul 2021, Mark Frisby

Phillip Island has long captivated visitors to Victoria with its dramatic landscapes and coastal ecologies. Mark Frisby reflects on the work that has gone into maintaining the island’s unique biota and framing experiences of the island for all.

Review
Respecting Country – a 'New Australian Design' approach

Respecting Country – a ‘New Australian Design’ approach

16 Jul 2021, Jock Gilbert, Christine Phillips

A powerful new book by Alison Page and Paul Memmott illuminates the ways that design, through engagement with First Nations knowledges, can become an expression of respect for Country.

Review
Plantings of Betula nigra screen views through the garden to the seating area at the rear of the courtyard.

Texture and temporality: Y3 Garden

20 Jun 2021, Emily Wong

In the leafy Brisbane suburb of St Lucia, Dan Young Landscape Architect has created an introspective garden of close encounters.

Review
Western Sydney Parklands is essential green space provided in the burgeoning Western Sydney Aerotropolis and Greater Parramatta and Olympic Park Urban Centres.

Making space in Sydney’s west: Western Sydney Parklands

17 Jun 2021, Scott Hawken

Expressive and epic works of landscape architecture are giving Western Sydney a confident new ecological identity and much-needed breathing space.

Review
The landscape was envisioned as a Gondwana-like rainforest, with mature tree ferns, hardy exotic climbers and low plantings.

Gondwana in the city: Fish Lane Town Square

7 Jun 2021, John Mongard

With Fish Lane Town Square, RPS has worked with Richards and Spence to transform a forgotten, underutilized space under a Brisbane railway bridge into an intimate urban park replete with tangled ferns and climbers.

Review
Highlighting Māori thinking

Highlighting Māori thinking

7 Jun 2021, Jock Gilbert

A recent book by the Landscape Foundation brings Māori perspectives on landscape to the fore.

Review
Visitors of all ages frolic in the striking and tactile water feature that foregrounds the hub building’s undulating and colourful west face.

A welcome encounter: Springvale Community Precinct

22 May 2021, Adrian Marshall

A new community hub in Melbourne’s south-east celebrates the diversity of its multicultural community through an exuberant approach to colour and texture, and careful attention to detail.

Review
Kerb #28: Designing for coexistence in a time of crisis. Edited by Alexander Maxwell-Anderson, Darcy Rankin, Yishi Wang, Beidi Ran, Hongxin Huang and Kate Trenerry.

Crisis and coexistence: Kerb #28

1 May 2021, Liam Mouritz

Liam Mouritz reviews the 28th issue of Kerb Journal.

Review
Felipe Coral's project "Informal Gardens" developed landscape architecture strategies to reconcile queer informal public activity and urban ecologies in the context of Roberto Burle Marx’s Aterro do Flamengo (Flamengo Park) in Rio de Janeiro.

Queering landscape architecture, deconstructing binaries

12 Apr 2021, Marti Fooks

Beyond concepts of safety and inclusion, what other possibilities might be generated by queering landscape architecture? A lunch discussion held during Melbourne Design Week 2021 discussed the dismantling of binaries in practice.

Review