Practice

The RR.Memorial Forum held in June 2018 explored the future of memorials in Australia to the Frontier Wars. The forum included a series of Indigenous-led design charrettes that revealed the possibilities and challenges involved in creating places of healing.

Jonathan Daly argues that the recent brouhaha over the failed proposal for a Foster and Partners-designed Apple Store at Melbourne’s Federation Square has masked a deeper problem with the way the space operates as a public place.

In light of the emergence of new users and new forms of mobility, cities will need to think strategically about how to manage their limited kerb space.

The landscapes of British garden designer Dan Pearson celebrate a sublime yet quiet nature in an increasingly urban world. Howard Tanner visited Pearson’s London studio to explore its work in “regaining the natural.”

The founding director of Broome-based practice MudMap Studio talks about communicating knowledge, working locally and community-driven design.

While state policy aims to increase development density, across the central city, in urban renewal areas and in the suburbs, current planning controls are failing to implement this policy.

Founder and principal of Singapore-based practice STX Landscape Architects Helen Smith-Yeo discusses cross-culturalism, difference and the aesthetics of the natural.

Built environment professionals need to look beyond technology’s ability to give instantaneous access to information, services and entertainment to instead recognise how it can be used to create platforms that allow citizens to engage meaningfully with the urban environment.

Thai landscape architect Sanitas Pradittasnee harnesses the lyrical dimensions of landscape to provoke reflection on environmental responsibility and the social potentials of space.

Refuge City, a new kind of city for our times

Addressing gender equity issues across the landscape architecture profession means bringing conversations about gender out into the open.

In the “smart and connected” realm of data cities, satellites equipped specifically for observing Earth are transforming the traditional design practices of the built environment.

Monash University’s manager of Campus Design, Quality and Planning is transforming the physical environment of student life, from the bottom up.

China’s rise as a global power is driving new flows of people, ideas and capital between China and Australia. Australian cities need to adapt to this new geopolitical reality.

The presence of children in the public domain is often relegated to spaces which are exclusively zoned for their use. How can we incorporate broader opportunities for play into the planning and design of our cities?

Kelly Shannon’s work is concerned with the evolving relationship between landscape, infrastructure and urbanization. Prior to her visit to Brisbane in March to speak at the Asia Pacific Architecture Forum, Shannon spoke with Janina Gosseye about cross-cultural practice, climate change and the recovery of the public realm.

A spectacular rock-shelter in Arnhem Land, in Australia’s far north, questions assumptions about the nature of design, provoking reflection on the boundaries between the natural and the built.

Landscape Australia spoke with two key members of the Hassell project team that worked on the Optus Stadium precinct – Anthony Brookfield (principal landscape architect) and Hannah Galloway (design and documentation team lead) – about process, collaboration and collective experience.

Over the past two decades of his practice, Brisbane-based landscape designer Steven Clegg has evolved a suite of gardens that evoke a sense of the eternal and reflect his unwavering fascination with the flora of times past.

Spanish designer and academic Teresa Gali-Izard creates work that seeks to enact the hidden potential of places through the integration of living systems and an understanding of beauty as process.

In Australia for the Indigenous Design Symposium in July, Johannesburg-based architect Mphethi M. Morojele spoke with ArchitectureAU about the nature of indigeneity and architecture’s role in transforming South Africa.

Landscape Architecture Australia speaks to the editors of two Asian landscape architecture magazines – Landscape Architecture Korea (South Korea) and Landscape Architecture Frontiers (China) – to explore the trajectory of landscape architecture in their respective countries.

Recent research reveals a wealth of information about the planets and their complex motions in the knowledge systems of Indigenous Australians.

Landscape Architecture Australia speaks to the editors of two Asian landscape architecture magazines – Landscape Architecture Korea (South Korea) and Landscape Architecture Frontiers (China) – to explore the trajectory of landscape architecture in their respective countries.

Craig Czarny, director of urban design at Hansen Partnership, reflects on more than two decades of planning and design practice in the Asia-Pacific region.

From Taipei to Tokyo, communities and non-profit organizations are working to mitigate the impacts of rapid urbanization from the bottom up.

Agricultural scientist, farmer and writer Charles Massy advocates for a stronger relationship between humanity and the non-human world in agricultural practice. A workshop with Massy and members of the landscape profession offered opportunities to explore the relationship of Massy’s ideas to broader landscape practice.  

The Australian landscape architectural profession has been engaged with Asia from the 1970s. Embassy projects were a particular focus in the beginning, when desires for harmonious political and cultural relationships were expressed in new and interesting physical forms.

Landscape architecture academics Jillian Walliss and Heike Rahmann from the University of Melbourne and RMIT University respectively caught up with a group of international landscape architecture students to learn about their experiences in Australia and why they chose to study here.

The marker trees of the Watti Watti people in north-west Victoria have substantial spiritual and cultural significance yet are currently afforded little in the way of formalised heritage protection.

Phoebe Goodwin provides insights on her humanitarian work with UNHCR in refugee camps in Bangladesh, Greece, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere.

Planners, architects, the police and politicians need to put aside the traditional expert perspective to learn from – and design for – women’s experiences.

The potential of emerging Asian cities has often been defined by European and North American designers, denying the growth of local expertise. It’s time to celebrate the exciting work of homegrown designers, thinkers and critics in Asia.

With the growth of landscape architecture in the region, Australian landscape architecture programs have become increasingly popular with Asian students, particularly from China. Helen Armstrong reflects on how this growing demand has changed and challenged landscape architecture education.

Many of Australia’s ecosystems are in a much worse condition than we think. This is because officials are measuring the health of ecosystems such as forests and woodlands by their size, instead of how damaged they are by disturbances.

As he turns his focus to succession planning, Rob Adams, director of City Design and Projects at the City of Melbourne, sat down with Lucy Salt to reflect on more than three decades of city building.

Parkkim, a landscape architecture practice based in the South Korean capital, Seoul, boasts a portfolio of highly refined projects that are underpinned by a passion for research and innovation.

Ecological succession – where colonizer plant species grow quickly to provide organic matter, shelter and nutrients to their longer-lived neighbours – is rarely employed in planting schemes, but it holds great potential to produce more interesting, dynamic and resilient landscapes.

The desert landscapes of Arizona contain many valuable examples of engaging, species-diverse planting schemes that thrive in extremely dry conditions. With water demand a critical issue throughout Australia, are there cues to be taken from the south-western United States?

Only a handful of Australian designers have pursued careers abroad and achieved international recognition. One of them is landscape designer Bernard Trainor, whose California-based practice has built an impressive portfolio of projects on the west coast of the USA.

Design and research collaborative Rural Urban Framework is responding to the Chinese government’s urbanization agenda by working with rural Chinese communities to contribute positively to social, economic and spatial transformations.