Practice

The pioneers of landscape architecture, from the United States to Australia, saw what was needed in times of crisis, and had the vision and will to adapt. Now is another such moment. So, how should we, as a profession, respond?

To save the critically endangered ecosystem of Victoria’s Western Grassland Reserve, we must envision innovative funding and management models that embrace the reserve as a cultural landscape.

The directors of Office introduce the second volume in The Politics of Public Space series that explores how COVID-19 is altering how we occupy space.

For more than 30 years, Mary Jeavons, founder and co-director at Jeavons Landscape Architects, has championed the importance of play.

At a time when public space is changing, tracking women’s experiences and applying nuanced thinking and multiple gender-sensitive strategies is important to ensuring inclusivity.

Winding along the coast north of Broome, this 80-kilometre-long Aboriginal trail fosters a deep connection to Country through knowledge exchange and shared experience.

In designing cities that are better prepared to handle the next pandemic, building systems that encourage trust between the citizens and the city will be crucial.

Amalie Wright shares her experiences working as a landscape architect on the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) project in Indonesia and Fiji.

Landscape architects in different areas of practice describe how COVID-19 is continuing to impact their office arrangements, projects and work approach – and where they see the future headed.

While the impacts of coronavirus on our cities going forward are difficult to predict, one thing is certain – any urban planning and design of our cities needs to take a long-term approach to enabling public life to continue in social and healthy ways.

In an era of ecological collapse, a series of projects in the United States is placing nature centre stage.

Three decades after the completion of Hobart’s Rosny Park development, its landscape illustrates how projects evolve in response to maintenance regimes and changing values.

The outbreak of coronavirus and its immediate impacts, such as social distancing, have raised many questions about the role of public space in such times.

The ongoing coronavirus is an example of the close relationships between urban development and new or re-emerging infectious diseases.

“On-demand” transit, which allows users to book trips for a cost similar to a bus fare, may offer a solution to the lack of public transport available outside many Australian city centres.

The Swiss landscape architect’s austere, experiential work makes a case for engaging with the real, physical landscape, beyond models or representation.

Faced with the challenges of rising populations and shrinking green space in Australian cities, we need to begin designing responses that better address land use and death.

Landscape Australia speaks with the Bangkok-based landscape architect about leadership, encouraging engagement and design in an age of globalization.

A team of students from RMIT University participated in the second edition of Beijing Forestry University’s Garden-making Festival, which explored the relationship between garden-making and the poetic.

University of Greenwich academic Ed Wall’s work explores the intersection between design practice and critical theory. Liam Mouritz spoke with Wall about the role of design education in tackling ecological crises and the importance of expanding landscape practice into policy.

As the city around Melbourne’s Federation Square continues to evolve, the fundamental value of the square, as the city’s main public, civic and cultural gathering place, must be maintained.

Planning Institute of Australia CEO David Williams argues that the government must face squarely up to climate change and work in the public interest to reduce greenhouse emissions and shift to a low-carbon economy.

Tim Hart, director of Urban Initiatives (which worked on several projects in the wake of the Black Saturday fires), emphasizes the importance of listening and long-term strategizing when working with recovering communities.

In Perth, the Elizabeth Quay precinct has proven popular but its success depends on “unfinished business.”

Neuroscientific research that expands our understanding of the specific ways in which the experience of nature affects our mental well-being can help us in designing more beneficial urban environments.

Mike Harris argues that, in Australia, the control of states over complex, city-based projects is jeopardising their outcomes.

A recent discussion in Melbourne organized by a sub-committee of the Victorian chapter of AILA explored some of the issues currently facing landscape architecture education in the state.

In the second part of our interview with leading practitioners from the US and Australia, we further explore the agency of landscape architecture in responding to climate change urgencies through the design of the public realm.

With Australia’s population set to almost double by 2066, the handwringing over increased density and sprawl will only increase. Yet these circumstances offer architects and urban planners an opportunity for courageous creativity.

Melbourne-based artist James Geurts explores the entangling of the human and the natural, and the dynamic yet invisible forces that shape our environment.

In the first half of our two-part interview, five leading practitioners offer their perspectives on how we might design for an uncertain future.

Bede Brennan and James Hull of the Sh*t Gardens blog spoke at the 2019 International Festival of Landscape Architecture held in Melbourne in October. Landscape Australia caught up with the duo during a break in the festival program.

To address issues with sprawl, we need to increase urban density in a way that resonates with the green qualities of suburbia that residents value.

Any moves to greatly increase the population of northern Australian by 2060 could have a devastating impact on the local environment without long-term careful planning by all tiers of government.

Marijn Schenk, co-founder of Dutch practice Next Architects, spoke with Landscape Australia about collaboration, new perspectives and the pursuit of social and ecological agendas.

Graeme Davison and Alan Pert remember the late David Yencken, a prodigious contributor to the built environment and Victoria’s “unofficial minister for design and environmental planning.”

Design competitions provide opportunities for new voices and radical ideas.

Calmness, serenity and a sense of mystery define the work of Sydney-based designer Hugh Main, whose portfolio of elegantly sculptural gardens with hushed textures and colours speaks to a distinctly east-coast Australian style.

Photographer Carolyn Young and ecologist Sue McIntyre reflect on a once extensive, but now rapidly vanishing landscape – the eucalypt woodlands of Australia’s south-east.

By acknowledging human agency as a vector for plants and animals, we can begin to embrace new and fertile ways of working with our environment.