Review
Landscape architecture, laughter, community: Urban Jungle
A recent comedy show at Perth’s Fringe World festival brought together built environment practitioners and members of the public alike for a series of light-hearted reflections on city design.
ReviewFraming process: Aire – The River and its Double
A recent book on the transformation of the Aire River in Switzerland by Swiss studio Superpositions offers layered perspectives on the river’s transformation.
ReviewA sublime elegance: Juan Grimm
Howard Tanner explores a recent book on the work of Chilean landscape designer Juan Grimm.
ReviewThoughtful garden-making
A new book by Australian garden writer Christine Reid explores hardy gardens in some of the country’s most challenging landscapes.
ReviewAn everyday civic: Yagan Square
At Perth’s new urban square, Yagan Square, flexibility and history provide a platform for engaging with changing notions of national identity, Reconciliation and civic life.
ReviewChanging landscapes: The design of cities in the age of digital transformation
The 2018 Smart City Expo World Congress offered a chance to reflect on the opportunities and challenges that come with the increasing digitalization of city infrastructure, from increased energy efficiency and urban mobility to issues of data protection and privacy.
ReviewExpanding practice: The 2018 International Festival of Landscape Architecture
Katrina Simon considers the 2018 AILA International Festival of Landscape Architecture: The Expanding Field, held on the Gold Coast in October.
ReviewNew heritage: Railway Square
Railway Square transforms an area of former rail workshops in Perth’s north-east into a new civic space that evokes a strong sense of history.
ReviewVoronoi verve: Home of the Arts Outdoor Stage
The Gold Coast’s new outdoor stage cleverly melds landscape and architecture to provide a flexible, functional and surprising space for future gatherings.
ReviewAn Australian garden in Berlin
TCL’s Cultivated by Fire garden for the 2017 International Horticultural Exhibition in Berlin fosters an understanding of Australia’s rich cultural and environmental history.
Review10th International Biennial of Landscape Architecture of Barcelona: Performative Nature
The 2018 edition of the festival explored how designers might redefine beauty in the creation of performative landscapes that imaginatively respond to pressing 21st century issues.
ReviewFinding a sense of place: Optus Stadium parklands
A new stadium and expansive parklands along the shores of Perth’s Swan River distil the essence of their Western Australian surrounds, offering multiple opportunities to engage with narratives of place.
ReviewWild Senses: The Ian Potter Children’s Wild Play Garden
A new garden in Sydney’s Centennial Parklands celebrates learning through nature play, immersing children in habitats with a roguish sense of adventure.
ReviewColony: Frontier Wars, Colony: Australia: 1770-1861
Two concurrent exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria explored the tensions between European and Indigenous perspectives on Australia’s colonization.
ReviewBridging the divide: Jock Marshall Reserve Nature Walk
A new elevated walk at Monash University’s Clayton campus draws biodiversity into the heart of student life, offering plentiful opportunities for research and repose.
ReviewRepair: The Australian Exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale
The design of the Australian pavilion calls us to reflect upon environment, habitat and the cultural history within which we work as designers.
ReviewRethinking the contemporary: The Adelaide Contemporary Design Competition
The competition for the design of a new contemporary art gallery in Adelaide offers opportunities to rework the relationship between landscape and art.
ReviewLampposts of progress: Hi-Lights
These new additions to the Gold Coast landscape by Lot-ek, Office Feuerman and Urban Art Projects engage with notions of sustainable luxury.
Review2018 Landscape Australia Conference: Sharing Local Knowledge for a Global Future
Louisa King reflects on the 2018 Landscape Australia Conference.
ReviewGrassland: A provocation
A new reserve on Melbourne’s western fringe celebrates one of Victoria’s most threatened ecologies by immersing users in the subtle beauty of native grasslands.
ReviewGardens of the High Line: Elevating the Nature of Modern Landscapes
A recent book on the design of Manhattan’s elevated railway park offers a insight into the project’s plantings and celebrates the sensuous and dynamic qualities of living systems.
ReviewThree Capes Track
In the south-east of Tasmania a new forty-six-kilometre hiking trail charts spectacular sea cliffs and dramatic gullies. The trail is one of the largest nature tourism projects in Australian history and its design will no doubt inform others in development.
ReviewTracing a ‘revelatory path’: 2017 NGV Architecture Commission
Cassandra Chilton of Rush Wright Associates reviews the 2017 NGV Architecture Commission by Retallack Thompson and Other Architects and finds, among other things, the “best place in Melbourne this summer for a warm afternoon snooze.”
ReviewCall of the Reed Warbler: A manifesto for regeneration
Agricultural scientist and farmer Charles Massy has published a book that calls for a deeper understanding of human effects upon the landscape and for practice that is by its nature regenerative.
ReviewFoliage fervour: Bungalow Garden Rooms
A series of diverse, textural and dynamic “garden rooms” are the result of a close collaboration between architect and landscape architect and celebrate a life lived outdoors.
ProjectRiverside Centre, Brisbane: Reviving a Seidler icon
As development pressures intensify in Australian cities, the renovation of the Riverside Centre plaza illustrates how an urban space can be revitalized without the need to sacrifice heritage or cultural identity.
ReviewThe New Australian Garden: Landscapes for living
Howard Tanner reviews Michael Bates’ book The New Australian Garden: Landscapes for living.
ReviewCity Limits: The vernacular of welcome signs in regional Australia
Anyone who has travelled through regional Australia would understand the importance many towns place on their welcome signs – not just to communicate useful information, but also to establish and project an identity of place.
ReviewEbb and flow: Koondrook Wharf
Community engagement, Aboriginal artwork, locally sourced timber and a piece of history have been brought together to create this new wharf in northern Victoria.
ReviewDo not mow: Planting a subtle argument
The humble native meadow in Sydney’s historic Prince Alfred Park demonstrates that planting design has more to offer than decoration or ecology – it can engage with culture in a powerful way.
ReviewThe Antipodean limits of a manifesto: OMA and the Australian countryside
Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten from the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) recently spoke to an audience of more than 700 people at the Melbourne School of Design about their new research direction – the countryside.
ReviewThe Shrine courtyards: Provoking imagination
Planting design for the courtyards at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne subtly evokes Pacific and South-East Asian theatres of service, sacrifice and peacekeeping.
ReviewCharles House: A new bush garden
Featuring eclectic combinations of plant species, this garden in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs is an immersive space full of diversity and delight.
ReviewRambunctious research: Planning the life cycle city
The Woody Meadow Project seeks to create urban plantings that are diverse and attractive yet require minimal maintenance.
ReviewHow green is my vision?
The 202020 Vision is an initiative to create “20 percent more green space in Australia’s urban areas by the year 2020.” But the ambitions of the vision, and its claims to success, deserve some serious scrutiny.
ReviewThe Cultivated Wild: Gardens and landscapes by Raymond Jungles
The Cultivated Wild, published by The Monacelli Press, showcases Jungles’ recent projects, revealing remarkable approaches to design thinking with plants.
ReviewHorse Island: A garden of grandeur
Trevor and Christina Kennedy have created a significant and substantial garden on their own private island near Bodalla on the South Coast of New South Wales.
ReviewResponding to the (un)real: Practising in the age of post-truths
Rhys Williams reviews the 2017 Landscape Australia Conference, unpacking a subtext that pervaded the day which spoke to the realities of practising in a world where scientific fact, moral standards and due process seemingly carry little weight.
ReviewRestoring calm: Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon stream
Opened in 2005, the Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration Project “daylighted” a neglected watercourse in the centre of Seoul that was previously covered over by an elevated highway, and prior to that, was basically an open sewer.
ReviewSpring bloom: A postcard from the 2017 Chelsea Garden Show
Howard Tanner visits the oldest and most distinguished garden trade show in the world and finds a breathtaking range of design ideas and plant material.
Review