LANDSCAPE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA
Removing level crossings Rediscovering the Bundian Way Sydney Park stormwater recycling The Lower Mekong Delta
May 2016
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ISSUE 150
06 — PERSPECTIVE A letter from Daniel Bennett, president of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.
08 — NOTICEBOARD New projects, news and events.
18 — REMOVING LEVEL CROSSINGS Assessing the merits of the Victorian Government’s Level Crossing Removal Project.
23 — THE BUNDIAN WAY Traversing some of Australia’s wildest terrain, an ancient 360-plus-kilometre Aboriginal trail celebrates the culture of walking, connectedness to country and connectedness to soul.
30 — WASTE NOT, WANT NOT The Sydney Park Water Re-use Project by Turf Design Studio and Environmental Partnership.
38 — A GRAPHIC APPROACH A collaborative project at Monash University’s Caulfield campus led by Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL).
54 — GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS The Monash University Earth Sciences Garden by Rush\Wright Associates.
63 — TIDAL ECONOMY: THE LOWER MEKONG DELTA Exploring the shifting landscapes along the Mekong River’s labyrinth of tributaries.
71 — CONTRAFLOW Conversations with three Australian expatriate landscape architects emerging within the North American tableau – Richard Weller, Matt Grunbaum and Victoria Marshall.
76 — TAKE ME TO THE RIVER A review of Julian Bolleter’s latest book, Take Me to the River: the Story of Perth’s Foreshore.
82 — SUSIE QUINTON A conversation between Rebecca Millar of AILA Fresh and landscape architecture graduate Susie Quinton.
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elcome to the 150th issue of Landscape Architecture Australia – a significant milestone in the life of the magazine. Originally titled Landscape Australia, it was founded in 1979 by editor Ralph Neale. Amazingly, after thirty-seven years, it remains the only printed periodical concerned with the professions of landscape architecture, urban design and planning in Australia. Over the years, the magazine has grown and matured with the profession of landscape architecture itself and this evolution has gained considerable pace – particularly in the past ten years. From quaint covers through the 1970s and 80s of picturesque parklands, idyllic bush scenes and native gardens to today, where our covers are regularly images of city-shaping landscapes, regional masterplans and projects of international significance, this reflects the stong position landscape architecture now holds within the built environment professions. We will consider this history in greater detail in our November issue as part of AILA’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations, but for now we are keeping our eyes focused firmly on the present. In this issue we take a look at the Victorian Government’s controversial Level Crossing Removal Project. We explore our connection to nature and the soon-to-open Bundian Way walking trail – an ancient Aboriginal track in southern New South Wales. A number of recently completed projects are reviewed, concerned with processes of water recycling, adaptive re-use and immersive learning experiences respectively. And in the next instalment of our Field Trip series, Ben Kronenberg reports on the climate change challenges facing the Lower Mekong Delta. Despite the many changes Landscape Architecture Australia has seen over the past three decades, our core mission remains the same: to document the finest work of a profession dedicated to making our built environments sustainable, ecological, meaningful and beautiful.
46 — BALANCING DETAIL AND STRATEGY Oxigen demonstrates a commitment to distinctive design quality at a mixed-use precinct at a converted car manufacturing plant in Adelaide.
CAMERON BRUHN EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
RICKY RICARDO ASSOCIATE EDITOR
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA
MAY 2016
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CONTRIBUTORS
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR CAMERON BRUHN EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES RICKY RICARDO T +61 3 8699 1000 LANDSCAPE@ARCHMEDIA.COM.AU ASSOCIATE EDITOR RICKY RICARDO
CATHERIN BULL
BENJAMIN KRONENBERG
Catherin Bull is emeritus professor
Benjamin Kronenberg is a
of landscape architecture at the
landscape architect based in
University of Melbourne, adjunct
Sydney, currently practising with
professor at Queensland University
Aspect Studios. His research
of Technology, chair of South Bank
interests interrogate landscapes
Corporation, and a member of the
of water inundation.
SALES DIRECTOR NEIL WILLIAMS SALES MANAGER EVA DIXON SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGERS LANA GOLUBINSKY, VICTORIA HAWTHORNE, LINDY LEAN, SARAH NICOLE LEE
REBECCA MILLAR
ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES ALL STATES ADVERTISING@ARCHMEDIA.COM.AU T +61 3 8699 1000
Building Queensland board and of the Design Directorate of UrbanGrowth NSW.
Having recently graduated with a Masters of Landscape Architecture
JULIAN BULL
and Urban Design, Rebecca Millar
Julian Bull is an ecologist
now works as an urban designer at
and landscape architect.
the Adelaide City Council and is a member of AILA Fresh.
JO RUSSELL-CLARKE Jo Russell-Clarke is a senior lecturer
TANYA COURT
in the School of Architecture and
Tanya Court is a landscape
Built Environment at the University
architect and artist. She is the
of Adelaide.
co-ordinator of the landscape architecture program at the University of Adelaide.
SOPHIE WILKINSON Sophie Wilkinson is a landscape
ALEX GEORGOURAS
architect and writer. She is currently
Alex Georgouras is a landscape
completing an honours degree in
architect at Spackman Mossop
psychology. Her research focuses
Michaels. He is currently
on the relationship between humans
completing postgraduate studies
and nature.
within the field of disaster preparedness and reconstruction at the University of Newcastle.
IAN WOODCOCK Ian Woodcock is an architect and urban designer. His research focuses
CRAIG GUTHRIE
on urban change, sense of place and
Craig Guthrie is a landscape
the use of design as a research
architect and urban designer with
method. He is an associate lecturer
extensive experience in transport
at RMIT University, School of
and public realm projects. He has
Global, Urban and Social Studies.
been involved in Melbourne’s Level Crossing Removal Project, Regional Rail Link and the Flinders Street Station Design Competition.
Cover image Monash University Earth Sciences Garden by Rush\Wright Associates. Photo: Michael Wright
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EDITORIAL TEAM SUSANNAH BUCKLEY, MARY MANN, HANNAH WOLTER PRODUCTION SIMONE WALL COVER DESIGN GORAN RUPENA LAYOUT RICKY RICARDO
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA
MANAGING DIRECTOR IAN CLOSE PUBLISHER SUE HARRIS ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER JACINTA REEDY
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PERSPECTIVE
V
ision and perspective are wonderful things. To have one is productive; to have both is superlative. For one special day in Canberra back in February 2016, AILA reached a milestone. We reached out to Australia and put living cities on the national agenda, arguably the most important piece of collective advocacy that landscape architects in Australia have ever achieved. The Living Cities Alliance was born. AILA facilitated a conversation at the heart of our profession at the highest level, enabling more than fifty like-minded organizations to engage with government directly about the future of our cities. This is something anyone with a passion for better cities can be justifiably proud of. In his opening remarks to those gathered for the Living Cities Alliance Workshop at Parliament House, Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government Paul Fletcher stated, “The policies which affect our cities are policies which affect the vast majority of Australians. The proportion of our populations living in cities is now 89 percent – one of the highest such rates of any country in the world.” He said that just 0.2 percent of Australia generates 80 percent of our gross domestic product. He also said that attracting and retaining people in our cities is one of the federal government’s primary goals for better performing cities. For this to occur, we need healthy cities to power growth. The national narrative on cities has changed remarkably in the past six months, with near bipartisan support for cities as a national priority. With the establishment of Angus Taylor as Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, and the new Cities and Digital Transformation ministry that sits within the Prime Minister’s Office, the government has finally resolved the importance of cities – sitting with the highest office in the government. AILA has a special position in this new policy conversation. The Prime Minister historically opened our 2015 Festival of Landscape Architecture in Melbourne via live video stream, admiring “the vibrancy that landscape architects add to our new suburbs and re-imagined cityscapes” and stating that “how we live our urban lives depends on you [being] the best landscape architects you can be.”
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Shadow Minister for Cities Anthony Albanese has also recognized AILA’s ongoing contribution and leadership in shaping the cities policy agenda in Australia. The Living Cities Alliance continues to form, lead, advocate for and shape the conversation, and represents thousands of allied professionals in shaping greener cities. One of our strengths as a profession is our diversity. While AILA has now established a leading national policy position and major influence on living cities and green infrastructure, we need to turn our minds to how we can achieve real change, assisting industry and government on ways to enact change for the better. Our next opportunity is to shape the policy outcomes and deliver them. Much has been made over the past decade about the measuring and tools available to ensure that green buildings and other sustainable infrastructure are achieved, and we now have the challenge of adding green infrastructure to real and assessable measures. From individuals to governments, there are pragmatic, workable, negotiable goals we can agree on to green our cities and regions, with measurable outcomes. Many of us are already doing it, measuring and espousing the wide range of financial, social and environmental benefits now. AILA has made a significant contribution in a short time to the national conversation on cities, with a clear and simple lens: creating and designing better places for people. This is not a question of environmental values over economic and social values. In fact, it addresses challenges of adaptability, flexibility and agility now to reflect the inevitable changes affecting our cities and regions. But we must continue talking. Our vision is clear. Our perspective is lucid. The next fifty years for AILA and the profession it represents are likely to be exciting.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA
DANIEL BENNETT, AILA NATIONAL PRESIDENT president@aila.org.au
NOTICEBOARD
ADELAIDE FESTIVAL PLAZA The South Australian government has unveiled plans to redevelop the Adelaide Festival Plaza with a design prepared by ARM Architecture and Taylor Cullity Lethlean. The $220 million overhaul of the underused plaza aims to reactivate the space by creating a new, single-level outdoor square. The plaza will wrap around the Adelaide Festival Centre (also to undergo an upgrade, designed by Hassell), connecting it to the River Torrens foreshore. Construction on the new plaza is set to commence in mid-2016. RIVERBANK.SA.GOV.AU
GREVILLE AND KING STREETS IMPROVEMENT PLAN Rush\Wright Associates recently completed designs for the City of Stonnington’s Greville and King Streets Improvement Plan. The project includes a series of street and public realm improvements for Greville and King Streets and Grattan Gardens in Prahran, Victoria. The first stage focuses on reconstruction of the Grattan Gardens interface with Greville Street, where new tree planting and garden renovations draw on the precinct’s former life as a botanic garden in the nineteenth century. Paving, furniture and lighting design pay homage to the more recent history of the 1970s and 80s, when the precinct was home to a thriving local music and fashion scene. Stage 1 construction commenced in early 2016. RUSHWRIGHT.COM
HATCH WINS URBAN TIMBER PROJECT COMPETITION Nicholas Camerer of Fremantle, Western Australia has won the inaugural Intergrain Urban Timber Project for his versatile timber bench design, Hatch. The national design competition was launched by Intergrain and AILA, challenging young Australian landscape and design professionals to design a functional piece of urban furniture for a community garden in Werribee Park, Victoria. Camerer’s winning design was constructed by Street Furniture Australia and unveiled at Werribee Park in April 2016. On the competition jury were Daniel Bennett (AILA), Michelle Herbut (Street Furniture Australia), James Brincat (Parks Victoria) and Amanda Chalmers (Intergrain Timber Finishes). INTERGRAIN.COM.AU
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA
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NOTICEBOARD
TOMORROW LANDSCAPES The International Biennial of Landscape Architecture is a three-day event held in Barcelona. It includes talks, exhibitions and discussions around the evolution of landscape architecture worldwide. This year’s edition – taking place from 29 September to 1 October – presents the theme “Tomorrow Landscapes.” A major component of the event is the Rosa Barba International Landscape Prize, which recognizes an outstanding new landscape architecture project. The judges for the prize have been announced, with James Corner (pictured) named the president of the international jury. Photo: Peden+Munk COAC.NET/LANDSCAPE
ENTRIES OPEN FOR INTERGRAIN TIMBER VISION AWARDS Entries are now open for the 2016 Intergrain Timber Vision Awards. Landscape architects are invited to enter projects that demonstrate creative and innovative use of timber in the Public Space category. Each category winner will receive a $2,000 cash prize, with the Grand Prix winner receiving an additional $2,000. This year, Intergrain is offering a new travel bursary award for design practices with a body of work demonstrating an “inspirational use” of timber. The winning firm will receive $15,000 towards an international study tour. Entries to the awards close on 26 June. Pictured is Jubilee Playground by Sue Barnsley Design, winner of the 2015 Public Space category. Photo: Brett Boardman INTERGRAIN.COM.AU
THE SCIENTIST IN THE GARDEN The thirty-seventh annual conference of the Australian Garden History Society will examine the theme of “The Scientist in the Garden.” Taking place in Canberra, the conference will highlight the national capital’s importance as a centre for plant science innovation. A line up of scientist historians will take delegates on a journey covering Indigenous Australians use of fire in the landscape and the past two hundred years of scientific research in the field, exploring the influence on Australian gardening. In addition to the lecture components, delegates will be invited to visit historic gardens in Canberra and the south coast of New South Wales. GARDENHISTORYSOCIETY.ORG.AU
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AGENDA
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REMOVING LEVEL CROSSINGS
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA
A current program of the Victorian Government to remove fifty level crossings in Melbourne has generated much community debate. Here, Landscape Architecture Australia presents two perspectives on the urban design and public realm potentials of the project.
AGENDA
LEVELLING ON THE LANDSCAPE VALUE OF RAIL CORRIDORS TEXT CRAIG GUTHRIE
M
elbourne has a high number of level crossings compared to other cities in Australia, and they’re a major cause of road congestion and danger to pedestrians. Removal of these crossings is a high priority for the Victorian Government, which plans to remove fifty of the most dangerous level crossings in Melbourne over the next eight years, with at least twenty removals by 2018. The level crossing at Burke Road, Glen Eris was recently removed, with the rail line lowered below the road, and other removals are currently under design or construction. Designs for the nine level crossing removals between Caulfield and Dandenong, on the Cranbourne–Pakenham line, feature elevated sections of rail and the transformation of “Melbourne’s busiest rail corridor into public open space.” While generally there is community support for rail-under-road crossing replacements, plans for replacing these nine crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong with a “sky rail” have been met with concern by some members of the community and local government. Some have argued that elevated rail lines would create a public eyesore, pose safety concerns or divide communities. But while these plans have proved controversial, rail-over-road potentially provides not just many construction and operational advantages, but also urban design and public realm benefits that should be weighed carefully when assessing their value. Beyond improving public safety and relieving traffic congestion by removing the barriers that level crossings impose, these projects also allow trains to run more frequently and open up possibilities for urban renewal – often including new or revitalized train stations. There may be opportunities to improve community connectivity, reconnect once-divided high streets and create new parkland and civic spaces for town centres. There are also opportunities to improve the quality of the long corridors of land between train stations. Lowering tracks below roads in cuttings, however, involves significant excavation and removal of established vegetation. The cuttings themselves take up space and are usually lined with shotcrete – an environmentally problematic material that is less than visually appealing. There are also project
1. The design for Murrumbeena Station by Cox Architecture is part of a proposal to replace nine level crossings along the Cranbourne-Pakenham line with a “sky rail.” Image: Level Crossing Removal Authority 2. Remnant vegetation along the St Albans rail corridor. Lowering tracks below roads in cuttings involves significant excavation and removal of established vegetation. Photo: Craig Guthrie
requirements to increase the capacity of station car parking, CCTV cameras (sensitive to tree canopies) and new signalling cable routes (sensitive to tree roots). Additionally, vegetation management guidelines suggest that new tree planting must be offset from the rail centre line by a distance equal to the mature height of the tree. This very conservative approach to safety and asset protection is not conducive to substantial revegetation. Elevating tracks above roads presents some issues and challenges, such as visual prominence and overshadowing and overlooking of some adjacent properties. However, with this approach there is less impact on existing vegetation and less ground-level land taken up by rail infrastructure. The spaces created can accommodate shared-use paths and public open space for recreation facilities, car parking and in some cases commercial or retail opportunities. Elevated rail also allows better connectivity between communities. As our cities become denser and space more valuable, it’s time we unlocked the hidden potential of rail corridors. Regardless of whether the rail is over or below the road, rail corridors are undervalued spaces that have the potential to be more active, ecologically sensitive and amenable. Typically, corridors have buffers of unmaintained vegetation on either side of the tracks that vary in width and landscape quality. They are generally vegetated by an assortment of opportunistic weeds as well as remnant natural vegetation. In many of these areas there are valuable ecological corridors with established native trees and remnant protected grasslands, which have survived →
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AGENDA
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in spite of, or perhaps because of, their neglect. These corridors generally line the back fences of properties and are rarely considered part of the public realm, if considered at all – until recently. Improving safe, off-road bicycle networks has brought into focus the significance of leftover linear spaces – such as creek corridors, freeway buffers and rail corridors – in linking our suburbs. Government agencies are now committed to providing cycling facilities wherever major transport infrastructure investments are being made. The level crossing removal projects are no exception, and shared-use paths are being implemented along the corridors of all projects. This is a positive inclusion – transforming these linear spaces into connected, active-transit corridors. It also means the corridors need to provide a more interactive landscape experience than before. With their elevated status as spaces for active transport, car parking and stations, it is now more important that these corridors are not considered as leftover space and are instead given attention to reach their full potential in providing better visual amenity, ecological contribution, water sensitive urban design, shade and heat island reduction. The sensitivity surrounding the Caulfield to Dandenong rail corridor project and others like it places an imperative on delivering truly valuable landscape solutions – handled properly, these projects could create more attractive, liveable and sustainable urban communities along the rail corridor.
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THE UNTAPPED LANDSCAPE POTENTIAL OF URBAN VIADUCTS TEXT IAN WOODCOCK
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any will associate landscape architecture and viaducts with the phenomenal success of New York’s High Line, Paris’s Promenade Plantée and a host of similar projects for disused elevated railway lines in places like Chicago, Philadelphia and St Louis. However, the space beneath urban viaducts, especially those with working railways, may hold even greater potential for much larger transformations of our cities. It also holds opportunities for leadership by urban designers and landscape architects. Sydney ’s Skytrain is being built in the north-western suburbs, and Brisbane’s Airtrain has been serving the city’s airport since 2001. Recently, the February 2016 announcement by the Victorian Government of a $1.6 billion “sky rail” to replace nine
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level crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong, on Melbourne’s busiest rail line, put viaducts in the news in Melbourne. For many residents along the affected corridor, elevated rail is feared as a visual and noisy blight, causing property values to decline, its undercrofts seen as places that attract undesirable people. Popular and professional views have often aligned thus: elevated rail is commonly seen as a cheap and technically easy but unpalatable solution to vexed infrastructure questions. In support of “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY) disapproval, the naysayers cite evidence, especially from road overpasses, of neglected spaces showing a lack or failure of design and maintenance. Melbourne has almost unique circumstances for a capital city in a developed country: at the end of the
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA
“... the primary benefit of elevated rail is the release of significant corridors of public land: a domain where landscape architects and urban designers are best placed to lead.”
AGENDA
nineteenth century, Melbourne’s extensive rail system allowed it to spread further than any other comparable city. Now the system is decades behind, with a legacy of more than one hundred and seventy level crossings causing traffic congestion that constrains train frequency. The need to remove level crossings is urgent, but since the 1990s, sinking lines in trenches had become the default solution. Trenching rail is expensive, but has none of the benefits of (even more expensive) tunnelling. Trenching reinforces social and environmental severance and has increasingly required significant vegetation removal, reinforcing the marginal status of rail reserves. Apart from eliminating crossings, its main appeal is to those who prefer railway infrastructure to have minimal visibility. NIMBYism and general lack of imagination aside, there are considerable benefits to be gained from elevated rail, beyond the extension and upgrading of urban rail capacity. It allows for minimal disruption to traffic and trains during construction, as well as more efficient rail operations. In addition to these benefits, long recognized by rail engineers, there are much broader urban design, landscape and planning benefits that have been little appreciated until very recently. Beyond increasing rail and road capacities, the primary benefit of elevated rail is the release of significant corridors of public land: a domain where landscape architects and urban designers are best placed to lead. For example, the much-touted “eleven MCGs-worth” of new public open space along the Dandenong railway corridor is the reserve held by VicTrack. Yet it is not just this land that can open up, but also its connection to land along its edges. Arguably, the viaduct design should come after the ground plane has been worked through. The engineering should be shaped to accommodate and foster the preferred intersections of land use, movement patterns, ecology, vegetation and heritage with processes of placemaking, economic development and long-term planning for demographic change. History shows that viaduct undercrofts can accommodate many different uses. In central Paris, street markets have long existed beneath elevated sections of the Métro; in Berlin, bike paths run beneath many U-Bahn viaducts. In cities such as London and Tokyo, rail viaducts have accommodated warehousing, light industry, offices, studios, galleries, recreation, restaurants and retailing, making them an integral part of lively street networks. Like any urban space, edge conditions are important. When land in rail reserves is released for elevated rail, what were backs can become fronts,
dramatically changing land use potentials. This is important within activity centres around stations, but also for the residential or employment precincts between them, whose access to the station can be improved. In many suburban areas, more public open space is the likely foreseeable future, and elevated rail creates opportunities for substantial landscape corridors, offering broader connectivity for people and ecosystems. These ideas are globally topical. For example, James Corner Field Operations’ Underline project will create sixteen kilometres of park and urban trail below a section of elevated rail in Miami; Renzo Piano is working on revitalizing an undercroft in outer suburban Rome; the Radbahn project aims to create nine kilometres of covered bikeway beneath Berlin’s U1 railway; Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority last year received 158 entries for an ideas competition to revitalize a former railway; and Boston’s transportation department is seeking proposals for spaces beneath its elevated roadways. Where are such projects for Australian cities? Elevated rail substantially reframes grade separation projects well beyond engineering. In the long run, many more level crossings across Melbourne will need to be removed, to fully enhance train frequency. This will impact up to 150 kilometres of rail line. With the right levels of landscape architecture and urban design input, this could represent a remarkable opportunity for urban renewal and the reconnection of ecosystems and communities.
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3. A complex level crossing at Burke Road, Glen Iris, involving a major road, train line and tramline, was removed via a rail-under-road solution, including the reconstruction of Gardiner Station below street level. Photo: Level Crossing Removal Authority 4. A linear park designed by Aspect Studios would be created underneath an elevated section of the proposed “sky rail.” Image: Level Crossing Removal Authority 5. The proposed Underline project by James Corner Field Operations would transform the underused land below Miami’s Metrorail into a sixteenkilometre linear park, urban trail and living art destination. Image: James Corner Field Operations 6. Radbahn is a community-driven proposal to establish a nine-kilometre bicycle path under an existing rail viaduct in Berlin. Image: Radbahn
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THE BUNDIAN WAY
Traversing some of Australia’s wildest terrain, this ancient 360-plus-kilometre Aboriginal trail celebrates the culture of walking, connectedness to country and connectedness to soul.
TEXT SOPHIE WILKINSON
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ypically, for landscape architects, the term “landscape” brings to mind a swirling gallery of definitions. These definitions – collected over time, project after project – add to our mental library, shaping the way we define the term that defines our profession. From high-profile parklands to bespoke residential gardens, “landscape” has come to refer to clearly defined pockets of outdoor space in which we are engaged to create useable, functional and aesthetically pleasing designs. But what about the ancient, wild landscapes of the remainder of the continent we call home? What of the landscapes that are unbounded, untamed, undefined? The landscapes that do not need us to manipulate, push and pull at them, creating levels, layers, making our mark. Is there a role for landscape architects as stewards of this wide brown land of ours? The Australian wilderness comprises some of the most unique and diverse landscapes in the world, from Western Australia’s Bungle Bungle Range to the Northern Territory’s Kakadu National Park. Beyond the aesthetic these landscapes are layered with a network of ancient walking tracks that contain the tales of the world’s oldest living civilization. For Australia’s first inhabitants these ancient pathways are not only physical tracks, they are also “songlines,” dreaming tracks of both foot and soul. For the magic
of a path lies in the way it is discovered – through our feet. Not defined by ownership or law, their protection and maintenance is the responsibility of all those who call this land home. These ancient pathways are in themselves custodians of our past, guarding the history of our land – they are landscapes of the human heart. Prior to the invention of cars and sealed roads, ancient paths were walked and experienced at a slower pace, allowing time for the landscape to unfold and reveal itself and, in doing so, permitting the walker time to think, inspiring personal growth and opening a dialogue between land and mind. Pathways are, therefore, a journey onwards as well as inwards. In our increasingly fast-paced world, the realization of this notion has never been more relevant. As our lives move online and indoors it is ever more important to take the time to truly connect to the ground we walk on, reorientating ourselves towards the inner landscape of our soul. Many a naturalist writer and poet has found in Europe and Asia ancient routes about which to write and wax lyrical, yet here in Australia the lack of concrete bricks-and-mortar evidence means our ancient routes go unnoticed. However, the soon-to-be opened Bundian Way, located in south-east New South Wales, tells a different story. Predating both the
“In discovering the Bundian Way we uncover a pathway back in time, as well as a pathway to reconciliation in the future.”
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Silk Road and the paving of the Roman Empire, the Bundian Way Aboriginal trail is thought to be more than forty thousand years old and traverses some of Australia’s wildest terrain. The 360-plus-kilometre route tracks from Targangal (Mount Kosciuszko) to Bilgalera (Fisheries Beach) in Tullemullerer (Twofold Bay) and was historically used by the local Aboriginal people to link the Monaro Tablelands to the coast. Notably, it enabled Aboriginal people to make the long journey west to the Snowy Mountains for the Bogong moth season in summer, as well as east for the whaling season in springtime. Then, when European settlers arrived, Aboriginal people used the ancient route to guide them through the wild countryside. This large tract of land gives a snapshot of a continent that is wild, rugged and diverse. It captures seasonal and regional change in one sweeping gesture. As snowstorms cover the highest peaks of Mount Kosciuszko in cloaks of winter white, foamy waves crash on the shores of Twofold Bay. In one year this path may weather drought severe enough to run rivers dry, then be inundated with life-giving floods, only to be scorched dry once more by raging fire. Plant species found here tell tales of wind and water patterns as they drift across the valleys, carpeting the landscape in a patchwork of colour. →
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1. Old parish maps give clues to the old landscape with names and the location of the Bundian Way. Image: Nullica Parish Map, 1st edition, 1885 2. The trail as it leads to The Big Boggy – an Alpine creek valley just south of Thredbo, New South Wales. Photo: John Blay 3. A group surveying the Bundian Way overlook its route east toward the Monaro and Tingiringi, on the New South Wales-Victoria border. Photo: John Blay 4. On its way to the coast the Bundian Way crosses the Snowy River and passes through some of the wildest, most rugged landscapes in Australia. Photo: John Blay 5. The Bundian Way, between the tablelands and the coast, passes through tall forest along a very old road reserve near the Bundian Pass. Photo: John Blay
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AGENDA
6. Fisheries Beach (Bilgalera) in southeastern New South Wales marks the eastern end of the Bundian Way. Photo: John Blay
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In discovering the Bundian Way we uncover a pathway back in time, as well as a pathway to reconciliation in the future. By tracing the footsteps of our predecessors and unearthing our shared history we are participating in the creation of a new way of interacting with each other and our landscape. The Bundian Way is both an acknowledgement of the connection between Aboriginal people and the land, and a celebration of the shared history between Australia’s first inhabitants and later European settlers. It celebrates the culture of walking, of connectedness to country, of connectedness to soul. It is proof that in this modern day the old ways still remain. The Bundian Way was the first Aboriginal pathway to be given heritage status, an accomplishment achieved in 2013 through the combined efforts of chief project officer John Blay (who has published a valuable book on the subject), the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council and the Aboriginal community, notably B. J. Cruse and Uncle Ossie Cruse. This team has been working tirelessly since 2003 to survey (on foot), map and gather information from myriad geographical, historical and Indigenous sources, all in search of “the Way.” At the time of writing, the Bundian Way is set to be open in parts over 2016, a masterplan has been developed and architect Glenn Murcutt has been
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commissioned to design the architectural structures. Yet lack of government funding for public infrastructure means that there is still a way to go in opening the Bundian Way to the public, enabling it to be experienced and promoted, as it so deserves. Such projects speak to the very heart of the landscape architect. Beyond the allure of the well-funded, high-profile commercial project, there are those that strike a more emotional, human chord, and it’s those projects that we should be participating in to continually reinvigorate and strengthen our profession. And so these questions must be asked: Are we doing enough to educate ourselves on the lore of our land? Are we achieving success as mediators of the relationship between human and nature? Along with striving for environmental awareness, are we also striving to be conscious of the culture and history of our Australian landscape?
Further reading John Blay, On Track: Searching out the Bundian Way (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2015). John Blay, “Pathways of the ancestors,” Australian Geographic, vol 92, Oct–Dec 2008, 44–45. John Blay, “Moving forward: After its listing on the New South Wales Heritage Register, can the 365 km Bundian Way bring benefits to the Aboriginal community?” Historic Environment, vol 26 issue 1, 2014, 34–44. John Blay and Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council, “Report on a survey of the Bundian Way 2010–2011,” The Bundian Way website, bundianway.com.au/bundian_survey.htm (accessed 15 February 2016).
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Û>ÌiÊÜ Ì Ê v `i Vi
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WASTE NOT, WANT NOT Occupying a former landfill site, the Sydney Park Water Re-use Project is an impressive fusion of design, science, art and ecology. TEXT RICKY RICARDO PHOTOGRAPHY ETHAN ROHLOFF, SIMON WOOD
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Sydney Park Water Re-use Project, Sydney, New South Wales — Turf Design Studio and Environmental Partnership
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E
ver since I can remember I’ve been mesmerized by the behaviour of water, particularly stormwater and floodwater. I enjoy walking in my neighbourhood after a significant downpour to see the effects the rain has had on the urban landscape. I’m always excited to find points where drainage infrastructure has been overwhelmed and ephemeral streams and ponds emerge – not because I like seeing things fail, but because I appreciate the presence of something that the bulk of our urban infrastructure is designed to conceal, to hide below the surface in pipes and drains and expel out to sea as fast as possible. In this sense, I was lucky to visit Sydney Park’s new water re-use project in wet weather, witnessing firsthand its masterful choreography of stormwater. The project, a collaboration between landscape architects Turf Design Studio and Environmental Partnership, working closely with the City of Sydney, is Sydney’s largest stormwater harvesting and water re-use facility. It is part of the city’s ambition to deliver 30 percent of its water demand from recycled water by 2030.1 Sydney Park itself is a comparatively new park, with an interesting yet familiar land-use history. The area was home to a major brickworks from the late nineteenth century, located here because of the rich alluvial soils and clay beds. In 1948, the City of Sydney Council began dumping waste in the deep clay pits that were left over from brickmaking.2 The brickworks operated until 1970, and the site was used as a tip and for a range of other industrial uses until 1991, when it was finally capped with a layer of clay and soil. In the
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mid 1990s it was rehabilitated to public parkland – its design characterized by an indigenous plant palette, lagoons and rolling green hills. Parts of the historic brickworks were retained, including three towering chimneys on the park’s north-western corner. In more recent times the park has seen a number of enhancements, including Sydney Park Playground by JMD Design, with a kiosk and amenities buildings by architecture practice Stanic Harding. The Sydney Park water re-use project has transformed what was a chain of four perfectly pleasant wetland ponds into a sophisticated piece of green infrastructure. The main stormwater drain from Sydney’s Newtown, which ran through the park to Alexandra Canal, was intercepted and “plugged in” to the system, expanding the lagoons’ catchment. The maximum volume of water that the system can capture for treatment in a year is equivalent to 340 Olympic-sized swimming pools and it’s hoped that the non-potable water can be sold to surrounding industry.3 The City of Sydney plans to eventually link it to a municipal-wide recycled water network as part of its Decentralised Water Master Plan. When approaching the water re-use project from the north, the first thing you notice is the integrated artwork Water Falls by artists Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford. The artwork was built from a number of open terracotta pipes – a nod to the site’s history as a brickworks – supported above the top lagoon by steel legs. Water Falls stands at the mouth of the system, delivering water that is reticulated from the lowest of the four lagoons. The piece seems to defy gravity with a cleverly hidden trick that →
1. The Sydney Park Water Re-use Project has transformed what was a chain of four wetland ponds into a sophisticated piece of green infrastructure. 2. A commanding feature of the park is its historic brick kilns, a remnant of the site’s industrial history. 3. Integrated artwork Water Falls by artists Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford delivers reticulated water to the Wirrambi Wetland.
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The Green Wirrambi Wetland Guwali Wetland Bunmarra Wetland Gilbanung Wetland
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SYDNEY PARK PLAN (NOT TO SCALE)
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4. A bifurcated Corten steel viaduct is calibrated according to the capacity of each of the two bioretention beds it delivers water to. 5. The gully space is deďŹ ned by gabion terraces and concrete spillways, offering nature play opportunities for kids. 6. Materials that reference the site’s industrial history are found throughout the project. 7. Water Falls by artists Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford. A cleverly concealed trick allows water to spill from both ends of its leaning pipes.
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PROJECT Sydney Park Water Re-use Project LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Turf Design Studio and Environmental Partnership (TDEP) PROJECT TEAM Mike Horne, Adam Hunter, Scott Ibbotson, John Newman, Michelle Parkin, Claire Broun, Ryland Fox, Hussain Karori CLIENT City of Sydney LEAD CONTRACTOR Design Landscapes WATER, ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEER Alluvium PUBLIC ARTIST Turpin and Crawford Studio (Jennifer Turpin, Michaelie Crawford, Konrad Hartmann) ECOLOGY Dragonfly Environmental STRUCTURAL ENGINEER Partridge, Arup LIGHTING AND ELECTRICAL Lighting Art and Science IRRIGATION HydroPlan SOILS INVESTIGATION SESL Australia ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT A. D. Envirotech Australia TIME SCHEDULE Design, documentation: 12 months Construction: 15 months
allows water to spill from both sides of its leaning pipes. At the southern end of the top lagoon the topography closes in, giving way to a gully space defined by gabion terraces and concrete spillways, designed as a sort of nature playspace for kids. Mature palms tower out of dense plantings of native shrubs and ferns on either side of the gully. Sandstone stepping-stones create a path between each side, their surfaces almost flush with the level of the water. I lingered here for a while, listening to the sound of falling water and watching the ripples make their way across the surface to where I stood in the centre of the waterway. Below the gully the landscape opens up, revealing a second arm of the wetland system. The topography isn’t as steep here, and a number of bioretention beds, designed with environmental consultant Alluvium, flank the central lagoons. These are the livers of the project, their carefully designed soil profiles filtering pollutants from water as it is reticulated through. The beds are densely planted with native grass genera such as dianella, ficinia, carex and juncus and the occasional tree. Mike Horne, the project’s director, explains that plant growth here has been slower than in other parts of the park due to the soil’s extremely low nutrient levels, required for the soil to act adequately as a filter. Grasses have been mass planted in a patchwork of colour and texture. At the threshold of each water-level change a number of bespoke sculptural elements not only facilitate the passage of water from one area to the next, but also reference the history of the site in their materiality. At the eastern lagoon water enters via a bifurcated Corten steel viaduct that was calibrated according to the capacity of each of the two bioretention beds it delivers water to. Water exits the beds in an equally spectacular fashion. Tri-directional viaducts of open terracotta pipe, also designed by Turpin and Crawford, are supported by steel legs and reach out into the depths of the lagoons, where they spill their flows. These artful elements throughout the system lend the place a calm, meditative atmosphere reminiscent of a Japanese garden, while also
reinforcing a vernacular that references the site’s industrial history as a brickworks. For a park bordered by roads, the traffic-choked Princes Highway brushing up against its north-western shoulder, there is a surprising sense of calm here. This is thanks to the site’s topography and dense border plantings. However, considerable noise does come from above, with a constant stream of jets on course to land at nearby Sydney Airport. Beside the second-lowest lagoon an area has been discreetly fenced off to protect wildlife from the many dogs that frequent Sydney Park – as well as pests such as foxes and feral cats – but is still accessible to visitors via a couple of small gates. Here, ecologist Dragonfly Environmental has designed a number of cute habitat structures from burnt-out tree stumps, clay pipes and other recycled materials to promote biodiversity. As I complete a loop of the project, the machine nature of this landscape becomes more apparent. This is a vast working ecology, augmenting and celebrating the processes of nature to deliver environmental benefits that stretch far beyond what is immediately visible. Importantly, this project manages to strengthen the connection between people and nature by bringing nature, culture, community and infrastructure together in the city. And with climate change predictions of more irregular rainfall patterns in south-eastern Australia, Sydney Park demonstrates the kind of integrated approach needed to prepare our cities for the century ahead.
1. City of Sydney, “Decentralised Water Master Plan 2012–2030,” City of Sydney website, 6 July 2012, cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/vision/ towards-2030/sustainability/water-management (accessed 26 February 2016). 2. City of Sydney, “History of Sydney Park,” City of Sydney website, 23 December 2015, cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/learn/sydneyshistory/people-and-places/park-histories/sydney-park (accessed 26 February 2016). 3. Design 100, “2015 Sydney Design Awards,” design100.com/syd15/ entry_details.asp?ID=14056&Category_ID=7034 (accessed 29 February 2016).
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8. Tri-directional viaducts of open terracotta pipe, designed by Turpin and Crawford, are supported by steel legs and reach out into the depths of the lagoons, where they spill their flows. 9. Sandstone stepping stones create a path between each side of the gully, their surfaces almost flush with the level of the water. Photography: 1: Ethanrohloffaerial.com 3,5: Scott Ibbotson 2,4,6,8–9: Simon Wood 7: Adam Hunter
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A GRAPHIC APPROACH This collaborative project has established connectivity between buildings and transport hubs at Monash University’s Caulfield campus, while providing a landscape design that engages both the mind and the body. TEXT JULIAN BULL PHOTOGRAPHY ANDREW LLOYD, JOHN GOLLINGS
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Monash University Caulfield Campus Green, Melbourne, Victoria — Taylor Cullity Lethlean
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reative collaboration is rife on the recently completed one-hectare Monash University Caulfield Campus Green in Melbourne. Most noticeably, the Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL) landscape masterplan incorporates Agatha Gothe-Snape’s large utilitarian artwork, The Scheme was a Blueprint for Future Development Programs (2015); the Sound Shell performance space by Mesne Design Studio with whole-of-project involvement by architecture students at Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA) and the University of Kassel, Germany; and a water sensitive urban design feature by environmental consultant DesignFlow. The Green also displays the continued successful partnership of TCL and Paul Thompson in creating landscapes featuring ecotypic mass plantings of Australian natives. TCL’s landscape design has established connectivity between the surrounding campus buildings and transport hubs while providing ample ground for the gamut of activities required of outdoor space. The generous timber decking occupying the southern area of the Green is interspersed with a jacaranda grove above colourful, mutable seats and barbecue facilities. Adjacent to the deck is an extensive, slightly sunken lawn, bordered to the north by the linear water feature running parallel with the east–west walk transecting the length of the Green. Contrasting with the green of the lawn is the blue of The Scheme, which occupies the northern section of the site, both playing on and leapfrogging the staid asphalt playgrounds of yesteryear. The evenly segmented spine of the water feature
effectively segregates The Scheme from the rest of the Green, while providing for the treatment and harvesting of stormwater from the site – it supplies more than 75 percent of the Green’s water usage. Much consideration has been given to incorporating a wide variety of aquatic plants in the water feature, including species adapted to tolerate severe climatic conditions in the unirrigated raised garden filter beds. According to TCL, the feature element alludes to Monash University’s pioneering research on water-sensitive cities and nods, albeit sadly, to the original wetlands that occupied the area. Such plaintive symbolism recalls Hargreaves Associates’ University of Cincinnati Campus Green, Ohio (1989–2000), whose braided paths make similar nostalgic reference to a stream that once ran across the site. The water feature is centrally punctuated, passing beneath a generous Corten steel-rimmed, semicircular timber deck situated beneath the canopy of a mature, pre-existing red flowering gum (Corymbia ficifolia), providing students with a spot for shaded inertia. The tree stands at the intersection of the north–south walk and the east–west walk, the latter of which unites the adjacent train station, carpark and entrance with the new library, extolled by the university as the heart of the campus. Further accentuating the linearity of the east–west axis are elongated bench seats for spectators of activities performed on The Scheme, and rows of trees, one along the southern edge of the basketball court, the other staggered along the lawn edge abutting the water feature, helping to enclose the lawn and giving resonance to an auditorium in front of the Sound Shell. →
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1. The new Campus Green is a collaborative project hosting a large utilitarian artwork, a performance space, a linear water feature and ecotypic mass plantings of Australian natives. 2. A linear water feature, which treats and harvests stormwater from the site, runs parallel to the east-west pathway along the length of the Campus Green. 3. The landscape design hosts a myriad of activities as well as providing connectivity between surrounding campus buildings and transport hubs.
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MONASH UNIVERSITY CAULFIELD CAMPUS GREEN PLAN 1:2500
An integral element in TCL’s masterplan, the Sound Shell is a multipurpose performance space that underscores the synergetic nature of the Green. Comprising more than twelve thousand robotically fabricated panels of timber and Corian, it is positioned at the eastern end of the site, nestled among a row of mature gums. Facing the length of the green, utilizing the tiered sweep of the adjacent deck and in close proximity to the bar and bistro, the Sound Shell is well situated to stage events and entertain gatherings. However, the most intriguing feature of the Green is Gothe-Snape’s specially commissioned, integrated artwork. The Scheme recalls to mind Room 4.1.3’s Garden of Australian Dreams (1997–2001) at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, with its geometrically charged ground plane inscriptions entangled with historical significations. Both have concern for the mapping and navigation of destinies, in stimulating individual consciousness around a journey within the collective narrative. Where The Scheme differs from Garden of Australian Dreams is in an ahistorical freedom to inscribe on a tabula rasa, unencumbered by the need to reference the national struggle of conscience that permeates Garden of
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Australian Dreams. The visual cleanness of The Scheme’s primary blue, delineated by white stripes and letters, reinforces the inherent playfulness of the game spaces. The work’s purity is enhanced by the simplicity derived from its abutment to TCL’s stainless steel-edged planter areas, elongated bench seats and adjoining hard surfaces. Gothe-Snape’s design evokes the unadulterated essence of cyanotype photography and Rod Laver Arena’s Plexicushion surface, while capturing the spatial character of a children’s traffic education training ground. Contained between a pair of unbroken white lines, the largest lettered words circumambulate The Scheme, requiring the reader to walk along them in order to spell them out. These words, such as “worries,” “memories,” “plans” and “fantasies,” appear to be aimed at provoking individual psychological or emotional responses. Additional words for static contemplation are placed across the interior plane either individually, as a ring or in a radius. Gothe-Snape and TCL have included vertical elements necessary for sporting activities within The Scheme. Besides the obvious basketball and volleyball infrastructure, two Cloud Foosball Tables designed by
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“[The water feature] alludes to Monash University’s pioneering research on water-sensitive cities and nods, albeit sadly, to the original wetlands that occupied the area.”
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Tim Collins and three yellow Popp steel table tennis tables are serried in the playground. On the tops of the latter, Gothe-Snape has deployed proper nouns diagonally opposite each other: “The Leader” with “The Thinker,” “The Joker” with “The Medium” and “The Guardian” with “The Visitor.” The coupling of sport with the mind games that can be elicited from the words inserted within The Scheme’s field of play marks a progression, in scale and conceptual realization, in Gothe-Snape’s art. Ideas concerning the viewer’s ambulation developed in the earlier works Wrong Solo: Cruising at Primavera (with Brian Fuata, 2010) and We all walk out in the end (2012) have now been let loose outside gallery confines to stretch their legs in the open. TCL has succeeded in providing a distinct, multifarious and efficient landscape that fulfils the cerebral and physical requirements expected in a university environment. In particularly, the collaboration with Gothe-Snape has resulted in an imaginative and seamless integration of public art within the traditional recreational sphere of campus open space.
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4. The sweeping blue form of The Scheme by GotheSnape is delineated by white stripes and letters – integrating public art with recreational facilities. 5. A wide variety of aquatic plants have been used in the water feature – a nod to Monash University’s research on water-sensitive cities as well as the original wetlands.
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PROJECT Monash University Caulfield Campus Green PRACTICE Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL) PROJECT TEAM Perry Lethlean, Elly Russell, Jim McGuinness, Jake Lindsay, Anne-Marie Pisani, Sokchhay Ke
6. The extensive, slightly sunken lawn is bordered by a curved timber deck that folds up to provide both a table surface and bench seating for the students. 7. Various colourful seating arrangements can be configured within the grove of jacarandas at the southern edge of the Green. Photography: 1–2: John Gollings 3–7: Andrew Lloyd
HORTICULTURIST Paul Thompson COST PLANNER WT Partnership ARBORIST Glenn Waters IRRIGATION LIS
CLIENT Monash University
TURF SportsTurf Consultants
CONSTRUCTION 2Construct
DDA CONSULTANT Philip Chun
STRUCTURAL AND CIVIL ENGINEER Kersulting
WAYFINDING Buro North
SERVICES ENGINEER Irwinconsult
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN Adherettes
WATER SENSITIVE URBAN DESIGN DesignFlow
TRAFFIC ENGINEERING Cardno
LIGHTING Electrolight
ARCHITECTURE (SOUNDSHELL) Mesne Design Studio with Monash Art Design and Architecture and the University of Kassel, Germany
ARTIST Agatha Gothe-Snape
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BALANCING DETAIL AND STRATEGY With a long-term vision to encourage creative research and innovation, this mixed-use precinct at a converted car manufacturing plant in Adelaide demonstrates a commitment to distinctive design quality. TEXT JO RUSSELL-CLARKE
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Tonsley, Adelaide, South Australia — Oxigen
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T
he first thing you usually hear about Tonsley is how big it is. Part business park, part higher education campus, at an overall sixty-one hectares it is indeed quite large, but not a particularly extensive example of either of these landscape types nor of post-industrial sites in general. Of course, the retained eight-hectare roof of the Mitsubishi Motors Main Assembly Building (MAB) is an unmissable structure and so architects perhaps feel things are oversized. What is mightily impressive about this project is less its physical footprint than its relatively unusual and ambitious mix of programs and generous development timeframe, as well as a detailed, documented commitment to distinctive design quality throughout. The masterplan for the twenty-year redevelopment of Tonsley was approved by State Cabinet in 2012. Recent decades of instant mega-project development have centred largely on short-term, retail-focused investment returns (think outer-suburban shopping malls and depot-style warehouse outlets), or residential subdivision (think, well, suburbia, but also the raft of opportunistic mediumand high-density infill pockets). The longer-term vision of a mixed-use precinct committed to the growth of a community working on advanced
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manufacturing, innovative technologies and collaborative research, education and training is exactly the sort of visionary profiling that large projects once seemed to command, abandoned under the pressures of conservative fiscal risk-aversion. Tonsley is only twelve kilometres from the centre of Adelaide and the airport, proof of the aphorism that everything is only twenty minutes away in Adelaide, in this case whether by car, bus or train. Its own minibus circles the site and connects to transport and facilities beyond. A well-populated website (tonsley.com) is kept current and consistently reports on milestones and achievements. The considerable budget, consisting of both public and private investment, intends to drive sensitive transformation not only of the site but also of South Australia’s economic and new technology fortunes. Not unusually, landscape architects are leading contributors to strategic site organization and the development of documents ensuring that long-term, staggered, stalled or brisk opportunistic growth throughout the entire precinct will be physically and materially coherent and legible. Oxigen is the primary consultant responsible for the overall masterplan with Woods Bagot, producing the suite of guiding documents. These include the overarching →
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1. Central to the sixty-one hectares that Tonsley encompasses is the retained eight-hectare roof of the Mitsubishi Motors Main Assembly Building (MAB). 2. A series of initial insertions under the expansive frame of the sawtooth MAB by Oxigen draw visitors into “an intimate engagement with quirky bespoke elements.” 3. The central light-welled urban forest brings together rich planting and sculptures – including Corten steel “trees,” a pillared “arbour” screen and “misting trunks.”
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4. The MAB during peak operations. The site has played a monumental role in South Australia’s manufacturing history. 5. Mitsubishi ceased operations at Tonsley in 2008. The South Australian government bought Tonsley in 2010 with the idea of creating a manufacturing and industry cluster, to help facilitate the state’s technology transition.
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urban design protocol and manuals for the three main domains (the public domain manual, the sitewide public realm development manual and the MAB development manual), as well as strategies for aspects of each of these domains, their distinct materiality and formal gestures. The most influential of the more detailed strategies to date include those for open space, streets and landscape elements. These have already set, and will continue to guide, delivery of the public realm projects. The suite of documents compiles some fascinating site research and sound urban design precedents, offering a persuasive rationale for formal, material and element choices. However, as well as this thorough, essential guidance, Oxigen has detailed and delivered several built projects – examples of the effectiveness of the strategic work. These elements are striking. The central feature and core achievement of the Tonsley redevelopment has been the maintenance of the south-facing sawtooth frame of the MAB. Under the extraordinary expanse of the MAB roof, a series of initial insertions compel attention, drawing visitors and users into an intimate engagement with quirky bespoke elements and delivering on the promise of placemaking and community interaction. The light-welled urban “forests” in particular are delightful. The central forest is an extravagant complex of raised and retained beds of diverse, rich planting. It also features the immediate impact of Corten steel sculptures, including canopy “trees” and a pillared “arbour” screen. The seating areas incorporate at least ten different seat types, including the
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sculpted log of a site eucalypt, designed by Gray Hawk. The star attraction is the “misting trunks.” Designed by Matt Jonsson in conjunction with Oxigen, the gnarled hollow stumps intermittently exude a fine eruption of cooling mist, intriguingly visible from the far MAB entry points. The nearby leafy shade of the central plaza serves as a meeting and refreshment area adjacent to a cafe, with upstairs seating affording appreciation of the suspended lighting and greenery from above. Two stepped and ramped western entrances with eclectic mature planting are complete, linking to a carpark and Clovelly Park train station. The main eastern entrance is marked by a “town square” comprising mixed seating, a cluster of retail pods and table tennis tables. The public realm works surrounding and beyond the MAB include tree planting in custom Corten steel pits within varied paving to direct pedestrian flow. A massive retaining wall along the eastern section of the ring-road comprises rock-filled horizontal Corten strips. Clear colour-coded wayfinding is constructed of recycled steel supports. The sophisticated employment of a not-unfamiliar palette of materials well known for use – and re-use – in post-industrial projects includes liberal use of Corten along with other new and recycled metals, concrete with off-form and high-exposed-aggregate finishes and focused use of segmented pavers. There is clearly more to come. Hoardings at the entrances and throughout spruik a future community and serve to direct pedestrians to key site features, while also partially shielding mysteriously
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PROJECT Tonsley LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Oxigen PROJECT TEAM James Hayter, Travis Wright, James Pratt, Alex Game, Oli Johnson, Ed Meyers, Hugh Fraser, David Sadler ARCHITECTURE Woods Bagot, Tridente Architects ELECTRICAL AND SERVICES ENGINEER WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff CIVIL AND STRUCTURAL ENGINEER KBR COST PLANNING Rider Levett Bucknall ARBORICULTURE Dean Nicolle PUBLIC ART Gray Hawk SPECIALIST FABRICATION Iguana Creative TIME SCHEDULE Design, documentation: 2010–2016 (ongoing) Construction: 2014–2016 (ongoing)
6. Mature trees within the central plaza provide leafy shade, serving as a space for meetings and refreshments, adjacent to a cafe. 7. The design surrounding and beyond the MAB includes custom Corten steel planting pits and stepped and ramped entrances with varied paving. Photography: 1–3,5–7: Oxigen 4: Courtesy of Tonsley Park Redevelopment – Cultural History Report
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cordoned-off portions of nothing in particular. Yet the project has already been recognized by some important awards: two from AILA for urban design and planning, and, most recently, the 2015 international WAN Award for Adaptive Reuse. Adaptive re-use is of growing interest as project opportunities increasingly present themselves burdened – or indeed blessed – with buildings and other remarkable remnants within sites that global economic priorities and rapid technological change have left bereft of their prior use and glory. Adelaide has been exploring the potential of such dormant places, for example the city-edge Bowden redevelopment. Port Adelaide, too, has struggled with some poorly informed makeovers and is being revisited following dispiriting early developer interventions, with the oversight of a strong local heritage group. These projects are driven by residential outcomes. Tonsley is a more ambitious experiment. The built reality of Tonsley so far is a very big achievement. Landscape architects have mastered the site breadth and temporal stretch of the longterm project. Oxigen has also delivered detailed custom design of intimate places developed closely with skilled artisan collaborators. Tonsley is now eminently able to be occupied, the visible intelligence of its planning and design set to attract further intelligent tenants. Adelaide and South Australia may well realize that elusive shift – so hard to stage, whether by public or private sectors – of mindset, productivity, investment focus and optimism in local futures of international significance.
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GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS The Monash University Earth Sciences Garden was designed as a collage of Victoria’s geological formation, offering students of geology and other earth sciences a dynamic outdoor classroom. TEXT TANYA COURT PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL WRIGHT, CHRIS ERSKINE
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Monash University Earth Sciences Garden, Melbourne, Victoria — Rush\Wright Associates
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he recently completed Monash University Earth Sciences Garden by Rush\Wright Associates, for the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at the university’s Clayton Campus, was inspired by the geology and geomorphology of Victoria. Developed in close collaboration with earth scientists, it provides a direct method for learning about geology, physical geography and atmospheric sciences. “The earth sciences textbook is brought to life by this dynamic outdoor classroom, which offers a practical approach to learning field measurement and mapping techniques, and rock and mineral recognition skills,” Professor Sandy Cruden says. It includes more than five hundred stone specimens in a 30-by-120-metre site that is tightly bounded by university buildings including Lyons’ Green Chemical Futures, which complements and literally reflects the garden with its angled glazing. (Hopefully a future renovation of the Earth Sciences building will enhance the setting of the garden, including the almost sectional views from the walk along the colonnade.) That the Earth Sciences Garden is not called a courtyard is significant. This is no mere static museum-display stone collection, typically laid out with a geographical timescale approach. It is a mapped landscape of minerals, miniaturizing and literalizing
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the geology of Victoria, apparent when viewed from above in adjacent buildings. It is a collage of the geological formation of Victoria, arranged loosely in a vegetated setting. This is a well-worn design tactic for creating an organizing system as well as playfulness, using recognizable manipulation of scale and a dramatic stage setting for the mineral specimens. It is a garden. The space is quite tight, the rocks quite crowded, yet there is a convivial congestion with the existing trees, allowing for shady spots and a sense of maturity at the garden’s inception. That the existing trees are not quite right is hardly the point. It’s a collage. The Earth Sciences Garden is primarily a teaching garden for geology and other earth sciences. The didactic garden has a long history since the first botanic gardens, designed to educate monks in medicinal plant identification. At the University of Melbourne, the remnants of the botanic System Garden can still be seen and a small geology display is set among bamboo as part of the late 1970s McCoy Building for Earth Sciences. The courtyard at the Gordon Institute of TAFE, Geelong, is a contemporary version to aid in the teaching of landscape construction. Perhaps surprisingly for a didactic garden, the project limits signage to one general explanation of the garden layout. The garden is used instead by →
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1. The Earth Sciences Garden includes more than ďŹ ve hundred stone specimens in a 30-by-120-metre site, tightly bounded by university buildings. 2. An ephemeral marsh and cracking claypan provide a focal point to the garden, which was inspired by the geology and geomorphology of Victoria. 3. Particular arrangements are intended not only to display individual rock specimens, but to explain their formation and relationship to topography. 4. Rocks are not always in their natural forms but sliced, diced and crushed for use as paving and informal furniture.
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teaching staff to set rock identification tasks for students and in the future, this will be linked to online school resources. This reflects a more contemporary approach to learning through discovery and aids in preserving the garden-like qualities for the wider university community. While the courtyard may be intended for Earth Sciences students, there are also lessons for other disciplines, including landscape architecture. It is a didactic garden but one with mystery. The conventions of geological drawing inform the layout, which is also reminiscent of the biomorphic forms of Isamu Noguchi or Lawrence Halprin and their employment of stone, although less self-consciously composed here for aesthetic effect. Earth Sciences academics at the university had a hand in particular arrangements that are intended not only to display individual specimens, but also to tell us about their formation and relationship to topography. Maybe it is this aspect that brings a less formal design approach. While the use of Chinese granite paving is now ubiquitous in high-end public realm projects, using other forms of rock, especially locally sourced, is usually cost prohibitive. Stone is heavy and difficult to manipulate on site, and quality control requires special attention, meaning a commission to design using rocks is a special privilege. The designers worked with many specialist stone suppliers and quarries, both in Australia and overseas. The collection is both specific to Victoria and applicable to a global understanding of geologic eras and principles.
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While the garden appears as a “natural” setting, much of this is an illusion. To achieve the desired angles, stones are counterbalanced with the aid of substantial footings. The rocks are not always in their natural forms but sliced, diced and crushed for use as paving and informal furniture. Many of the stones have core marks – evidence of their extraction – on show. This tells of a larger narrative of the human manipulation of stone through mining and quarrying, as minerals and as building and landscape materials. Even the use of bricks speaks to the colours of their clay mineral composition. The layers of enjoyment felt when experiencing the space as a garden are the result of welcome artifice, a relief from the overly sanctimonious nature of much ecologically motivated design. The use of artificial lawn is initially jarring. Arguably it provides casual sitting space. Plastic itself is now a problematic end product of fossilized fuel mining. The use of proprietary seating is also disappointing, perhaps the result of a reliance on design guidelines. Would it be so bad if on one part of the campus students sat on rocks? Perhaps more might have been made of the story of mining. Paradoxically the mining industry is where many geology graduates end up – paving the way for the destruction of the stuff they love! The garden is currently dominated by the rock display, but the Rush\Wright Associates team worked closely with consultant Paul Thompson to match the stones with appropriate planting associations. This tells the story of the plants and their relationships to
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5. The garden provides a direct method for learning about geology, physical geography and atmospheric sciences. 6. Rush\Wright Associates worked closely with horticultural consultant Paul Thompson to match the stones with appropriate planting associations. 7. The use of bricks in the garden speaks to the colours of their clay mineral composition. Photography: 1–6: Michael Wright 7: Chris Erskine
soil types, most visible with the use of matching gravel mulches. The design approach builds on some of the aims of the earlier campus masterplan to showcase Australian native plants. Andrew Saniga, in his book Making Landscape Architecture in Australia, discusses how the ideological tensions throughout Monash University’s establishment played out in choices between exotic, Australian native and locally indigenous plant material. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in a campus of mixed styles, mainly in terms of the early courtyards, where the deans of faculties had the ultimate say over the kinds of plant materials the courtyards should receive. Generally, however, the Monash University courtyards sit within a vegetative framework that is predominantly Australian native. The Earth Sciences Garden is reminiscent of the (now sadly altered) Monash University Science Courtyard by John Stevens and Grace Fraser and the delightful planting of the rainforest walk, with their use of non-endemic Australian natives in a more formal setting. Saniga argues that the courtyards traditionally were the place for experimentation and individuality (based on what the dean of that particular faculty wanted), whereas the more public spaces of the campus – that is, around buildings and
towards the margins of the campus – were to be unified by Australian native plant material. While we may lament a loss of diverse and dedicated campus gardeners to a streamlining of grounds maintenance, as a type the scholar garden is still cared for by institutions to lesser or greater extents. This is in contrast to the public realm beyond the campus, which increasingly resorts to the hardiest of plants and the most robust materials, with consequent numbing effect. Increasingly campus grounds, along with their architecture and facilities, are valued as marketing tools in the competition for international and local students. This paradoxically provides hope and incentive for their funded future. Monash University has a long tradition of consulting with landscape architects. Saniga recounts the many conflicts experienced in the early decades of its establishment between a range of Monash academics as “the client” and the advice given by a host of landscape consultants in the establishment of the campus grounds. After a period of disengagement, it is significant that a new era of professional re-engagement is here, albeit not without its tensions, too. Maybe this is as it should be, as the campus itself is a laboratory of design approaches to both architecture and landscape.
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MONASH UNIVERSITY EARTH SCIENCES GARDEN PLAN 1:750
PROJECT Monash University Earth Sciences Garden
CONTRACTOR Australian Native Landscape Constructions
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Rush\Wright Associates
STONE SUPPLY Pyrenees Quarries
PROJECT TEAM Michael Wright, Lucy Williams, Mark Rodriguez, Chris Erskine, Veronica Carrasco
TIME SCHEDULE Design, documentation: 4 months Construction: 8 months
1. Ephemeral marsh and cracking claypan 2. Eastern high country with intrusive volcanics and metamorphic rocks of the Great Dividing Range 3. Regional faultline 4. Eastern uplands with volcanics of the Dandenong Ranges and rainforest plantings 5. Sedimentary rocks of the Gippsland and Otway coasts and plantings of the southern Victorian coastal heathlands 6. Coastal plains of southern Victoria with extrusive volcanic columns 7. Central Victorian folded sedimentary and metamorphic rocks 8. Western uplands with intrusive volcanic, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks 9. North-western dune fields and plains with folded sedimentary and metamorphic rocks 10. Western Victorian plains with extrusive volcanic rocks 11. Future rocks – “lava bombs” of the Anthropocene
CLIENT Monash University PROJECT MANAGEMENT TSA Management (Stephen Lindsay) CIVIL, STRUCTURAL, HYDRAULIC AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEER Wood and Grieve Engineers PLANTING CONSULTANT Paul Thompson LIGHTING NDY Light ART Open Spatial Workshop COST PLANNING Donald Cant Watts Corke
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Removing level crossings Rediscovering the Bundian Way Sydney Park stormwater recycling The Lower Mekong Delta
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TIDAL ECONOMY: THE LOWER MEKONG DELTA Exploring the shifting landscapes along the Mekong River’s labyrinth of tributaries. TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BEN KRONENBERG
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he Lower Mekong Basin is a gasping, swelling river system comprising two hundred ecoregions and a hundred different ethnic groups within a dual monsoonal climate. In An Giang and Kiên Giang, Vietnamese rice farming provinces near the border of Cambodia, a complex array of hydroclimates, multiple sub basins, varied drainage patterns and tidal fluctuations drive the region’s aquatic and agricultural seasons. Forecasting from the International Centre for Environmental Management predicts that these shifting dynamics will promote excessive flood duration and increased salinity and brackish water throughout the land region by 2050, interfering with regular farming crop reliance. Residents here, however, have adopted strategies for flexibility within their agriculture portfolio, developed in the 1960s.1 They exhibit adapted farming methods during seasonal variances in floods and droughts. These methods include integration of aquaculture and agriculture (IAA) in brackish water and the development and planting of flood-tolerant “scuba” rice.2 Within these adaptations, there lies an understanding of accepted water inundation and the idea that the land or territory is not solid. Exploring methodologies within this condition is crucial to the economic survival of the region. However, during a series of field trip investigations to specific communes in this region, as part of a Red Cross small-scale mitigation project team, it became clear to me that issues of short-term household livelihood were urgent at ground level. This “ground level” became a testing ground, not only for the resilience of individual households but also for broader approaches to the issues. Along the Mekong River’s labyrinth of tributaries, households within the economically poor Vietnamese provinces of An Giang and Kiên Giang are battling ongoing issues with security of land tenure and food, disease management and water salinity. There are continuing discussions about
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agricultural commercialization in the region, which will have an overarching effect on land ownership within these subsistence-based communities, which lie in freshwater, alluvial land. Throughout the field trips there has been mounting dialogue and interaction with farmers who have shifted to using IAA farming techniques within the fluxing brackish water. But with these techniques come ongoing land complications such as unavoidable sedimentation, cumulative degradation and over-salinization.3 Over time, this leads to a decline in the area available for rice production. It seems that while IAA farming yields a biannual crop for households, the effect of aquaculture farming is detrimental to a long-term rice crop, critical to the economy within this region of Vietnam. The field trips conducted by the Vietnamese, Australian and German Red Cross engaged fourteen communes within these two provinces. They included small-scale projects (part of the larger Climate Smart Community Based Disaster Risk Reduction project) that assist with the immediate preservation of households, such as education, water storage and salinity solutions, flood evacuation, latrine and small bridge construction, and the supply of items paramount to the immediacy of livelihood. The Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation dissemination campaign is an example of this, an educational seeding strategy for water sanitation practice within each commune. This method educates the most effective community leaders, allowing for a stronger potential for information spread. Walking within these commune clusters, you notice posters warning of dengue fever and waterborne disease and promoting latrine hygiene. This highlights the different scales of approach required when thinking about the issues of an economically poor flooding region. Vehicular travel by land and water yields surveillance of bank erosion, degraded road material and poor bridge construction conditions. Community leaders share stories of
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“ Walking within these commune clusters, you notice posters warning of dengue fever and waterborne disease and promoting latrine hygiene.”
FIELD TRIP
Previous page: Water-inundated rice fields in An Giang province, Vietnam. The province is located in the Mekong Delta, in the southwestern part of the country. Above left: A map of the Lower Mekong Delta area highlighting the An Giang and Kiên Giang provinces. Above right: A map showing communes within the two provinces visited during the Vietnamese, Australian and German Red Cross field trips.
unfortunate drownings resulting from falls on decayed bridges, highlighting the importance that these small-scale projects can have within Lower Mekong Delta regional provinces. Our visits to commune households and dialogue with residents identified issues of water catchment and basic salinity as a priority. However, it cannot be dismissed that on a larger scale, there is a dependence on landscape morphology in the Lower Mekong Basin for survival. The Rijn-Maas-Scheldt delta in the Netherlands is an example that highlights the complexity of estuarine systems. Here, storm surge barrier introduction led to the severing of the ocean– river relationship for the benefit of flood prevention. This showed the potential for unrest of adapting landforms for human need and not only promoted an interference in the processes and reduction in the dynamics involved in its land formation,4 but also saw the introduction of blue-green algae, water oxygen depletion and changes in water depth to meet its new equilibrium. The avoidance of comprehensive largescale engineered solutions such as storm surge barriers within the economically poorer Lower Mekong Delta regions has perhaps made clear the need for lateral solutions on a household level, such as the development of flood-tolerant rice and diverse farming systems. Bioengineering and the scientific adaptation of existing farming methods required for living within such a shifting landscape are key approaches to the
broader issues of increasing flood duration. Scrutiny of the long-term negative effect of local IAA farming practices gives way to solutions that accept water inundation and maintain minimal disturbance to the landscape. The field trips have offered an insight into the smaller-scale issues and the projects that are being conducted by bodies such as the Red Cross within the region, and serve to accentuate the importance of approaches that consider the ongoing sensitive nature of these breathing river systems and the households alongside them. Benjamin Kronenberg visited the Lower Mekong Delta as winner of the 2012 Hassell Travelling Scholarship.
1. Thanh Be Tran, “Sustainability of rice-shrimp farming system in a brackish water area in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam” (Sydney: University of Western Sydney, 1994). 2. “USAID Mekong ARCC Climate Change Impact and Adaptation Study for the Lower Mekong Basin: Main Report,” prepared for the United States Agency for International Development by the International Centre for Environmental Management, November 2013. 3. Le Thanh Phong et al, “Integrated Agriculture-Aquaculture Systems in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam: An Analysis of Recent Trends,” Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, vol 4 no 2, 2007. 4. Leo Adriaanse and Jandirk Hoekstra, “Designing a Safe and Sustainable Rijn-Maas-Schelde Delta,” Water: Resource and Threat, Topos 68, September 2009, 68–75.
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2005
2050 FLOOD DURATION (DAYS) 0–3
Above: These maps of the southern tip of Vietnam depict the flood duration (in days) of the Mekong Delta region in 2005 and predict the number of days of flooding in 2050. Image data source: ICEM 2013, flood duration
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2050 FLOOD DEPTH (METRES) Normal
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Above: The flood depth is predicted to rise by up to 1.5 metres across the Mekong Delta region by 2050. Image data source: ICEM 2013, flood depth
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Above: Aquaculture on the tributaries of the Mekong in KiĂŞn Giang province.
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FIELD TRIP
Above: The effect of aquaculture farming in the delta is detrimental to a long-term rice crop, critical to the economy within this region of Vietnam.
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AGENDA
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Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold your life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time. – Hannah Arendt (Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess, 1958)
CONTRAFLOW TEXT ALEX GEORGOURAS
Alex Georgouras catches up with three Australian expatriate landscape architects emerging within the North American tableau – Richard Weller, Matt Grunbaum and Victoria Marshall.
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t goes without question. Many North American landscape architects who have landed on our shores have had an extensive impact on both the theoretical and practical application of the profession. Many of these now classroom names helped shape the discourse surrounding landscape architecture within Australia. However, of late there has been somewhat of a “contraflow” – an undercurrent of Australian landscape architects emerging within the North American tableau. On my recent secondment to the US, I managed to sit down with three of these characters: Richard Weller, Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Matt Grunbaum, associate at James Corner Field Operations, New York; and Victoria Marshall, Assistant Professor of Urban Design at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York. We discussed, among other things, expatriate life. →
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AGENDA
Alex Georgouras: What have been the most noticeable perceptions or prejudices toward Australian landscape architecture from your North American contemporaries? Are there any recurring examples of places, people or publications that you would send them to further ground them – a sort of personal canon of Australian work? Richard Weller: I think people here [in the US] are aware that there is now some very good design in Australia, but it’s a vague idea and bundled up with a general sense that Aussies punch above their weight in many fields of endeavour. To make the point about recent landscape architecture I refer people to the Sunburnt: Landscape Architecture in Australia book by SueAnne Ware and Julian Raxworthy. It’s not just that America is myopic; geography still matters and Australia is remote and small in terms of how design culture flows around the world. You have stated that “landscape architecture has the breadth, the sensitivity and the interdisciplinary aptitude to lead the way in creating new urban ecologies.” As an educator of students from across the globe, what attributes do you believe a landscape architect must possess to be useful regardless of geographical location? In addition to immersing yourself as deeply as you can in the place you are working in, landscape architects who aim to live up to the holistic nature of their profession need to read widely across the sciences and the arts and to interweave design theory and design practice. Interdisciplinarity is fine but landscape architects actually have to lead.
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You have been an educator in both Australia (University of Western Australia) and the US (University of Pennsylvania). What are the most noticeable differences in how these institutions deliver their programs and foster design culture? Well, a school like Penn has a very big legacy and everyone here feels implicitly obliged to respect it and build on it. The bar holds itself very high in that regard. More prosaically, students pay a lot of money for the privilege and so they want to get as much out of it as they can and we give them as much as we can. They don’t just “go to uni,” they live in the studio 24/7 and all the subjects are carefully curated to feed into it. There is also a constant flow of intelligence through the school: Philadelphia sits in the midst of the most innovative and competitive megaregion on earth. You have been appointed creative director of the 2016 International Festival of L andscape Architecture in Canberra. Has your time away from Australia given a more distilled view “from the outside in” of where Australian landscape architecture is currently placed? How will this inform the festival layout or themes? I want to avoid the idea of Australia as an object that can be seen better from a distance. However, I think now we can clearly see that the twenty-first and probably the twenty-second centuries are all about the dawn of the Anthropocene and how global capitalism, technology and ecological systems are enmeshed in it. If the nineteenth century was dominated by engineering and the twentieth was predominantly about architecture, the twenty-first, for better or worse, is ours. So, the festival’s conference “Not In My Backyard” will explore this self-serving hubris through the eight lenses of new views, new stories, signs, cities, natures, techniques, practices and territories.
RICHARD WELLER
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1. The Navy Yards Central Green by James Corner Field Operations is a five-acre park in the heart of a new corporate centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photo: Halkin Mason 2. Richard Weller is the creative director of Not in My Backyard – the 2016 International Festival of Landscape Architecture, to be held in Canberra 27–30 October 2016.
AGENDA
MATT GRUNBAUM Alex Georgouras: You have been working in New York at James Corner Field Operations for more than five years now. What was the impetus for relocating and what are some of the challenges you have faced with the move? Matt Grunbaum: I moved over to the US during the Global Financial Crisis, so it wasn’t an ideal time to be looking for work. It took close to six months to find a job – [I did] a lot of couch surfing and living off scraps. I had wanted to work in the US since studying landscape architecture; a lot of the designers and projects we studied came from the US. I was lucky that I worked at Oculus back in Australia for two reasons: firstly, Oculus helped me develop my skills as a landscape architect in a studio environment, and secondly, their work is known and respected in the US, which helped me get my foot in the door for interviews. I knew I wanted to work for James Corner Field Operations since my first visit to New York, when I saw The High Line exhibition at MoMA. The graphic representation and the use of meadow planting in the urban environment was something that I had never seen before. Bob Earl (of Oculus) had met James Corner in Sydney around the same time I was looking to move to New York City and he gave me an extremely good reference that I am still very grateful for.
I have seen some outstanding work by students of both the University of Pennsylvania and Louisiana State University. In particular, the professional level of graphic representation stood out. What is it that might distinguish Australian graduates from their US counterparts? I’ll speak from my own experience with this – I found that in Australia I was able to work on a range of project stages, from concept to documentation and site visits, which helped me to develop an understanding of the full process for taking a project to reality. I found that my experience in construction documentation and site work helped to separate me from other candidates applying for the same job. My strong recommendation for anyone wanting to work in the US is to develop knowledge and skills across all aspects of the profession.
3. A social track organizes circulation and frames an immersive interior park featuring flowering meadows, a hammock grove, an outdoor amphitheatre, bocce courts and fitness stations at the Navy Yards Central Green. Photo: Halkin Mason
It seems Australians are everywhere you look in New York. What is it about larger American cities that entices us away from home? The funding for public works projects and the number of high-budget and high-profile projects is greater in the US. Cities see the benefit in great open space and some even see it as a tourist attraction or an addition to other attractions surrounding it. I also feel that Americans tend to have a very positive outlook, a “cando” attitude that is evident in both the realization of ideas like Silicon Valley and the strong entrepreneurial culture. The positive drive and outlook are infectious. 3
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AGENDA
The reason that urban design is traditionally taught as an advanced topic is because it is assumed that it is too complex for young people to understand. At The New School we took a different approach. We argued that young people in New York City and any city around the world have tremendous urban knowledge and their life experiences are important. They are often left out of decision making and their imagination of future urban practices with and for people and ecosystems is invaluable. Additionally, in the United States undergraduate education is often seen as a time for exploration. In Australia the undergraduate degree is more professionally oriented from the start, although this may be changing.
VICTORIA MARSHALL Alex Georgouras: After completing your undergraduate study at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), you attended graduate school in the US. How much did this help you in establishing yourself, both academically and professionally? Victoria Marshall: There is definitely an Ivy League alumni network and my education at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design granted me access to this. I completed a Master of Landscape Architecture with a Certificate in Urban Design in 1997. At this time, only landscape architects were engaging with design at the territorial scale, which was later coined landscape urbanism. I very much enjoyed this experience and on reflection I feel fortunate to have contributed to the school at such a formative time. I wanted to continue design research, and so after all of my professional interviews I happily accepted a non-traditional position as an artist assistant at Mary Miss Studio in Tribeca. You were part of formulating the first undergraduate urban design program in an art and design school in North America (Bachelor of Science in Urban Design at Parsons School of Design). How does this course vary from traditional Bachelor of Landscape Architecture programs? Typically urban design is taught as a senior studio and seminar for architecture and landscape architecture students. What we did was start with urban design as the foundation and then encourage students to branch out toward whatever discipline they felt close affinity with. Our urban design students have gravitated toward architecture and landscape architecture; however, students have also advanced into urban studies, art and socially engaged new media practices.
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4. Beach 41st Street Houses Community Garden by Till Design (the professional practice of Victoria Marshall) is a post-Hurricane Sandy upgrade of a community garden located in the Rockaways, Queens, USA. Photo: Victoria Marshall
In 2013 you were invited to lecture and critique at the UNSW landscape architecture graduate exhibition. How did the students’ work differ from what you have critiqued at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan? [At UNSW] I was asked to comment briefly on the work of the students with an eye to their applicability in other cities. I observed that many projects proposed green infrastructure fragments or microclimate strategies that add up to a type of restructuring of urban social systems. This is a type of approach toward equitable urban change that is spatially complex. It is a practice that comes from within neighbourhoods and that is sophisticated as it engages the public realm as always in formation. I congratulated the graduates on this work. I also observed that many projects assumed a type of steady prosperity that Australia is enjoying at present. However, many cities around the world are changing rapidly and in uneven ways. I therefore encouraged the graduates to explore the role of landscape architecture theory, research and practice for places formed from crisis and stagnation, as well as from boom.
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TAKE ME TO THE RIVER: THE STORY OF PERTH’S FORESHORE TEXT CATHERIN BULL Julian Bolleter, UWA Publishing, 2015, paperback, 300 pages, RRP $40.00
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s discussed in this excellent new book about Perth and its waterfront to the Swan River, current cultural theory argues that place is the confluence of space (as “neutral” territory) and meaning (as imbued by humans). Such a proposition immediately raises questions as to what meaning in relation to any space actually is and just how it is created. These are questions that Take me to the River addresses head-on, exploring the perceptions and imaginings of Perth’s immigrant and Indigenous cultures about the confluence of the land, where the central city sits, with the waters of what we now know as the Swan River. And a fascinating story that exploration is, relevant in its methodological approach and findings to Australia’s other capital cities, all of which address the water and all of which struggle to relate the expectations of their diverse resident cultures to a set of equally diverse natural ecologies. These are the battlegrounds where global expectations and local values meet. The book’s author, Julian Bolleter, researches and teaches in the Master of Urban Design program at the Australian Urban Design Research Centre, the University of Western Australia, where he is an
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assistant professor. He has worked as a landscape architect in the UK, the USA and the Middle East and his PhD explored the design of Dubai’s urban landscape as a cultural phenomenon, interrogating the made landscape and its roots in various cultural positions and imaginings, globally and locally. Building from such experience, not only has the author used extensive archival research, compiling the drawings and images that support the text (the subject of a separately curated exhibition of the same name), he has also included records of interviews with and essays by a number of key players in the debates over recent decades about the major sites of contention along the waterfront. The story is told through presentation and analysis of this material, generally in historical sequence, although, notably, the “story” included in the Indigenous contribution is the last. Similar to the beginnings of most Australian cities, Perth was initially imagined in the pastoral mould and from the 1820s “sold” on that basis to its earliest settlers. The story of early settlement in Perth is a hard one, the Arcadian imagery fading fast as the reality of poor soils, drought and isolation took its toll. Unlike Australia’s other cities, however, Perth was developed initially as a private commercial enterprise, sowing the seeds perhaps of its subsequent development mentality. Its story is one of a recurring idealism that infused not just the initial imaginings of place, but, as meaning has been progressively created, the subsequent decades and centuries. It is such recurring idealism, and its imaginings in urban and landscape form, that provide the central narrative here, as the hundreds of plans and designs for the city and its waterfront and the debates around them are laid out and analysed. These endless debates provide the most revealing aspect of this story, illustrating how meaning has evolved for immigrant culture and contrasting sharply with the transcendent timelessness of Indigenous meanings for this place, Derbal Yaragan (the Indigenous name for Swan River), as explored in the final chapter. Every urban and landscape fad, fashion and value extant in the urban cultures of Europe and North America over the past two hundred years seems at some time or another to have been applied here, as newcomers struggled to re-imagine the junction between the modern city and the swampy fringes of what was, and what essentially remains, an estuary rather than a river. Starting with the Arcadian pastoral, we move through extended periods of reclamation to remove miasmic shallows, early imaginings of a waterfront park replete with a sweeping ornamental lake in the Arcadian style, experiments with the
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1. This painting from 1827 is reflective of how Perth was idealized in its beginnings, where descriptions of Swan River were inaccurate and topographical features dramatized. Image: Swan River – View fro m Fraser’s Po int, Frederick Garling, 1827 2. In Melbourne firm Ashton Raggatt McDougall’s (ARM) bold vision for Perth, the esplanade would be a highrise precinct where the river would be enfolded into an excavated circular inlet. Image: courtesy of ARM
City Beautiful and amusement parks (think The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson), grand visions for encircling botanic gardens and zoological parks, parkway drives, an offshore island (Perth Island), mammoth engineering proposals for riverside drives and the Narrows Interchange that would dominate the horizontal landscape and isolate the city centre, urbanist proposals to reconnect the CBD to the water, romantically naturalist offerings that timidly reference Indigenous culture, and overtly postmodernist ones such as “Dubai on the Swan.” There are strategy plans, diagrams and masterplans enough to satisfy even the most determined visionary. Everything is here – in the mind and on paper. Some of it materialized – for better and worse – and thankfully, much of it did not, leaving for decades the foreshore as a tabula rasa ready for the next paper proposition. Except of course for the roads – most were built and are a story in themselves. Planners, architects, urbanists, engineers and locals passionate about their city and its setting are all players in the book, including predictable recent
contributions by Charles Landry and Jan Gehl and the many Australian landscape architects who have been involved in the design of the city’s waterfront over the years – John Oldham, George Seddon, Blackwell and Associates and Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL). A very young Perry Lethlean was, for example, a runner-up in the 1991 Perth City Foreshore Urban Design Competition, and TCL is the landscape architecture practice assigned to the massive Elizabeth Quay project underway today. The 1991 competition schemes of others, such as Andras Kelly (Tasmania), Dorrough Britz (ACT) and Environmental Partnership (Sydney), also appear. Heroes, villains? You decide. A reader cannot but wonder how all these fantastical schemes must look to the Indigenous peoples for whom the very nature of this place is so resonant and its meaning so self-evident. For them, knowledge has little to do with such fantastical chatter. Their words form the title of this book. They know why this place is so powerful and describe in the final chapter “why you feel the earth speaking to you from this place … The water shimmers like →
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scales; twisting, turning and weaving its bulky body across the plain, curving down to a wide path in front of the City of Perth, the bloated body of a well-fed Waakal or Rainbow serpent python. Leave yourself dreaming for now. You’ll be back soon.” The people of Perth, it seems, are always back, be it with yet another dream about what this place should be. The authors also speculate about how such sensibilities can inform urban action. As revealing in their own ways are the contributory essays by Sean Morrison, Ken Adam, Richard Weller, Geoffrey London, Clint Bracknell, Len Collard, Dave Palmer and Grant Revell. For example, London, a former Victorian Government Architect, and Adam, chair of the provocative professional think tank City Vision, share their stories and views as to how a decision on the waterfront Elizabeth Quay project eventuated. Their stories are worthy in themselves of being required reading for urban planning and design students nationwide. As an urbanist who watches with interest the ongoing debates about how Australian cities should relate to their waterways, I was fascinated by similarities and differences between the stories of Perth and the Swan River, and the stories of other cities. The premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, is quoted in the book as arguing for the Elizabeth Quay project (a rather odd project that fuses local sensibilities with the emasculated fantastical visions of Melbourne firm ARM Architecture) that it would be “an iconic, world class destination which signifies Perth globally in the 21st century,” rhetoric that parallels directly that of Queensland’s leaders arguing for the Queen’s Wharf development about to commence in the historic heart of Brisbane. And notably, both projects are named to assert royal imprimatur. While the political arguments may be similar, however, in Brisbane they are made against a totally different background discourse, one lacking the sheer quantum of visionary material that typifies the Perth story we learn about here. While the reader might quibble about some of the book’s language (what does “generic waterfront” mean?), such concerns are of minor importance. This is urban scholarship at its best and one can only hope that as it reviews its research agenda in the light of current funding challenges, the University of Western Australia understands the value of work such as this, not only for the state but for urban professionals everywhere. UWA Publishing is to be congratulated on publishing this groundbreaking book. Perhaps it could consider encouraging similar explorations for all of Australia’s capital cities.
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3. Landscape architect John Oldman’s painting Overall Plan, 1966, depicts his bold proposal for a botanic garden which would have seen Perth’s waterfront rendered as an urban forest. 4. The Stephenson-Hepburn concept plan for Perth’s interchange, 1955. The construction of the interchange and the burying of Mounts Bay were the focus of one of Perth’s most vehement environmental debates.
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Above: Sydney Park Water Re-use Project by Turf Design Studio and Environmental Partnership. Photo: Simon Wood May 2016
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SUSIE QUINTON INTERVIEW REBECCA MILLAR, AILA FRESH
Rebecca Millar: Congratulations on winning the Future Leaders Award at AILA’s 2015 South Australian Awards. What does this mean to you? Susie Quinton: It was certainly a surprise, but a great reward. The acknowledgement encourages me to continually strive to be more innovative and ensure that in any situation I can help those around me in delivering consistent and amazing designs through leadership, collaboration and communication. Simply, though, it was a real treat to be nominated and to feel the ongoing support from Hassell in my development as a landscape architect. What inspired you to become a landscape architect? The house I grew up in had a beautiful, big garden that my parents spent most of every weekend pruning, planting, redesigning and constructing, so from day dot I’ve had a love of being in well-designed outdoor spaces. It was only a natural progression to start creating spaces like these for myself. How did you get to where you are now, working at Hassell in its Adelaide studio? After receiving both the Rodney O’Beames Award and a special commendation for the Hassell Travelling Scholarship in 2011 for Moving Galleries, my final project at the University of Adelaide, I was invited back to the Hassell studio for a “quick chat.” Shortly after, I was offered the opportunity of working with the Adelaide team. Since starting at the studio I have worked on myriad projects in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane and China, each varying in scale and context. These include The Rundle Mall Redevelopment project in Adelaide; the Summer Hill Flour Mill mixed-use development and the WestConnex Urban Renewal project, both in Sydney; Lucas District Open Space in Victoria; and more recently the Terminal Expansion North at Adelaide Airport. Is there a project that stands out as being your favourite or the most rewarding? Central Park Blakes Crossing in Adelaide. Although one of the smaller projects within the Hassell portfolio, it was a standout project and achievement for me personally, being one of the first projects I saw through from start to finish. As a learning experience it was
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tough yet incredible, skyrocketing my knowledge and understanding of the design process, client relations and contract administration. What resources do you find most useful or inspiring? Travel is the best kind of inspiration – it provides the opportunity to witness how people actually use and appreciate a space, and experiencing different cultures and values enables an understanding of how this can affect design. Visiting completed projects also allows you to take note of the little details that are often overlooked in project photography. I regularly try to visit the other studios of Hassell, just for a day or two, to be exposed to great design, the designers themselves and the way they approach a project for some firsthand inspiration. I also love scrolling through the collection of wonderful imagery on Landezine to find daily inspiration for connection details, material selection and standout aesthetics, with my morning coffee. If you could go back and give yourself advice in your first year of university, what would it be? Don’t just complete projects to get them done – stop and think about why they are a project in the first place. Ask yourself why it would be useful in the working world and consider this while undertaking each task. Since working, I can better appreciate what the lecturers were trying to achieve and I think I would have approached my “project life” differently with that in mind. Take notes, good notes, and do all the additional reading offered. Be aware of local and international design firms and understand whom it is you may work for one day. Visit as many projects as you can and analyse the spaces, ask yourself what you like and what you don’t like. It is important to form an opinion of your preference in design, while still being open to new ideas and styles. And work experience, work experience and work experience! It won’t be such a shock to the system if you have given yourself the opportunity to experience the working world before you finish your studies. It provides networking opportunities and can open up future job prospects. This will be apparent in your project and your style as a designer will be better for it.
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Sporting healthy communities,