1.6 The Australian Garden
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The Royal Park Competition was an influential project, for each of us. It illustrated a way of designing in response to the Australian landscape that had not been attempted before. Instead of attempting to re-establish or recreate an ecologically correct, version of what might once have been there on the site,1 this competition demonstrated how landscapes can be artistically interpreted.2 This, it appeared, opened up many possibilities to creatively respond to our indigenous landscape, allowing experiences and qualities of landscapes to be heightened, exaggerated or distilled. These observations were important in the genesis of our own first big project, The Australian Garden, Cranbourne Victoria, see project sheet on page 052. The Australian Garden, a 25 hectare botanic garden, is one of our most important projects. It began as a master planning commission some 18 years ago. Its first stage was implemented in 1998 and the second and final stage was completed in 2012. It is the first project where all three Directors worked on the design together. I had just joined the practice when we were engaged for the master plan in 1995. Ron Jones, co-author of the Royal Park Competition entry, described how we have a precious ability to disagree productively.3 This project demonstrated that ability. It combined Kevin’s love and experience of the Australian landscape, his skills regarding a journey as narrative, and an understanding of how people might move through space. It also combined Kate’s interest in integrated art, her love of materiality, colours, textures and collaboration with various creative disciplines including horticulture. It also utilised my predilection for bold moves and patterns, and my Japanese garden experiences. Interestingly we had just come together as a practice of three, we didn’t know each other well. Kevin and Kate obviously knew each other, but they didn’t know me. Despite our varied interests and differences we designed as if we were on the same page, we were jelling as a design team and that, in retrospect, is amazing for a team that had only been together for one month. The project brief asked us to explore ways visitors could experience the beauty and diversity of Australian flora. It asked us to be bold and convey the broader definition of the nature of Australia.4 As the brief was open to interpretation it allowed us to imagine designing with Australian plants in a new way, and creating a possible new type of Australian botanic garden, one not based on the scientific arrangement of plants but one based on experiences. Although we were not conscious of it at the time, the Royal Park ‘breakthrough’ was critical. It allowed us to be reassured that we were first and foremost a design discipline located in a most beautiful and challenging continent. The Australian Garden was the first project we explored together and like Royal Park involved, the idea of distilling landscapes. Instead of recreating landscapes in a scientific manner we wanted to excite visitors about the potential of using indigenous plants by hosting them in memorable and visually striking experiences. Visitors were taken metaphorically on a journey of water through the Australian landscape, from gardens that expressed the aridity of the red centre, to rockpool waterways and escarpments, languid river bends and more urbanised fertile expressions. In the design of each of these experiences we were consciously interpreting these landscape typologies in an artistic manner, abstracting their moods, evoking essential qualities and attempting to capture their quintessential character.
1 Bruce McKenzie from Sydney is a renowned exponent of the ‘bush school.’ He designed many significant Sydney foreshore parks, utilising indigenous flora in a manner that looked as if the park had always been there. 2 Contemporary Landscape Architecture discourse at this time advocated a more functional, ecological and scientifically based rationale for project designs. The work of Ian McHarg is an example of this approach. A more ‘artistic’ and ‘poetic’ approach might be seen as a design method that allows more subjective and abstract interpretations of site and for concepts to be explored. 3 Ronald Jones, Truth is Constructed: Public Space as Public Art, (paper written as a peer review for PhD, Melbourne 11 February 2011) 4 Australia Garden project brief prepared by Royal Botanic Gardens, 1994.