Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 173 February 2022 i Landscape Architecture Australia

UTS WINS AWARD AT BARCELONA BIENNIAL The landscape architecture program at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has been awarded one of two special mentions in the International Landscape School’s Prize at the 11th International Biennial of Landscape Architecture held in Barcelona in October. City College of New York was announced as the overall winner of the prize, with School of Architecture, Urban Planning, Construction and Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano awarded the second special mention. Image: courtesy UTS and Barcelona International Biennial of Landscape Architecture FUTURE LANDSCAPES WINNERS The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects announced Silicon Gulf: Transition from contaminated post-industrial land to regenerative data centre park by Zhuocheng (Jackie) Gu as the winner of the Future Landscapes competition held as part of the 2021 Festival of Landscape Architecture.…

If we came across a man who every day took a brick out of the walls of his house without considering that eventually the house would collapse, then we would be concerned about his mental state. Yet humans continue to consume and pollute the natural environment, upon which the long-term survival of our species depends. Such behaviour reflects the widely held attitude that nature is a free commodity – an idea that has prevailed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and has led to the current twin global emergencies of climate change and species extinction. The consequences of this attitude are becoming clearly manifest in the acceleration of severe climate change events and the rapid global loss of biodiversity. The extent to which biodiversity has been diminished by human…

Over its 40-year life, the Maali (black swan) bonds with one other partner. Younger Maali will breed several times a year, losing their white flight feathers each time, and gathering as a flightless flock to raise their young. Maali exchange roles. Some become the carers of the large, lustrous, pale green eggs, adopting any that have been abandoned. After regaining flight, other Maali will leave the nests to explore new horizons throughout Perth’s tapestry of rivers, streams and wetlands – fresh, brackish and saline. Cygnet hatchlings are fiercely defended by the Maali as they are taught to drink from the sheet of freshwater that glazes the saline Derbarl Yerrigan Bilya (Swan River) after rain. They learn to feed on soft grasses along the river edge and dive for aquatic plants.…

As potential shorthand for biodiversity, the term “wildness” might suggest the sorts of spaces and places where the patterns and processes of species diversity and richness might continue to flourish, unhindered by human interference. However, as Bill McKibben asked us way back in 1989,1 does “nature” really exist and, by extension, are there any “wild” places left? Antarctica’s ice is melting as a result of our runaway increase in global carbon; in our deepest oceans, radioactive signatures and microplastics exist in sea life; and increasing evidence is pointing to the long-term continuous human inhabitation of the Amazon2 – a situation well documented on our own continent, but for an even longer period. In an urban context, wildness is not a term we often use. Where we do, it is more…

As Australia’s largest supplier of Super Advanced Trees, Established Tree Transplanters (ETT) has learnt what the key markets are after and how to ensure that the best quality trees are available. Today’s landscape and garden sectors require advanced, healthy trees that facilitate their design needs quickly. While Super Advanced Trees might not be as cheap as smaller trees, it’s hard to put a value on a tree when you don’t want to wait for it to grow. ETT’s Matt Davis says clients don’t want to wait 10 years for a two-metre tree to grow to six metres. “We do all the growing work for them – basically, we are giving them tomorrow’s trees today,” he says. ETT’s range of Super Advanced Trees includes oaks, elms, magnolias and liquid ambers, as…

The title of the 2021 Festival of Landscape of Architecture, “Spectacle and Collapse: Changing Landscapes,” seemed somewhat ironic for a conference in relatively “normal” Perth to those of us watching on from cities still in lockdown. The relevance of the title – derived from Guy Debord’s 1967 Marxist critique The Society of the Spectacle – remained understandably ambiguous during the conference, often referred to but never resolved, which could also be said of the issues that the conference sought to address, including the relationship of nature and landscape to ubiquitous media and climate change. Located in magnificent Kaarta Koomba (Kings Park), the conference had a peculiarly Westralian vibe and was characterized by a particularly broad range of disciplines and topics addressing the overall theme. The “international keynote” is a normal…

Simon Leake, Australia’s pre-eminent soil expert, spoke with AKAS Landscape Architecture co-founder Alistair Kirkpatrick about the critical relationship between soil and vegetation, the problems with the commercial soil industry, and the plant and soil knowledge we should expect of landscape architects. He calls for landscape management practices that can allow soil to function and evolve again. Alistair Kirkpatrick – How important is the relationship between soil and vegetation? Simon Leake – It’s critical. We’ve got to understand that vegetation makes soil. It’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy: you start with weathered rock, vegetation grows on it and accumulates nutrients, and those nutrients are recycled back into the topsoil so that the vegetation can accumulate the nutrients it needs. Soil scientists talk about “Jenny’s equation,” which says that soil is a function…

Discussions around aesthetics have been given relatively little attention in landscape architecture discourse. Predominantly framed by the dominance of the visual, debates around aesthetics have often been limited to notions of the sublime, the beautiful and the picturesque – or, more recently and concerningly for landscape architecture – as the argument for addressing visual design problems such as the screening of infrastructure.1 Elizabeth Meyer has drawn our attention to the ecological performance of an understanding of aesthetics that is not pictorial, but immersive, poly-sensory, dynamic and temporal, both in the experience of creating landscapes and being in them.2 This experiential appreciation occurs in the body as well as the mind. As designers, the place and physical environment we work in, the people we collaborate with, the medium we use, the…

Australia is the only developed country in the world that is classified as a deforestation hotspot. Under Australia’s current policies, emissions will continue to rise, with devastating consequences for our landscapes and ecology.1 Land development and urban growth are part of this unfolding climate and biodiversity collapse and, whether wittingly or not, landscape architects have been – and continue to be – participants in the process. Business-as-usual development is over; we need to pivot to create frameworks and projects that will help people, flora and fauna to survive into the next century. In the peri-urban areas at the fringes of our cities, poorly planned subdivisions and developments are leading to dramatic ecological losses. Remnant agriculture, forests and wetlands are becoming carbon-hungry suburban sprawl. Michael Buxton, a professor of environment and…

On an unseasonably hot Melbourne spring day, tuned into the live stream, I watched on as landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom took her seat at the table. On a screen above the heads of world leaders, the United Nations Global Climate Action Award winner loomed large. Featuring as part of Sir David Attenborough’s inspiring opening address for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), Voraakhom’s hopeful words rang true: “Can we fix the climate problem in one generation? My answer would be yes. We have to.” In the lead-up to COP26, we saw the release of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report. Providing a detailed regional assessment of climate change to inform risk assessment and adaptation, it constitutes “a code red for…