Landscape Architecture Australia

Landscape Architecture Australia is an authoritative and contemporary record of landscape architecture, urban design and land-use planning in Australia, presenting independent reviews of public, commercial and residential work, plus commissioned comment on contemporary issues. The official magazine partner of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.

Contributors

Landscape Architecture Australia

STARTING WITH THE SMALL

IS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE REALLY LIKE WHISKY?

Considering small practice • Joel Barker (See Design Studio), Greg Grabasch (Brave and Curious), Jane Irwin (JILA), Dan Plummer (Plummer and Smith), Kaylie Salvatori (COLA Studio) and Marti Fooks (Fooks) discuss the ins and outs of small practice with Rosie Halsmith.

Suburban refuge: Designing for biodiversity in our cities • How does increasing density affect our suburban ecologies – and what small interventions can make a meaningful difference?

Collecting the community together: Melbourne Pollinator Corridor • This wildlife corridor spanning an area just south of the Melbourne CBD demonstrates the role that open-ended design processes and the fostering of caring relationships with public landscapes can play in the empowerment of ecologies and communities.

Elevating the minor player • Rich in social, aesthetic and environmental worth, small plants yield large rewards – and cultivate wonder in those who cultivate them.

Network connections • The recent surge of interest in fungi has shed new light on their potential application in the development of new building materials and in medical applications. However, fungi also play a crucial role in the healthy functioning of our ecosystems, from the (under)ground up. Ecologist Alison Pouliot explores how fungi conservation overlaps with landscape restoration.

Small infrastructures: Enabling good habits • Considered interventions in places where long networks and local interfaces overlap can greatly improve our cities. Three small projects from New South Wales illustrate how.

Ground-up transformation: Decolonizing the garden • At a residential property in Melbourne’s outer north-east, a design approach grounded in close observation, manual tending and incremental moves embraces the agency of the landscape and its transformative opportunities.

An adaptive attitude: The Roundtable • Circular in more than one sense, The Roundtable demonstrates the power and potential of small, temporary public installations.

Regional visions: putting together the small pieces of a large puzzle • With Australia’s “second-tier” cities undergoing rapid growth, an emphasis on small-scale projects is vital to improving quality of life and defining city-wide identity.

Cultural load and the small change • Wiradjuri designer Samantha Rich explains the concept of cultural load from a First Nations perspective and explains why it’s important that designers consider it in their projects.

Fostering a meadow mentality • Eight years on, highly adaptable and resilient Woody Meadows are flourishing in urban green spaces with new research attracting fresh partners across Greater Melbourne.

Playful expectations • As our urban neighbourhoods densify, how do we design places where emerging generations can thrive? Natalia Krysiak surveys small interventions that can greatly improve children’s wellbeing.

Vale Jim Sinatra 3 February 1942 – 25 April 2023 • Migrating to Australia from the United States in the early 1980s, Jim Sinatra embedded himself in the profession through a prominent teaching position at RMIT and the establishment of his practice, Sinatra Murphy. He will be remembered as a “pioneer of ideas and creativity” with a deep passion for the Australian landscape.

Landscape Architects as Change Makers