Landscape Foundation of Australia (LFA) Announces Fund Recipients for 2025 Landscape Performance Case Studies (LPCS)
Each year, LFA provides up to $10,000 funding to academic research teams to collaborate with a landscape design practice to assess the performance of one of the practice’s projects. How and to what extent are they meeting environmental, economic, social and cultural sustainability goals?
Findings from the Landscape Performance Case Studies (LPCS) Program will also contribute to the evidence base needed for future planning, effective design and management for healthy, resilient urban landscapes in Australian cities and towns.
REIMAGINING TARRALLA CREEK: Stage 1, Croydon, Victoria Client: Melbourne Water Corporation Academic Team: University of Melbourne, Dr Wendy Walls and Farshad Bahrami, PhD student Practice/Liaison: GHD Design, Martin Coyle, Director of Landscape Architecture …..in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne where ‘daylighting’ a piped stormwater system made it possible to construct a wetland system, improve biodiversity, create new wildlife habitat zones, improve water quality, and expand open space for recreation. Learn more about the project through the GHD website and the Maroondah City Council project page.
BONDI JUNCTION COMPLETE STREETS, Bondi Junction, NSW Client: Waverley Council Academic Team: UNSW, Dr Mike Harris and Eva Glogowska, PhD student Practice/Liaison: Spackman Mossop Michaels; Mat Dally, Director …..located in a dense, inner-Sydney neighbourhood where re-configuring a busy shopping street has created comfortable and safe shared spaces for pedestrians and cyclists, buses with increased shade and enhanced biodiversity. Learn more about the project at SMM website.
Street Furniture Australia and LFA are committed to academic-industry research collaborations that assess performance to inform the evidence base needed for continual improvement and innovative designs for urban landscapes in Australian cities and towns. Street Furniture Australia is a founding partner of the Landscape Foundation of Australia.
Image: Reimagining Tarralla Creek by GHD Design for Melbourne Water Corporation
A Technique to Make Vital Civic Ecologies Legible, using VisualCommunication
Over one and half years, researchers Sarah Jane Jones, Alexandra Crosby, and Ilaria Vanni from University of Technology, Sydney, photographed and made diagrams of Green Square in Sydney for their project titled From photo documentation to photo diagrams: a technique to make civic ecologies present and legible.
Civic ecologies include grassroots initiatives outside the scope of urban planning, such as community and home gardens, native plant regeneration projects, or footpath gardens. They are often small in scale, so can be difficult to recognise as an urban socio-ecological process. Their ‘illegibility’, means local residents may not notice or connect with these civic ecologies in their everyday lives.
Thousands of photographs recorded changes in the urban landscape. Lines and arrows on diagrams captured the changing socio-ecological process of this heavily developed area, close to Sydney’s CBD and airport.
The authors found that unlike in manicured garden beds, residents encouraged interactions among animals, wind, soil, rain and heat in laneways, on rooftops and the ‘slippery’ spaces between private and public land. On one verge, native grass seeds were scattered by birds or possums and germinated. Ferns grew alongside raised beds with culinary herbs.
Residents interacting with urban ecologies is vital, particularly in response to global warming. Visual communication can play a key role in enhancing the understanding and the accessibility of these civic ecological initiatives.
Recipe for a Photo Diagram helps visualise commonalities and connections in urban ecologies. Read more about the study here.
Image: Olive Branch Pavement, courtesy of the authors.
Street Furniture Australia’s entire product range and manufacturing operation has received carbon neutral certification through Climate Active™. Achieving carbon neutral certification marks a significant milestone in our operation and the culmination of a four year long process of detailed measurement and analysis. Climate Active™ is the only Australian government-backed carbon neutral certification programme for businesses to measure, reduce, and offsets their carbon emissions. It is one of the most rigorous carbon-neutral programs in the world. An approved Emissions Reduction Strategy (ERS) is central to achieving certification through Climate Active. Street Furniture Australia has elected to use SBTi validated science-based targets to ensure their ERS is meaningful and aligns with the 2015 Paris Agreement – to limit global temperature rises to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. For those emissions that can’t be …
Our Presentation Specialists, Tiffany and Melissa, bring a fun, interactive and informative workshop to your office. Accredited for 2 AILA CPD points, the experience can be tailored for landscape architects and Councils. In 30 minutes, plus Q&A, you will explore our Outdoor Dining range and enjoy delicious treats. There will also be a prize for a lucky winner (optional). Select from three catering options (also optional): Bookings can be made via the following links: Testimonials ‘The presentation content was informative, engaging, interactive and relevant. Genuinely one of the better supplier workshops! It was efficient yet insightful. The interactive nature of it enhanced engagement with the team,’ Sam Westlake, Senior Associate, Hassell, Sydney. ‘Possibly our favourite product presentation to date! Engaging, great content and appreciated the physical samples and prototypes,’ Alexa …
How climate change is affecting seed dormancy and therefore the regeneration of forests. Also Gensler report on opportunities and challenges for cities.
How do we design effective therapeutic gardens for hospital care? And Wallpaper takes a tour of Belgium's new Marche Arboretum, a new plant 'museum' many years in the making.
