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.

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Landscape Architecture Australia

THE WATER ISSUE

AMPLIFYING OUR IMPACTS • A message from AILA president Ben Willsmore

A waterfront immersion • A collection of recent projects in Mandurah, Western Australia, is enlivening the city’s shoreline and redefining how residents connect with local waterways.

Pier pressure • The design for Altona Pier in Melbourne’s south-west embraces the site’s natural forces of wind and water, foregrounding the essential connection between community and coast.

River landscapes and designing with deep time • River landscapes are constantly shifting. Can deep time offer other ways of thinking about how we design these landscapes going forward?

Hearing and feeling Martuwarra Fitzroy River Country • Anne Poelina and Lachlan Carracher consider the spirit and stories of the largest river in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

Taking the plunge: Designing urban swimming sites • Urban river swimming has taken off overseas, and now Australia is following suit. With water quality a key concern, can we navigate the health risks through design?

Living waters and river persons • The push to recognise the rights of rivers has been gaining momentum in Australia and overseas. How does this impact our relationship with water bodies – and what implications does it have for design?

Selecting plants for a natural look • Naturalistic Australian gardens are becoming increasingly popular. Here are six low-maintenance Australian plants that bring beauty to a space.

Rethinking our approach to designing for disaster resilience • With extreme floods now a regular occurence, we need to design for these events as part of normal life. Doing this effectively means finding more agile ways of both responding to the immediate aftermath of a disaster and planning for a community’s longer-term future.

Riverside connections: Rediscovering Perth’s waterfront • Hassell’s scheme for the redevelopment of Boorloo/Perth’s riverfront creates a diversity of opportunities for rethinking how we engage with water and nature. But does it celebrate the uniqueness of the area as a place?

Saturation point: Parks as new water infrastructure • The acquisition and transformation of flood-prone land in Brisbane under the Queensland government’s voluntary home buy-back scheme has created a series of new parklands around the city. But can we do more with these spaces?

Growing a waterfront park • Funding challenges have paused the implementation of City of Melbourne’s visionary plan for a new riverfront precinct along the Birrarung/Yarra River. But could this pause be a blessing in disguise?

Wetland dreaming: Water in high-density developments • Integrating stormwater management into the design of high-density residential developments can greatly improve our cities and our understandings of natural systems. Three projects – two in Sydney and one in the US – illustrate how.

Beyond land, below water • We tend to think of the Southern Ocean as remote and pristine, far from, and distinct to, our cities. In reality, though, it has been urbanising for centuries.

A fluid materiality: Philippe Rahm • Wendy Walls and Naomi Barun sat down with the Swiss architect to discuss climate-driven design, shifting project priorities and the myth of the designer-genius.

Diving Sydney Harbour • In our latest edition of Field Trip, landscape architect and...