LANDSCAPING PRINCIPLES

BUILDING BETTER SUBURBS - A LANDSCAPERS APPROACH

Our proposed new vision focuses on transforming the precinct into a sense of place within the neighbourhood. This will incorporate the new development into the adjacent Park land, forming a new contemporary and lively integrated urban space.

The edges of the park are to be activated allowing a secure precinct for activities and pedestrian access to the surrounding business parks and residential neighbourhoods. This green approach will provide the needed social development infrastructure which in turn promotes social activity and a place of memory.

Not only is it possible to provide environmentally friendly, sustainable, green landscaping, we can transform utilizing all of these principles. While maintaining low impact site development, harvesting rainwater, and managing storm water, we can still provide beautiful, functional landscapes and outdoor activity areas, providing both visual and physical connections to the neighbourhood.

There are five simple design elements used in creating a sustainable living landscape: berms, pathways, retaining walls, terraces and trees.

Architecturally the landscaping contributes a counterpoint of colour and texture to the complex of buildings. It provides a balance between man-made and the natural. It provides the infrastructure to support social connectivity.

Berms

The primary element is a large serpentine BERM that sits across the site and becomes a means for catching stormwater, cleaning it and slowing it down, before decanting back into the river. The basic principle of a Water Retention Landscape is that no rainwater should run off, but rather infiltrate into the soil where it falls.

Pathways

This berm then becomes the platform for a PATHWAY which runs along its crest and connects the north-east and south-west corners. A raised walkway that projects out over the wetland allows visitors an opportunity to look down at an ecologically restored marshy grassland. This should be sown with colourful perennials and bulbs so that it changes through the seasons and becomes a very beautiful tapestry.

Retaining Walls

Higher up the site, large RETAINING WALLS replicate the serpentine language, terracing up into the buildings and creating outdoor spaces at various levels that allow the building to spill out onto.

Terraces

The lowest terrace becomes an active lawned park, separated from the wetland by the large berm. The upper TERRACES have a harder surface.

Trees

TREES are kept to long straight lines, acting as sculptural edges that channel views or break the verticality of adjacent walls/ buildings.

The proposal distinctly gives hierarchy to pedestrian movement along the piazza and places cars below on the roadway and parking in basements. A bicycle route meanders through the wetlands and up to the retail component, ultimately linking everything together.

2018-2020 / ARCHITECTURE / EDUCATION