1992 National Award winners

COMMON GROUND

AILA National Conference
Parkroyal Hotel, Brisbane: 21-22 August 1992

Report by Alan Chenoweth 1992

The committee is exhausted but elated, friendships have been forged, spirits were lifted, professional values are reaffirmed or altered, and a good time was had by all. The best ever AILA Conference is over but the enthusiasm continues.

How to cover everything that happened in two hectic days? The most important message to convey is that a sense of direction, commitment and excellence was generated that not only affected landscape architects but also impressed other professions and delegates. A strong set of shared values obviously underlies our frame of reference, reflected at this conference by our search for ways to express social and environmental responsibility in design and planning.

How it all started

The ‘Common Ground’ theme had evolved quickly. Late in 1991 AILA Council apologetically asked the Queensland Group to put together the 1992 Conference, not only at late notice but with a plea that it needed to return a healthy profit to the Institute! At that stage the Group was already committed to a number of initiatives which were extending its human resources. A quick decision was made that one of the planned 1992 events, a joint seminar with Brisbane City Council to explore the interaction between landscape architects and local authorities, would be the Conference theme; and a Conference committee was scratched together with some arm-twisting. The key roles were taken by a small group of mainly young graduates with little AILA background or conference experience, drawn largely from small to medium-sized private practices with little back-up from large organisations, public service or educational institutions.

An early ‘brain-storming’ session created the title of ‘Common Ground’ to reflect the emphasis on joint approaches to public spaces (although it was realised the name had other connotations) and a number of broad strands identified covering policy, design, planning and management. Within these, a range of topics and issues formed the basis for a Call for Papers and for direct approaches to selected speakers. From the responses received, it was clear that the theme had generated its own direction and momentum towards ‘community involvement’ as a major plank of the Conference. There was so much interest from speakers, and so many good papers submitted, that concurrent sessions had to be introduced for the first time at an AILA conference, and even then a number of papers were rejected. To include as much material as possible, the Conference Proceedings were prepublished and most speakers were limited to 15 minute presentations. The excellent collection of papers has been reprinted and is available from the AILA National Office for $30 plus postage.

Objectives

The objectives of the Conference were to discuss and encourage collaboration between landscape architecture, local authorities and the community; as well as to provide the usual forum for exchange of views and friendships within our profession. Other objectives included ‘reaching out’ to a wider audience, ensuring interaction between our profession and others, providing a showcase for significant projects, exposing a ‘new generation’ of Australia’s landscape architects, and providing challenges for our future direction. The program was specifically designed to include a range of speakers, balancing landscape architects and other experts, local and interstate, youth and experience, male and female.

In all these objectives, the Conference was a success. It was particularly pleasing to hear from a number of younger landscape architects and speakers from the smaller States. The Conference attracted more than the 220 delegates who could be accommodated, and registrations had to be closed two days before the opening. Unfortunately a number of local people had to be turned away at the doors, but it was a measure of the enthusiasm created. Attendees included a healthy proportion of non-landscape architects, mainly planners and local authority personnel, and students at discount rates. All sessions were packed to standing room only.

Papers

The program allocated papers to sessions on broad policy (‘Setting the Scene’ and ‘Setting It Up’), planning and design (‘Creating the Vision’ and ‘Working It Out’), community involvement (‘Design ….. for Whom?’), common heritage (‘Holding on to What We’ve Got’) and management (‘Managing the Resource’). Several of these were split, with sessions applicable to urban areas (…. in the Cities’) or rural and near-city areas (‘…on the Fringes’). Each session included a main ‘theme’ paper of 25 minutes followed by three shorter 15-minute presentations. However, there were unavoidable overlaps, papers which did not fall neatly within these categories, and speakers who would have been more appropriate in a different session.

The excellent opening address by Professor David Yencken warned us of the pitfalls ahead in our deliberations, anticipating (correctly) that there would be considerable interest and enthusiasm for community involvement in planning and design decisions. After discussing the known difficulties and major problems of participation, he provided several principles to be followed in preparing the processes and structures necessary for success. Of particular relevance is the ‘charrette’ design process, bringing together all applicable expertise and stakeholders in a carefully-structured intensive exercise to ensure a design ‘product’. Designers must interact from the outset with decision-makers, those with expert contributions and those affected by the outcome, but retain responsibility for the design process and initiatives.

Fred Kent and Kathleen Madden, the keynote speakers from Project for Public Spaces Inc. (New York), lecture widely on user-friendly’ design and planning in cities. PPS is a non-profit consultancy and research organisation which analyses patterns of use in streets, parks, plazas, malls and other public space problems, and recommends specific measures to promote ‘community building’. Prior to the Conference, they had spent a week in Australia, speaking to groups in Sydney, Melbourne, Toowoomba and Brisbane.

Their address to the conference challenged discipline-based approaches to design, particularly those of traffic-engineers and architects, but landscape architects were also criticised for putting ‘fluff around buildings! Four case studies were presented of community-based design processes to tackle existing problems of accessibility and ‘useability with an emphasis on short-term localised solutions to promote activity and interaction. However it was their series of slides of people interacting with human-scale sculptures which drew the greatest audience response, and which best illustrated the power of settings to encourage spontaneous cheerful behaviour in public spaces.

There was a total of 43 speakers in 12 sessions over the two days, and although most were relevant in some way to the theme, a surprisingly wide range of topics was covered. In summary, the papers could be categorised in the following broad areas:

• The cultural basis of image and identity (Tamara Winikoff, Garth Paterson, Gary Willmott), plus the delightful paper and images by Helen Armstrong on the British Common Ground movement.

• The values, protection and management of common landscape and ecological resources such as natural areas (Jerry de Gryse), native vegetation remnants (Trish Ferrier), and the corridors of bushland (Michael Adams), streams (Ian Barwick) and roads (Pat Barwick); plus tips and tricks for making management plans work (Janine Haddow).

• Original research by Jeannie Sim into the cultural heritage of tropical and sub-tropical landscape in Queensland.

• Specific examples of cities re-evaluating their image and assets in Townsville (Cr Anne Bunnell), Darwin (Richard Freeman), Logan City (Dr Catherin Bull) and Toowoomba (Lawrie Smith).

• The Better Cities program (Warren Rowe) and its manifestation in Brisbane (AId Tim Quinn), strategies and event-based approaches to urban regeneration (Mark Fuller) and three types of landscape urban redevelopment - the focused project, the ‘Big Idea’ approach and the open forum design process (Dr Rodney Wulff).

• Behavioural and economic patterns affecting our cities, with a thoroughly researched, wide-ranging and witty paper by Nigel Flannigan.

• Examples of multi-disciplinary integration by developers and public agencies at Robina and Southbank.

• Challenges to the roles of design professions and local authorities in creating urban form (Fred Kent and David Engwicht), housing (Elizabeth Mossop) and in responding to country towns (Kath Wellman).

• The roles and responsibilities of local authorities generally, including the concept of Environmental Asset Management (Dr Chris Hall); and their need to collaborate with landscape architects in planning for open space, amenity and environmental compatibility (Cr. Jim Pennell).

• The roles of landscape architects and landscape policy in local authorities (Warwick Mayne-Wilson, Boyd McMillan, Gary White and Jillian la Patourel), with entertaining tales of a typical Council landscape architect by Robert Prestipino.Collaboration between landscape architects and the community in Mackay (Catherine Brouwer), Gordonvale (Andrew Prowse), Springvale (Pauline McCarthy and Andrew Shannon) and Canberra (Michael Home).

• Broader issues of regional planning in remote areas (John Courtenay), open space planning (John Wood and Michael Erickson), conservation planning and landscape assessment (Jeff Humphreys and Alan Chenoweth) and conservation management (Darryl Low Choy).

Overview

The wide range of conference speakers was neatly ‘bracketed’ by two of our most senior commentators, with David Yencken opening proceedings and Professor George Seddon providing a closing address, both providing the benefit of their experience and learning. In his overview of the conference, Seddon drew many of the threads together and responded to the issues raised. He firstly clarified the various meanings which had been attributed to the term ‘Common Ground’:

• our shared public open spaces (although we should be regarding our humanity and the planet Earth as our real common ground, not just those fragments reserved for public use);
• the Common Ground movement in England, a unique blending of com-munity initiatives in art, landscape and environment to re-evaluate the familiar ‘common place’;
• commonplace, ordinary landscapes which are largely under-valued;
• issues and areas on which we can reach agreement between ourselves or between disparate groups

George Seddon identified several images which had ‘resonated’ throughout the conference in various forms. The first was the influence of place on human response, and the high value placed on settings which facilitate spontaneous behaviour and cheerful interaction. The second was the welcome emphasis on observation and analysis of the familiar and commonplace, aimed at defining what is happening and what works effectively. A warning note was sounded with respect to our fascination with European cities and foreign solutions. While overseas initiatives may provide examples of principles and processes, effective models can only be based on our own social values and urban structures. He noted that cities are enormously complex, and that we should mistrust simple comforting slogans as being evanescent and potentially misleading.

The third repeating element, and one also subject to a cautionary note, was that of community consensus and cooperative action. Echoing some of Yencken’s concerns that poorly-structured public involvement can advance the self-interest of the powerful and further disenfranchise those less articulate, Seddon noted that some groups (notably future generations) are not represented in such processes. He also commented that there is no single identifiable ‘community’ in our complex and diverse society, but we all belong to a number of communities of varying permanence and importance. Nevertheless consultation and participation are vitally important, as a supplement for democratically elected decision makers but not as an alternative. Effective collaboration with stakeholders depends on political will and cooperation, plus multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary skills.

Warming to his defence of experts and governments, Seddon advised that Australian distrust of politicians and professionals prevents us adopting an effective ‘planning culture’. Closer to home, landscape architects should stop resenting engineers and recognise that the ‘enemy’ is anyone who cannot communicate - and the enemy is amongst us! The co-ordinating role will always go to those who are effective integrators and communicators, whether they be politicians, professional experts or community activists.

The ‘Village’ and other Activities

A Conference ‘Village’ erected outside the lecture rooms was the setting for an excellent collection of trade displays, poster presentations illustrating projects of interest to delegates and a bookshop displaying a range of overseas landscape architecture publications available on order.

The foyer Village was an ideal entrance and forum for a range of activities, including the opening cocktail reception hosted by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Ald. Jim Soorley, and presentation of AILA certificates to new corporate members prior to the Awards Dinner.

It also provided an attractive venue for mingling and informal discussions during the tea breaks, and for an innovative exercise in ‘design theatre’ entitled ‘Conference Animation’ - prepared by ‘Tamara Winikoff of the Australia Council together with Helen Armstrong. Delegates were assigned to teams to illustrate the Common Ground theme, challenge assumptions and encourage participation within the confines of the venue. Among the clever efforts was a washing-line strung with underwear through the foyer greenery, a rearrangement of chairs in the lecture rooms as a statement on interaction, and messages of varying degrees of profundity and wit attached to the Common Ground symbol - an elegant sculptured metal tree. The winning team simply wore a variety of strange hats, some with appendages, encouraging interaction through the inevitable questions as to their meaning! In the final tea break, a balladier gave a musical rendition of the conference highlights, including most of the speakers, and presented the noxious weed award to the winners.

Lunches around the hotel pool and in the City Gardens provided a welcome outdoors break each day in the pleasant Queensland spring sunshine, and further opportunities for catching up with colleagues and quizzing speakers.

The major social event was the National Projects Award Dinner, held for the first time in conjunction with a conference.

Off-site, social activities included drinks and a fork dinner at Southbank, followed by conducted tours of the new parkland and public recreation complex on the former Expo site on the Brisbane River; and a ‘Fire and Light’ barbecue (complete with subtropical Gluhwein and a magician!) in the adjacent City Botanic Gardens.

The packed extra-curricular program included the AILA Annual General Meeting, a guided walk around the City Botanic Gardens, a breakfast with Harry Oakman reminiscing about the early days of municipal landscape in Australia, and post-conference day trips to mountain areas surrounding Brisbane.

Considering the two-day conference had been preceded by meetings of AILA Council and State Group Presidents, also at the Parkroyal, it is little wonder that a number of landscape architects were exhausted by the pace!

Acknowledgments

The Conference was exceptionally well supported by sponsors through a well conceived ‘Partners Program’, all of whom are acknowledged in the program and the published Proceedings. The Village foyer arrangement, and the length of time allowed for tea breaks, exposed delegates to the trade displays and encouraged browsing. There was also good support from the profession and public agencies for the concept of poster displays illustrating relevant projects, and for the bookshop organised with the co-operation of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The growing professionalism of AILA is reflected in the ability to organise a conference with a 300-page pre-published set of papers. The efforts of speakers to prepare their papers in time for the publication deadline (with some cajoling) is acknowledged, and all are thanked for their time and effort. In particular our overseas keynote speakers, Fred Kent and Kathleen Madden, made a significant contribution despite their hectic Australian schedule; and Professor David Yencken stepped into the breach at the last minute to provide an excellent opening address when Sir Ninian Stephen was unavoidably unable to attend.

The Conference Committee, and all who attended, expressed appreciation for the professionalism of the Parkroyal Hotel and its staff. The contribution is also acknowledged of session chairpersons, audio-visual assistants, billet and field trip hosts and a host of Queensland landscape architects, students and supporters who provided help when needed.

The major acknowledgment is for the dedication and organising ability of the Queensland Conference Committee, led by Nikolee Ansell, Peter Devine, Don Irving and Scott Taylor, in collaboration with Glenn Lamperd of Australian Incentives and Events Agency, and support from a range of people undertaking specific tasks. These individuals, and the offices which supported them through the months of hard work (in particular Land Plan Studio, Terrain, Chenoweth and Associates and Don Irving and Associates) deserve the accolades of the entire Institute for their contribution to the profession.

1992 National Award winners