Civic Landscape Award of Excellence: Matron Ruby Grant Park

Recipient: Sprout Landscape Architecture in collaboration with CAB Consulting

Sponsored by: Austral Bricks/Austral Masonry

Originally entered into the ‘Parks’ Category the jury were unanimous in thinking this project displays excellence as a civic design. The design manages to enrich and further articulate the surrounding public domain, using a simple and restrained palette of materials, finely detailed without being busy. Water appears playfully and reflectively as an integral part of the design without needing to be a ‘feature’: it is an integral part of the storm water management, as an active element in an exquisitely crafted water basin and as bubblers which were part of the architectural design.

The seamless integration between the park, the architecture the public domain and the other related public artworks was really the most admirable aspect. The deceptively understated design manages to define outside spaces, provide sitting surfaces, link adjoining areas, operate as infrastructure while also providing delight at critical focal points that made the design stand out and ‘sing’. The reed beds that are a part of the stormwater management system also relate to the original swamp conditions of the site, and further underpin the local ‘fit’ of the design.

Parks & Open Space Award of Excellence: Bungarribee at Doonside, Western Sydney Parklands Trust

Recipient: JMDD

Sponsored by: Street Furniture Australia

Bungaribee is a new public park in Western Sydney that artfully combines recreation, culture and environment. The park’s design presents a new and innovative parkland type for Western Sydney. The Park gains much of its strength and relevance through the development of design approaches that use scale, materials, art and ecologies to celebrate both existing and new landscapes layered within the site.

The design intensifies the striking landscape of grasslands, vast skies, and distant views inherited from its cultural, pastoral and industrial past. The design values the heritage of Western Sydney’s landscape through the preservation and expansion of remnant bushland, the replanting of endemic vegetation, the framing of expansive grasslands at the heart of the site and the conservation of habitat along Eastern and Bungarribee Creeks.

These existing landscapes are framed by new large-scale windbreaks. Two carefully crafted precincts offer very different experiences within the existing landscape. These new spaces cater to a range of users including large and small groups of picnickers, dog walkers, walkers, joggers and families visiting the playground. The picnic grounds, shelters, event space, access paths are clustered in the East where the two existing forests meet in a remnant woodland. Structures used to support these functions include industrial steel profiles that set up a dialogue with the industrial sheds and motorways near-by. Vertical surfaces on the entries and treehouse exploit their graphic potential to dissolve form and appear as billboards in the landscape. The newly formed park reads as a “found site” with new playful, whimsical elements. These create a new identity without relinquishing the strong existing ecological and landscape character.

Play Spaces Award of Excellence: The Ian Potter Children’s Wild Play Garden at Centennial Parklands

Recipient: ASPECT Studios

Sponsored by: Andreasens Green

On an undulating hillside within Centennial Park one enters a secret garden in which the play elements merge with the landscape setting, creating a journey of discovery for children and their families. It breaks out of the usual paradigm in which the play structures stand in isolation for children to play whilst the parents sit around the periphery. The inventive, site specific play elements are made of natural materials. They include a tree house and climbing structure with a slippery slide, water-play ponds and fountains, bamboo tunnels and maze-like spaces, timber beam balance structures arranged to represent the famous Centennial Park eel. The rich and diverse planting that define the sequence of spaces is layered to give a sense of enclosure and changing perspectives for small children and adults. It also provides a place for environmental education: an important and innovative dimension in playground design. The setting for informal play also provides attractive, shaded family picnic areas. Such an extraordinary achievement would not have been possible without the close collaboration with Centennial Parklands and the Foundation.

Infrastructure Award of Excellence: ‘Enviro Cycle’ – Woolooware Shared Pathway Stage 6

Recipient: Sutherland Shire Council

Sponsored by: ACO

This project is the last link in a 13.5 km long–term project cycleway to link Captain Cook Bridge to Kurnell but it is much more than a simple ‘missing link’. While it may be classed as ‘infrastructure’ it has also recreated saltmarsh, revealed and reframed the cultural heritage of oyster farming, re-valued mangroves and provides an unexpected panoramic view out to the expanse of the bay after passing through industrial streets and a tunnel of casuarina and mangroves.

The project is an exemplar of collaboration across a wide range of government agencies and a long-term commitment to design excellence and internal capacity building within council.

This is evident not only in the attention to detail in the construction, but in the rich revelation and layering of meanings, memories and diverse domains: present and past industry, habitat, and wildlife, maritime activity and distant urban skyline under a big sky. Interpretation of the local environment is both informed and playful; from careful new plantings to the bold designs of cut-out weathered sheets that shelter and frame a variety of spaces..

Such richness only comes from the involvement of many people with many interests and different perspectives. The project manages to incorporate these diverse influences elegantly.

Tourism Award of Excellence:Bald Hill

Recipient:Wollongong

Bald Hill is an iconic coastal site with a delicate balance of incredibly hardy yet equally fragile ecosystems, windswept and exposed to the elements. As a popular destination for residents, tourists and tourism operators alike, the pressure the site is subjected to with visitor numbers up to 3000 people over a weekend, is immense.

With assistance from consultants Arup and Footprint, and using grant funding from Restart NSW, Wollongong Council have delivered a successful combination of elements demanded by visitors, providing amenity, accessibility, circulation and parking, whilst protecting the competing and often defeated qualities of heritage and ecology. The contemporary visitor centre building form is nestled into the hillside, respectful of the landscape character of the iconic ‘bald’ hilltop location. The overarching built landscape provides an improved visitor experience, addressing the practical needs of the site, interpreting the history, retaining the spectacular views, and enhancing the amenity of an overwhelmed public space.

Urban Design Landscape Architecture Award: Woolgoolga Town Centre Masterplan.

Recipient: Lat27 and Coffs Harbour City Council

Sponsored by: WE-EF

The City of Coffs Harbour Council has shown civic leadership in the development of the Woolgoolga Town Centre Masterplan. Facing a fundamental shift from thoroughfare to a destination place with the construction of the Pacific Highway by-pass – Woolgoolga’s structure and role as a sub-regional centre going forward is destined for change. The master plan provides a robust and sound framework for future decision-making based on a solid understanding of local social, environmental and economic principles, underpinned by comprehensive community understanding and support. The master plan responds to the community values established as a result of a comprehensive three–year community consultation process.

The master plan establishes an integrated public realm, built form and movement solutions which will guide growth. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, the master plan demonstrates strategic thinking, engagement and partnership, and the objectives and principles of the project talk to the sustainability of growth in a small town. It is commendable for a regional council to develop such a robust strategy using an approach that could be applied to their other coastal townships.

Landscape Planning Landscape Architecture Award: Southern Parklands Vision 2036 at Western Sydney Parklands

Recipient: Turf Design Studio and Environmental Partnership Collaboration (TDEP)

Sponsored by: Fleetwood Urban

A grand vision is guiding the implementation of another major piece in the jig-saw that forms the Western Sydney Parklands. Southern Parklands will become the open space and recreational heart for the “Parklands City”- the third city of Greater Sydney growing around Western Sydney Airport, as articulated in the Draft South Western District Plan 2016.

The Southern Parklands Vision 2036 embodies a series of principles. These were based on a rigorous assessment of the open space values and the scenic, environmental and heritage qualities of the landscape. The principles guide the future implementation and management of the parkland and the adjacent development corridor. It establishes precincts that offer diverse and exciting experiences for the regional and local populations; the distribution and interaction of uses; and the relationship to existing and future urban communities and infrastructure projects. It emphasises the need to positively address new communities to the west with potential for a higher level of urban density and activity adjoining the park edge, and an integrated approach to neighbourhood centres and transport corridors.

As a testament to the clarity of the vision and the ability to collaborate with key stakeholders, the Trust was able to convince RMS to alter their planned alignment of the M12 Link (between the western Sydney Airport and M7) which would have taken the road through the Scenic Hills section of the parklands and one of the most important landscapes of the corridor. The vision had identified this zone as the location of South West Sydney’s equivalent to Centennial Park and a major place for events and tourism.

The Trust has commenced implementing the Southern Parklands Vision through the development of a Landscape Framework and the first stages of works on the park and facilities.

Research, Policy & Communicatio Award of Excellence:Greener Places

Recipient:Government Architect (GANSW)

Sponsored by: SESL Australia

Greener Places advocates for and supports the creation of a connected network of new green places and actively promotes the integration of green infrastructure as a driver in the conception and development of projects. This landscape-led initiative is the first urban Green Infrastructure policy for NSW, reflecting the NSW’s Government’s collective vision and expectations in planning, designing and creating a sustainable NSW.

This is a valuable document likely to underpin all built projects in NSW. Rather than present new research on the definition of green infrastructure, it evaluates how existing knowledge needs to be integrated into current policy and legislative frameworks. In this regard it is comprehensive, innovative and essential framework for the next step, which is likely to include more detail on implementation including legislation, statutory planning, the investigation into possible funding mechanisms and the development of a state-wide GIS data base of existing green open space. As a government policy, Greener Places is likely to have a far reach and hopefully influence all development across the state.

Research, Policy & Communication Landscape Architecture Award: Interpretive Wonderings

Recipient: Interpretive Wonderings Team

Sponsored by: SESL Australia

Interpretive wonderings is an important and beautiful body of design research, a collation of “interrelated events that originated from an invitation to map the landscape of an aboriginal community owned station property in southern NSW”. The research, the product of a collaboration between cultures, through art and design, on Country, challenges the conventions of ‘mapping’ and cartography, while also illustrating a rich visual interpretation of Culpra Station.

The work offers a critical approach to the environmental challenges we now face, illustrating how the sharing of knowledge systems might broaden and deepen our understanding of place, and thereby shed new light on how we might sustain Australia’s fragile landscape for future generations. It shows the diversity of our industry and the power of the landscape in the collective understanding of place. At the same time, it establishes a valuable framework for collaboration between indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the future, and as such is an important step on the path to Reconciliation.

Research, Policy & Communication Landscape Architecture Award: Brilliant Cities

Recipient: AECOM

Sponsored by: SESL Australia

Brilliant Cities is a rigorously researched and compelling document, beautifully communicated and succinct in its message, that begins to situate green infrastructure as a mainstream urban system via a cost-benefit analysis and clear communication. AECOM augmented their research with insights from interviews with councils, statutory bodies and developers to better understand of the financial and regulatory challenges involved. The scope is kept deliberately small (photosynthetic infrastructure: trees, plants, and grass) the methodology is clear, the terms clearly defined, and the claims and proposals backed up by solid referencing to research and case studies around the world.

The research identifies four steps cities must take to enhance green infrastructure in cities: quantify its value; us master plans to integrate it with the city; harness community support for regulatory change; and apply smarter management strategies. Each step is addressed in some depth in the document, and includes the challenges associated with each step as well as possible solutions. Despite, or perhaps because this is a small document, it feels powerful. It has the potential to provide landscape architects with the tools to advocate for the integration of green infrastructure in NSW and thereby contribute to the long-term sustainability and liveability in the region.

Community Contribution Award of Excellence: HASSELL Travelling Scholarship

Recipient: HASSELL

Sponsored by: Co-Ordinated Landscapes

Since 1990, HASSELL has provided a Travelling Scholarship to Landscape Architecture students. The Scholarship is open to applicants from AILA accredited educational institutions. It broadens the horizons of the successful students in a way that would otherwise not be available to them. Twenty eight recipients have received the $5,000 award between 1990 and 2017. In addition to its dollar value, it provides students an unparalleled opportunity to extend their knowledge and experience in the areas they are most interested in, explore international state of the art projects, expand their employment opportunities through exposure to potential employers throughout the world and help shape their career paths. The documentation produced by the Scholarship students helps the broader Landscape Architectural community by adding to the body of knowledge and debate about current Landscape Architectural issues.

HASSELL has shown exemplary leadership and generosity not only in offering the Scholarship continuously since 1990, but by undertaking a 25-year review to test its benefits and the processes through which the scholarship operates. The review was based on extensive consultation with sponsors, organisers, educators, candidates and recipients. The recommendation from the consultations include improvements to the application/presentation process, mentoring of recipients, promotion and use of material produced by the award. The Review highlights HASSELL’s commitment to improving the profile and expertise of landscape architecture profession in general, and the Landscape Architecture student community in particular.