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Landscape Architect: Fresh Landscape Design
Location: Four sites in Canberra, ACT (Florey, Chifley, North Watson and Pearce)
OVERVIEW
Four residential gardens designed and built between 2004 and 2007 are presented to demonstrate innovative work in the field of sustainable landscape design at a small scale. The projects demonstrate development of design aesthetics and techniques to create sustainable residential landscapes suited to the Canberra region.
Water sensitive urban design principles have been applied at the individual household scale in four Canberra gardens. Created on modest budgets, the projects include the use of non-potable water, minimal artificial irrigation, restoration of degraded site soil, increased biodiversity and environmentally sensitive use of materials. The projects have been used as case studies for public lectures on sustainable garden design and are visited by people wanting to learn more about water sensitive design.
The project budgets ranged from less than $5000 for the Florey front garden to approximately $30,000 for the Chifley front and back garden.
This series of small projects shows the development of gardens appropriate to the Canberra climate and implementation of principles of sustainable design including water sensitive urban design at a residential scale and the use of local and recycled materials. The gardens are now visited by others wanting to learn more about water sensitive and sustainable design and the owners have taken over the task of explaining the design concepts to these visitors.
Techniques have been developed to use and improve existing site soil in degraded residential sites. The success of these commercially viable techniques and associated planting design is evident in the abundant growth of the plants despite drought conditions and continuing water restrictions.
The design concepts have been expressed with sufficient clarity using plans, perspective sketches and detailed documentation to persuade clients and contractors to experiment with new techniques and embrace garden aesthetics that differ from most Canberra gardens.
The projects all provide functional and accessible spaces appropriate for residential landscapes. The earliest project in Florey (2004) replaces lawn in the front garden with a path and drought-tolerant groundcovers and uses gravity fed drip irrigation from a water tank. The Chifley garden (2005) takes water from the roof of the newly extended house via a dry creek bed and other devices and stores it in the soil to supply the now rampant garden surrounding the new deck. The pond in the back garden attracts native birds and edible plants provide shade in the sitting area. The North Watson garden (2006) successfully uses subsoil soakage trenches to support a series of distinct garden spaces fitted into a small area. The garden is used by the whole family and includes play facilities for the children, extensive water collection and reuse, a vegetable garden and a native grasslands garden. In Pearce (late 2006), flooding and drainage problems along the front of the house were solved by introducing a swale and bog garden, access to the front door was improved and the increased plant diversity attracts birds, lizards and insects.
Each design responds to the client brief to create a garden which is not only functional but also delights the senses and is a pleasure in which to live. Within the limits of modest budgets, materials for the built components have been selected for their muted and understated character so that the diverse textures and colours of the plant materials become the dominant and ever changing feature. These are not instant ‘designer’ gardens complete with tasteful designer decorations. Instead each design provides a living framework and entices the owners into making their own cultural insertions.
The resulting gardens are attractive landscapes with reduced maintenance requirements that provide all the functions expected by the clients including safe access, places for social interaction and quiet reflection, play areas for children, colourful bird-attracting planting and minimal need for artificial watering. All the projects are situated in suburban areas with associated social and cultural expectations. Mature trees and other landscape elements valued by the clients and community have been retained and enhanced.
Budgets for the projects were modest and the Florey and North Watson gardens were constructed by the owners. Instead of using extensive built form for instant effect, the designs minimise the built elements and rely on thoughtful planting design to provide structure and interest. This approach means that the quality of the work becomes more evident over time as plant material matures and the results of superior soil preparation and water sensitive design have an effect. While the younger gardens in this submission have not yet reached this stage, the older ones are beginning to demonstrate their potential and quality after only three or four years.
The projects demonstrate an exploration of various aspects of sustainable landscape design at the residential scale over the last four years during a period of extended drought. These projects have empowered clients to take action to improve the sustainability of their gardens at a time when the community as a whole has been slow to respond to the threat of global warming.
Improved ecosystem services delivered by the gardens include slowing and cleaning surface water run-off, increased permeability of the soil, additional habitat for native animals, enhanced energy efficiency of buildings through appropriate use of sun, shade and windbreaks, and inclusion of edible plants. Each garden incorporates a wide range of plant species including non-cultivar forms to increase the genetic diversity.
Principles implemented include water sensitive design, use of a wide range of plants including many local grassland species, working to improve degraded site soil instead of replacing it, minimising areas of impermeable surfaces, specifying use of locally recycled materials such as shredded green waste, waste rock and crushed concrete, minimising the use of new and unsustainably produced materials and minimising waste. The gardens have also been designed to minimise the need to use fertilisers, pesticides and fossil fuels for maintenance.
This series of small projects has tested techniques of water sensitive design at the individual household level. It has tackled the question of how to structure residential gardens when there are no lawns, explored the use of local grasslands plant material in the cultivated landscape and developed landscape aesthetics appropriate for the Canberra region in the context of global warming.
While small in scale, these projects have helped develop cost-effective techniques for sustainable landscape development that are now being applied by the landscape architect to larger projects in the region.
These ideas have been further promoted in the public arena by using the gardens as case studies in public lectures delivered by the landscape architect. The gardens show the AILA environmental principles in action in ways that are easily understood by gardeners.
The landscape architect worked with each client to develop and document a landscape plan and provided advice to clients and contractors during construction.
introduction / overview / images / Projects
2008
