New South Wales Sites
Sydney
Olympic Park, Homebush Bay, Sydney
artilce published Landscape Australia no 22 (3- 2000)
The Role of the Landscape Architect in the Public Domain
by Bruce Mackenzie
Member, HASSELL Concept Design team
The role of the landscape architect in the public domain and indications for the profession for the new millennium
The Sydney Olympics 2000 has been the catalyst, the spectacle, the driven force behind the enormous change to the Homebush Bay landscape. As an event, the Sydney Olympics will be a sparkling celebration, hopefully earn valuable acclaim for Sydney the city and Australia the nation and then, withdraw from international limelight as its glitter gradually subsides. After so much effort its season will be short. The Homebush Bay site's important future will then begin.
The underlying legacy of the Sydney Olympics will be the remarkable restoration of its site from a land of waste to a place of immense value. The transformation fuelled by the Olympic event will reveal itself us a resource of rewarding benefit to a large urban population.
"We have only to determine to do it and it can be done. The ultimate result will be one of a juxtaposition on a grand scale, of the delightful complexities of nature, and the contrasting spectacle of the Olympic core's built environment..." |
While the mechanics of remediation of waste and contamination have been the responsibility of others with specialist expertise, it has been the landscape architect or, more accurately, the role of landscape architecture that has provided the vehicle-the medium-for realising and exploiting these fundamental changes.
An inspired new and productive environment is being created as a consequence. The intrinsic rewards of the Olympics 2000 will be of long-lasting benefit to the people of Sydney, in particular, to those of the expansive western suburbs, the core of the city's demographic spread a most fortunate relationship.
A parallel event, in the Sydney context, was the Darling Harbour's 1988 development. Landscape architects were deeply involved in the early promotion of the Darling Harbour idea. The Lawrence Halprin barnstorming tour organised by the AILA with the Australia Council in liaison with the RAIA and RAPI took the idea of Darling Harbour as an urban parkland into the headlines and into the hearts and minds of politicians.
The spectacular conversion from a rusting railway depot to a vibrant Sydney place was invigorated and set in motion. However, with all of the consulting work and valuable finishing works undertaken by landscape architects, it is important to acknowledge that in 1988 the highly successful process of masterplanning, organising and management of this development was the responsibility of an architectural team not landscape architects.
Did we, in the mid-80s, have within our ranks the experience, the sophistication, or the authority to undertake such a role?
By contrast, the Olympic site, some fifteen years later, has been effectively modelled and directed by landscape architects, in a collaborative association with architectural and other related disciplines. We must also acknowledge the significance of the eminent landscape professionals brought into this process from overseas, George Hargreaves and Peter Walker.
While the rationale for their involvement was questioned by landscape architects in Australia, for obvious reasons, it must be agreed that the visiting professionals made major contributions. It may also be agreed that the skills and talents required for the task were readily available here at home. Can we take the next step in observing that the attributes of experience, sophistication and authority, commensurate with international reputations, provided an additional element of confidence being sought, presumably, by the commissioning authorities particularly in regard to the Olympic Boulevard precinct?
In effect, should a procedure with such international implications have been entrusted to the relatively limited experience of local professionals? Whatever may have been the opinions addressing the issue, it is an inescapable fact that the involvement of the landscape architects from the United States helped to enhance the landscape architectural influence in the Olympic site's creative process.
'...valuable remnant examples of the once-natural site still remain to be Incorporated within the parklands and to provide stimulus and guidance for the designers." |
"...these more-or-less natural examples reflect the image qualities and species compositions of original forest and estuarine plant communities. The evidence of these remnants inspires both the aesthetic and mechanical formulae of the planting design structure." |
Next time around, in similar circumstances, I would like to believe that this issue will no longer be relevant. When appropriate, the opportunity to draw upon special landscape skills from abroad should remain an option, though not regarded as an imperative.
The Hargreaves & Associates group played a vital role in rethinking and pulling together the many disparate and competing elements of the urban core, conceiving a scheme of style and grandeur.
The Hargreaves initiative enjoyed the opportunity to work with (and with courage) the then not fully committed components of the central zone. The timing, though belated, was such that the `moves' of the Hargreaves' strategy were still attainable.
Not so for the Millennium Parklands team,whose involvement should have begun at the time of, or prior to, the work on the core area. Total integration and coincidence of ideas may then have been achievable. More importantly, the parklands team had to confront, over the broad site, conflicting circumstances that might otherwise have been avoided.
Prior to the emergence of the HASSELL team, others had already invested intensive planning time and effort to investigate directions, policies and standards, all determined to underwrite the success of the work to be later committed. However, during the preemptive stages, when the true nature of a site has not yet materialised, thinking processes tend to he two-dimensional in nature, contrasting with the threedimensional realities facing designers working at the end of the chain.
The ultimate success of the Millennium Parklands will be reliant upon a great many people and the quality of the end result will reflect the qualities provided by each of those participants. Key aspects of the parklands concept plan include the intellectual and educative directives of the Millennium Institute program, in conjunction with the complex physical design and intrinsic integrity of its design image moulded to:
..the philosophic stance of retaining, reinforcing and recreating the essence of an indigenous Australian landscape and to the extent that it is practicable and appropriate, the endemic qualities of the Homebush Bay site."
Comment on the Millennium Parklands process as an authentic response to the adopted Concept Plan can only be made as a projection into the long program ahead. A common ingredient may be identified in anticipation of success and that is the need for a totally faithful respect to be devoted to the design themes. This respect is not simply a quality to be adopted by individuals engaged in the on-going detail design stages. It is something that must be integral to the entire sequence of events, from project management through selection, supervision and assessment processes to implementation stages and finally, the management and maintenance activities on-site.
"...process of creating the Millennium Parklands' special character may be observed as being an evolutionary step in the development of the Australian Indigenous landscape design ethos which has progressively commanded attention from designers and the Australian community over the last thirty years." |
Those charged with engaging the designers and consultants to carry out the tasks must themselves be fully informed and comprehensive of the design intentions, to ensure that appropriate choices arc made.
My personal interest in the development and consolidation of an indigenous Australian landscape design ethos found very ripe ground at this Sydney 2000 venue.
Fellow members of the HASSELL team would have it no other way Peter Walker, always a powerhouse of energy and intellectual rigour with no prior familiarity with the Australian landscape, adopted this theme whole heartedly. Foundations for this design choice had been laid in many studies leading up to the Concept Design process. Importantly, the parklands project team of the OCA welcomed and supported our initiative entirely.
The generosity and comprehensiveness of the project are inspirational and the intelligence of policies for recycling and sustainable design should strengthen the guidelines to be followed by landscape architects. Hopefully, the quality and scale of finishes throughout the site will continue to impress landscape architects and other organisations responsible for works in the public domain, stimulating their activities accordingly.
Given that urban populations in Australia and throughout the world grow relentlessly and, with them, the threat of the 'urban jungle', there is a critical need to provide urban communities with healthier, renewing, recreational environments of appropriate scale and quality, essentially, close to home.
The landscape architect must play a vigorous role in promoting and building these sustainable environments.
The Sydney 2000 Olympic Site, in association with the Millennium Parklands, will make an impressive contribution to that ideal.
However; a lengthy program of, as yet, unfundcd development lies ahead.
It is essential that a should continue to enjoy the funding and investment of energies necessary to ensure that its grand promise will be realised.
Bruce Mackenzie FAILA, a member of the AILA since 1969, has covered every aspect of landscape architecture in both government and commercial projects, following an innovative design path and winning many design awards along the way.
In 1992, he shifted focus and established Bruce Mackenzie Design Pty Ltd, allowing him time to pursue other interests in design, including the development of his range of furniture.
He brought his design skills to the team responsible for Millennium Parklands at the Olympic site at Homebush Bay.
