South Australian Sites
Hocking Place bushtop
intoduction / overview / images / location / SA-Projects
Landscape Architect: Fifth Creek Studio
Location: Hocking Place, Adelaide
The Hocking Place bushtop was designed and completed in early 2006 by landscape architect Graeme Hopkins of Fifth Creek Studio. The project, providing special housing for selected tenants, is a collaborative initiative of:
- Multi Agency Community Housing Association
- South Australian Community Housing Authority
- Adelaide City Council
- Department of Premier and Cabinet
- Flightpath Architects
The landscape was implemented by Urban Landscape Services. This landscaped rooftop is approximately 78 square metres in size.
The Hocking Place bushtop provides a domestic-scale green oasis with site-specific biodiversity for a multi-storey residential building in the heart of the city. It serves as an aerial backyard for the building’s residents, and as one stepping stone habitat in a potential city-wide network of bushtops. This bushtop was designed as a retro-fit to the newly completed building, and was specially designed to suit the existing structural requirements. The bushtop achieves one twentieth of a carbon credit, therefore countering the building’s consumption and emission of CO2s.
Particular fauna species have been targeted by planting selected native grasses and sedges to provide a food source for known species of small birds that were once common in the Adelaide Plains, and the flowering plants will attract butterflies and other insects, but the food sources are not attractive to feral species.
This bushtop is an example of an accessible intensive green roof, combining animal and insect habitat with passive recreational access by the building’s residents. Seating has been provided under a pergola for residents to take in the view over the city and to enjoy the year round colourful display of native plantings. The design maximises this relatively small space with a combination of pathways between pebble mulched planting beds, with mounding providing height variation and micro environments for specialised species.
This ecologically focused rooftop landscape makes a strong statement in a direction that, while relatively new in Australia, is much needed in all our built-up urban centres, and demonstrates what can occur instead of the traditional paved roof terrace.
All drawings and photographs are by Fifth Creek Studio.
intoduction / overview / images / location / SA-Projects
2008
