Project: Craigieburn Bypass

Recipient: Taylor Cullity Lethlean with Tonkin Zulaikha Greer and Robert Owen

Client: Vic Roads

NATIONAL AWARD OF EXCELLENCE 

Recipient: Taylor Cullity Lethlean with Tonkin Zulaikha Greer and Robert Owen
Project: Craigieburn Bypass
Client: Vic Roads

The Craigieburn Bypass is a sophisticated transit project which integrates art, landscape and infrastructure. The project is not a problem solving based solution but a creative response to concepts of movement, arrival and reference. 

The design was borne out the need to reroute the Hume Highway and the obvious tension in the selected bypass route between the basalt plain grasslands on the west and the city’s expanding urban fringe on the east.

Without resorting to the creation of a gateway as an object, the project sequences elements in a sculptural, almost theatrical way to reveal the city.

The careful integration of sculpture, landform and road infrastructure elements including a sinuous weathered steel curtain wall, moulded concrete sound walls, etched acrylic panels, tapered blue poles, LED lighting and ultimately a twisted steel pedestrian bridge that frames the City of Melbourne, have been carefully arranged and integrated within the road corridor to create a five-kilometre gateway experience which is at once dynamic, sequential and memorable.

The approach becomes the experience rather than just the point of destination and illustrates the breadth of skill and sculptural opportunities that landscape architects can bring to a broad scale, cross disciplinary infrastructure project. The client, VicRoads, should be applauded for setting the framework in which a project of this calibre and significance could be realized.

Recipient: Taylor Cullity Lethlean with Peter Elliot Architects
Project: North Terrace Redevelopment Stage One, Adelaide
Client: Adelaide City Council and the Government of South Australia

The jury commends this thoughtful and elegant revision to Adelaide’s civic and cultural boulevard. This project, the first of three stages, realizes the vision set out by Taylor Cullity Lethlean in the urban design framework and concept master plan which received an AILA Award of Excellence for Planning in 2004.

As leaders of this complex project, Taylor Cullity Lethlean have conveyed an important and positive message about the capacity of landscape architects to lead urban landscape design projects. The jury also commends the clients for their continuing support of Taylor Cullity Lethlean, which highlights the benefits reaped when designers are encouraged to test their concept plans in subsequent design commissions.

The design affirms the relevance of this historic boulevard to the public domain of contemporary Adelaide. The historic garden walk, a double-path system, was retained as the setting for its adjacent civic institutions; its edges, thresholds and intermediate spaces were rearticulated to encourage pedestrian movement and a diversity of activities.

The resulting mosaic of seating areas, tree plantings and forecourt plazas is a masterfully crafted, and meticulously detailed choreography of scenes which generates an urban precinct rich with cultural identity and vitality.

Recipient: mcgregor + partners in association with North Sydney Council
Project: Former BP Site Public Park
Client: North Sydney Council

BP Park cleverly realizes the first stage of Clouston’s masterplan for Waverton Peninsula, a former fuel storage facility and post-industrial ruin located in critical proximity to the centre of Sydney. 

The project clearly demonstrates an intelligent and contemporary approach to the reuse and interpretation of an industrial site and explores the form of the traditional stroll garden, within this stripped terrain.

Minimal intervention and a strong attitude towards urban ecological restoration and site regeneration have been fundamental to the making of this park. The selection of materials and the simplicity of detailing has been combined with a well choreographed network of spaces and pathways, to give the visitor a rich spatial experience through which the scale and character of the former industrial complex is evoked.

The thoughtful insertion of stairs, ramps, balustrades and pathways have clearly articulated the tensions between the former use and the sandstone topography of its location, allowing a complex reading of the site. Critical junctions between old and new have been resolved in a manner that strengthens the basic premise of the project: one that values the debate between naturalism, nostalgia and the need to express a contemporary condition.

Recipient: Harris Hobbs Landscapes
Project: Harris Hobbs Garden

To find a garden where passion and delight are woven as a continuous thread is a rare and sumptuous treat. Here is a work of great beauty which reaffirms the real art of garden making. The themes evident are of experimentation, refinement and the expression of form in the landscape.

The garden is a seamless extension of the residence with a rich sequence of rooms and courtyards exhibiting assured spatial manipulation. The expression of outdoor rooms is expanded through the colourful, eclectic and often humorous body of artworks. This garden is constantly a work in progress and reflective of Harris Hobbs’ commitment to, and enjoyment of exploration.

Synchronicity between landscape, art and architectural elements is used to create a garden much more than the sum of its parts.

Recipient: Aspect Sydney P/L
Project: An Eventful Path
Client: Sydney Olympic Park Authority

Like a seam of coloured jerseys or sporting scarves stitched together,An Eventful Pathis an illuminated line of brightly coloured glass set on the edge of the railway forecourt at Sydney Olympic Park. 

During the day the installation appears seamlessly integrated into the station forecourt. At night, it turns into a beautiful, glowing line of colour, drawing people to the light and a series of inscribed plaques.

Both artwork and commemorative built form,An Eventful Pathis a memory line of the major international cultural and sporting events held at Olympic Park and an illuminated pathway directing crowds from station to stadium. The project explores the possibilities of monument, ritual and memory and responds with intelligence and restraint.An Eventful Pathis refreshingly simple and engaging installation which celebrates and marks everyday history.

NATIONAL COMMENDATION AWARD

Recipient: Kate Cullity, Taylor Cullity Lethlean
Project: Chaumont International Garden Festival 2004: ‘Fire Stories’
Client: Conservatoir International des parcs and Jardins et du Payusage

The jury was impressed by the beauty and provocative qualities ofFire Stories. A landscape art installation which was one of twenty out of 400 projects selected for construction at the 2004 Chaumont International Garden Festival,Fire Storiesdistils five cycles of fire ecology into an engaging work of art.

By employing a restrained palette and testing new propagation techniques,Fire Storiesdemonstrates the power of abstraction to explore and communicate cultural and ecological narratives, and reminds us that experimentation is an effective and relevant aspect of our practice.

Recipient: City Design, Brisbane City Council

Projects: The Web at Rocks Riverside Park, The Vines at Kalinga Park and Whimsical Whales at Wynnum

Client: City Policy and Strategy, Brisbane City Council

The Brisbane City Council’s playground projects demonstrate that with thoughtful design and high quality detailing, challenging and stimulating play environments can be created.

Consistent design themes and careful consideration of site context has led to the creation of high quality, innovative play spaces.

The jury noted that the entry from the Brisbane City Council, which focused on three large playgrounds with a combined budget $2.6million, highlighted a greater context whereby these projects form part of a broader strategy that has seen fifteen new playgrounds installed in the past two years.

The three playgrounds, The Web at Rocks Riverside Park, The Vines at Kalinga Park and Whimsical Whales at Wynnum have each been specifically designed to suit the site and particular design theme. The Brisbane City Council is to be congratulated for their initiatives and strategies during the past few years in the area of playground design.

Recipient: Pittendrigh Shinkfield Bruce (PSB)

Project: Bolotin Garden

The designer realised that to overcome the challenge of the site was the key to addressing the brief. In so doing the designer has unlocked the potential of the site through embracing its constraints. 

This skilful twist of a constraint into an opportunity provided the solution for the garden and the gallery. The development of this solution into a series of lines and nodes reflects the designers understanding of his client, affording both the designer and client the opportunity to construct the dialogue that they had enjoyed, the end design becoming an extension of the relationship that had been formed.

The apparent simplicity of the solution belies the depth of detail that has been achieved to create the sequence of gallery spaces that function on many levels. Providing ongoing motivation for the owner. This project clearly demonstrates the commitment needed for good residential design.

Recipient: Taylor Cullity Lethlean
Project: Taylor Cullity residence

This garden is more than an art gallery. By a lesser designer this would have just been a collection of installations. The designers have laid down their main influences and current ideas. 

Each space is a separable portion exploring a variety of media and effects. Yet its success is the play between landscape and art and the flow that has been created from one space t the next.

The jury was impressed by the success in skilfully achieving cohesion through movement. This project adds a new definition to private garden.

Recipient: Jeremy Ferrier Landscape Architects
Project: An Artists Garden, Kenmore, Queensland

Freed from the normal constraints of function and spurred on by an adventurous client, this garden represents a rare opportunity to explore the notion of landscape as art.

The design successfully blurs the edges between art, environment and design, drawing inspiration from the client's abstract paintings.

Due to its location the garden is primarily designed to be viewed from above rather than experienced at ground level, with artistic form rather than function therefore driving the concept. The intent was to create an abstract painting within the landscape using a palette of rock and stone, plants and paving rather than paint to form the picture. The result is an intensely personal and lyrically expressive design which acts as an extension of the client's personality and works of art.

Recipient: Winner: Pittendrigh Shinkfield Bruce (PSB)
Project: Paddington Terrace Garden, Sydney

Sculpture and function combine in this tight contemporary terrace courtyard in inner Sydney. An organic and unexpected design solution rather than a more obvious geometric response has successfully been utilized to respond to the design brief for an outdoor room which fuses with internal spaces.

The landscape architects worked with sculptor Robert Pittorino to successfully combine the function of retaining, the act of lounging, the creation of an art piece, the movement of water and the placement of lighting to create a richly layered organic composition. By employing a sculptural yet structural form the landscape architects have been able to soften and personalize the space and at the same time develop a series of sub-areas of varying scale, mood and use.

The result is a colourful, soft, sensuous and bold form which is also a demonstration in textural and structural restraint.

Recipient: Hassell Pty Ltd
Project: Waterfront City Masterplan, Melbourne
Client: ING Real Estate

Melbourne's new urban quarter at Docklands, Waterfront City is one of the largest urban renewal projects to be undertaken in Victoria. Covering 20 hectares, it forms the final stage in the redevelopment of the water edge of Docklands. 

Hassell, as master architect, with BDP London, were engaged to design this development which includes restaurants, cafes and entertainment, offices, retail and housing.

An excellent illustration of the planning process from an interdisciplinary team, recognizing the significant contribution landscape architects can make in major urban renewal projects. One of the project visions was to create a world renowned waterfront precinct; this document allows these aims to be realized. Sound planning principles and methodologies are clearly set out and easy to understand.

With the project currently under construction, the masterplan is providing a solid platform enabling opportunities for innovative detailed design solutions.

Recipient: HASSELL Pty Ltd
Project: Sydney Metropolitan Regional Recreation Trails Framework
Client: NSW Department of Planning

The aim of the project was to map, plan and guide the development of a network of regional recreation trails in the Sydney metropolitan region.

The project transcended state and local government boundaries and covered the entire Sydney metropolitan region including forty-three local government agencies and other state agencies who formed an advisory panel appointed by the Department of Planning (formerly DIPNR).

It is the first time a regional trails planning project has involved multiple forms of trail use in developing a network of off-road recreation trails.

This important and wide reaching work, with clear analysis and recommendations based on best practice examples, provides future directions for recreation trail establishment and management across the broader Sydney region.

NATIONAL MERIT AWARD

Recipient: HASSELL Pty Ltd
Project: Second Ponds Creek
Client: Landcom (NSW)

Second Ponds Creek in Sydney’s north-west is one a number of degraded creek lines in the area following years of agricultural activities including clearing, grazing, dairying, orcharding and other related activities. 

Second Ponds Creek flows through the centre of a proposed low density residential subdivision with an anticipated yield of 3200 lots, most of which are being developed in joint venture arrangements between Landcom and private developers. Landcom was committed from the outset to the complete regeneration/reconstruction of the 3km length of creek line that will become the spine and focus of the new subdivision.

The consultants clearly understood their role and identified the need to go beyond the site to deliver the brief. This document comprehensively sets out the scope, analysis and detailed planning process, identifying a diversity of settings and recreational opportunities within a sustainable framework. This project captures the essence of good open space planning.

NATIONAL MERIT AWARD

Recipient: Context Landscape Design, Anton James Design & CAB Consulting
Project: Ballast Point Park
Client: Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority

Ballast Point is located at the tip of the Birchgrove Peninsula in Sydney’s inner west. The peninsula is predominantly residential except for the 2.5-hectare Point site which has been dominated by storage tanks and associated infrastructure from the site’s use by Caltex since the 1920s.

The intention of the masterplan is to guide the site’s future development after remediation as a post-industrial park. Showing comprehensive analysis, research and planning processes, this clearly set out report considers Ballast Point’s importance within its inner-city harbourside context.

NATIONAL COMMENDATION AWARD

Recipient: EDAW Australia
Project: Cairns Botanic Gardens
Client: Cairns City Counil

The commission involved the investigation thirty-two-hectare site, which features three separate uses - the botanic gardens, environmental park and tanks precinct featuring large concrete tanks built by WWII US forces.

As a series of community facilities, the proximity and potential relationship between the three areas have been mainly ignored and each managed separately for many years. The masterplan draws together the three sites into a jointly managed and developed precinct to establish integrated culture parkland encompassing benchmark horticulture, environmental education, creative arts and performance, and regional recreation activity.

The masterplan is an intensively detailed report which provides a guide to future development for this important regional community asset.

Recipient: Coomes Consulting Group
Project: Melbourne CBD Pedestrian and Traffic Study
Client: The City of Melbourne

The study covers a number of inner city streets, including public transport and retail nodes with some of the city’s highest pedestrian volumes. 

These pedestrian environments were analyzed to determine their pedestrian amenity, safety, accessibility and linkages, and to advise on sensitive and practical ways in which improvements to the pedestrian environment could be made. The project delivers 23 detailed, illustrated concept plans with actions for future works.

The jury recognises this project’s positive contribution to planning for quality pedestrian environments within the Melbourne CBD.

Recipient: City Design, Brisbane City Council
Project: Rocks Riverside Park
Client: City Policy and Strategy Brisbane City Council

The jury would like to commend Brisbane City Council for the foresight to change an ecologically damaged site into a now well loved public park. The collaborative efforts of a large and diverse project team impressed the jury. 

The park provides a much needed gathering place for the local community and can be celebrated as the transformation of industrial wasteland to a lively twenty first century park.

The priority given to incorporation of ESD principles and the rigorous assessment of these, via an ESD checklist was commended by the jury.

NATIONAL MERIT AWARD

Recipient: HASSELL
Project: Afton Street Conservation Park Masterplan
Client: Moonee Valley City Council

This is not so much a masterplan as a preamble to a masterplan and early issues identification involving a program of community consultation. The document is designed to equip the community with the environmental information necessary to prepare the masterplan and secure community engagement for the future.

Following further community, consultant and client involvement it will be interesting to see the outcome of this innovative approach.

NATIONAL COMMENDATION AWARD

Recipient: Ecoscape
Project: Booyeembara Park
Client: City of Fremantle, WA

Booyeembara Park is successful public parkland that links reconciliation and ecological regeneration.

The project creates a relationship between the physical repair of the environment and social and spiritual reconciliation between the original people of Fremantle and the wider community. This is a work in progress as it is likely that the spiritual reconciliation will be a longer term process. The jury was impressed with this approach to reconciliation via land rehabilitation and community consultation.

The project comprehensively addresses environmental concerns.

Recipient: GbLA
Project: Melaleuca Wetlands
Client: Wilbow Corporation

Most developers are not called upon to provide habitats for one animal. The willingness of the developer to participate in this and to fund this enterprise is commendable.

This is not a single purpose exercise however, because the creation of the habitat for the platypus provides dramatic spin off benefits for other species, even the two legged local community.

This project also provides a useful test of the guidelines prepared by the Australian Platypus Conservancy.

Recipient: National Capital Authority
Project: The Griffin Legacy

The Griffin Legacy is a rigorous strategic planning document also that succeeds in broadly communicating the importance of the Griffin Plan to the development of the national capital.

With the persistence of treasure hunt, researchers unearthed over 100 working plans of Canberra prepared by the Griffin office shedding new light on the original design intent.

The extensive team who worked on this project has been successful in producing an all encompassing document that with its coffee table style, speaks loudly to a broader community, as much as to the design professions.

The jury noted the triumph of the study is the articulation of “A clear picture of the griffins intent for a cosmopolitan lakeside city of remarkable urbanity and vitality – a vision of Canberra which resembles the present day reality only in the broadest outlines, but much of which could be recovered in future planning and development.”

The second phase of the analysis looks at the plan’s relevance to contemporary society in the early twenty first century. Future review of the plan may be forced to take a harder line on sustainability issues.

Recipient: City of Melbourne – Design & Culture Division
Project: Places for People: Melbourne 2004 publication

The award recognises the City of Melbourne’s commitment to sustained analysis of their program of urban design in the City for nearly two decades. 

The jury noted the rare phenonomenon in local government of adopting a strategic study and staying with it, in the mode of the ‘7 UP’ series.

It is a demonstration of how consistently sticking to a combination of modest and major urban design principles can deliver outstanding and ‘liveable’ places.

The City of Melbourne has led by example through projects such as the State Library Forecourt, the Enterprize (it’s correct) Wharf, the Town Hall Plaza and Birrarung Marr - encouraging developers to willingly adopt the design guidelines.

The City of Melbourne’s urban design team, their leadership, consultant teams and political masters are to be congratulated for both their vision and their tenacity.

NATIONAL MERIT AWARD

Recipient: Jill Orr-Young Landscape Architects
Project: Kamesburgh Garden Plan
Client: Bayside City Council, Melbourne

An exceptional garden conservation plan has been prepared for Kamesburgh, an historic homestead circa 1874, in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton.

The pan was completed with rigorous research based on the principles of the Australian ICOMOS Burra Charter for assessing and managing places of cultural heritage significance.

The jury noted the award entry refreshed an earlier study, demonstrating the enduring application of the plan and its continuing relevance to the management of the garden.

The homestead is now in the process of being leased as a school building and the gardens are now shared with the general community. It contemporary use for passive recreation and events has necessitated a base document for the management and ongoing maintenance of the garden in its new public role.

NATIONAL COMMENDATION AWARD

Recipient: Turf Design Studio
Project: Salad Bar

A light hearted approach which never-the-less creates a connection to nature in heavily urbanised environments. This type of approach maybe more familiar to a European context in terms of higher densities but maybe coming to a suburb near you.

Recipient: Dr SueAnne Ware
Project: The Road-as-Shrine

The Road as Shrine resonates with the often public grieving process of recent times replacing the forlorn and fading roadside wreath with a bank of everlasting flowers.

The project involves the community in a mass planting as a metaphor for the cycle of life. As well, the roadside siting is intended to alert people for the need for safe driving and roadside management.

The jury felt the community engagement allowed for a cathartic experience beyond static memorials and could be a model for many local communities.

Recipient: Harris Hobbs Landscapes / ACT Urban Services Parks & Places

Project: Urban Regreening following 2003 Canberra Bushfires

In January 2003 bushfires penetrated western Canberra. In addition to destroying hundreds of homes, the firestorm damaged 400 hectares of open space and parklands, and 30 linear kilometres of road verge.

The regreening which followed adopted a holistic approach to restoring the Canberra landscape, acknowledging the opportunity for change to planting character, and the need to improve horticultural and fire management practices. The $2.9m restoration of the urban landscape achieved:
- 2600 replacement trees in road corridors, open spaces and parks
- 1000 replacement street trees in residential verges
- 15,000 other plants (including shrubs and accent plants)
- 130,000 square metres of regrassing

Recipient: Rob Adams & the Design and Culture Division of The City of Melbourne

Prof. Rob Adams, The Director of Design and Culture at the City of Melbourne, has produced a prolonged and consistent output of design-research based urban projects and strategies, worthy of over 70 state and national awards for excellence. 

Rob is a passionate believer in the good design of cities and the important role to be played by all levels of Government.

A champion of both the arts and environmental sustainability, Rob has worked to ensure that good urban design is established as a platform for City development into the 21st Century.

The Design Vision of Prof. Rob Adams and the team in the City of Melbourne’s Design and Culture Division has manifested itself as the story of a local government as choreographer, mending the fabric of the city and delivering on the community’s expectations.

Since the 1980s, the change has been dramatic: the city is greener, more people live downtown, the footpaths are wider, paved with stone and featuring side walk cafes, public art and fruit stalls. The central city has become more vibrant. Residential accommodation, almost nonexistent in the 1980s rose from 738 units to 9895 by 2002. Bars, cafes and restaurants have increased from 580 in 1998 to over 1200 in 2003.