Climate Of Design ——AILA National One Day Conference September 14th 2007
This event, also held at the National Wine Centre was very well attended be local and interstate members of the profession and coincided with the AILA National AGM, held on the Thursday and the State Awards which were held on the following Saturday. This gave interstate members the opportunity to enjoy Adelaide hospitality and the glorious spring weather in the stunning setting of the Wine Centre’s Busby Hall, adjacent courtyard and Botanic Gardens.
Professor Nancy Pollock EIIwand, recently appointed Head and Chair of the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design opened proceedings by reiterating the need for modern societies to reduce their eco-footprint and raised the possibility of this being achieved through a focus of creative design on the sustainability of water use and increasing biodiversity in urban environments.
This was a scenario developed by Professor Kongjian Yu who spoke of the need for water adaptive landscapes to enable us to live with climate change. To go with the flow rather than expend energy on futile attempts to reverse a well advanced process. He talked of developing an ecological rather than a technological infrastructure and highlighted the fact that historically, in China the art of landscape architecture has been more successful that the science of engineering in developing sustainable solutions to environmental problems at a lower cost. Professor Yu also drew our attention to the fact that the water crisis in Australia is one of comfort, not survival. Or at least, not yet!
Professor Chris Daniels gave an energetic, often humorous and thoroughly engaging presentation that biological hotspots in Australia. A position that could well be in jeopardy with the demise of the big backyard and associated biodiversity and the proliferation of treeless suburbs with no room for the Blue Tongue lizards of yesteryears childhood.
Dr. Xuemei Bai of the CSIRO spoke of cities as environmental heroes and raised the importance of developing sound urban and socio economic policies to address the potential for long term negative effects of poor current urban and landscape planning. Dr. Bai reiterated a point that Professor Yu made about the importance of landscape architects being on site involved early in the development of projects. She proposed that many current problems arose from issues about scale; spatial scale - ’not on my turf’, temporal scale - ’not in my term’ and institutional scale - ’not my business’ and suggested that an integrated approach with specific, localized policies was needed.
Dr. Tony Wong of Ecological Engineering urged us not to allow the ’green washing’ of landscape projects but to push for an integrated approach to water sustainability. Dr. Wong proposed the development of ’green infrastructure’ that included the city as a catchments with scaleable wetlands to produce a diversity of recycled water and that used drinking water only for drinking.
This was only a small portion of the issues presented and discussed on the day. I found it heartening to be part of this one-day conference and gain exposure to the wide range of personalities and expertise of individuals practicing landscape architecture locally, nationally and overseas. Congratulations to the organizers.
Originally published in the EarthQuake, the AlLA SA Newsletter
Professor Nancy Pollock EIIwand, recently appointed Head and Chair of the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design opened proceedings by reiterating the need for modern societies to reduce their eco-footprint and raised the possibility of this being achieved through a focus of creative design on the sustainability of water use and increasing biodiversity in urban environments.
This was a scenario developed by Professor Kongjian Yu who spoke of the need for water adaptive landscapes to enable us to live with climate change. To go with the flow rather than expend energy on futile attempts to reverse a well advanced process. He talked of developing an ecological rather than a technological infrastructure and highlighted the fact that historically, in China the art of landscape architecture has been more successful that the science of engineering in developing sustainable solutions to environmental problems at a lower cost. Professor Yu also drew our attention to the fact that the water crisis in Australia is one of comfort, not survival. Or at least, not yet!
Professor Chris Daniels gave an energetic, often humorous and thoroughly engaging presentation that biological hotspots in Australia. A position that could well be in jeopardy with the demise of the big backyard and associated biodiversity and the proliferation of treeless suburbs with no room for the Blue Tongue lizards of yesteryears childhood.
Dr. Xuemei Bai of the CSIRO spoke of cities as environmental heroes and raised the importance of developing sound urban and socio economic policies to address the potential for long term negative effects of poor current urban and landscape planning. Dr. Bai reiterated a point that Professor Yu made about the importance of landscape architects being on site involved early in the development of projects. She proposed that many current problems arose from issues about scale; spatial scale - ’not on my turf’, temporal scale - ’not in my term’ and institutional scale - ’not my business’ and suggested that an integrated approach with specific, localized policies was needed.
Dr. Tony Wong of Ecological Engineering urged us not to allow the ’green washing’ of landscape projects but to push for an integrated approach to water sustainability. Dr. Wong proposed the development of ’green infrastructure’ that included the city as a catchments with scaleable wetlands to produce a diversity of recycled water and that used drinking water only for drinking.
This was only a small portion of the issues presented and discussed on the day. I found it heartening to be part of this one-day conference and gain exposure to the wide range of personalities and expertise of individuals practicing landscape architecture locally, nationally and overseas. Congratulations to the organizers.
Originally published in the EarthQuake, the AlLA SA Newsletter
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