‘Re-wilding’ is core to many new public landscapes world over – parks and reserves are often now designed highly attuned to Country and place.

Stubbornly, however, there remains a suburban ideal that we need to maximise everything within the boundary of our residential properties with minimal maintenance. The largest area of flat lawn is ‘needed’ for kids to play on, leaving a thin space for landscape screening on the fence line to block out neighbours’ houses.

If we instead see landscape as an act of repair and connection – a gesture that that can give rather than take, a new pathway opens. A garden can be seen as part of a bigger eco-system which can have a much greater meaning and impact in our home and lives.

Part of the site investigations for our projects explore endemic landscapes in the area.  Research of traditional land can also offer a clue as to what may have been on the site in a pre-colonial past. We begin with the conception of a ‘pre-existing’ landscape and then design a building to respond.  Plant species that have sustained a balanced eco-system for thousands of years can be re-introduced in a small act of repair and result in a building that feels tuned to its surroundings.

Japanese landscape sees a garden as a ‘world in miniature’ – rocks are mountains, moss a forest, planting placed so deliberately to offer a meditative and reflective connection to nature.  Explorer and art historian Langdon Warner (the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character) observed that Japanese gardens are designed “to express the highest truths of religion and philosophy precisely as other civilisations have made use of the arts of literature and philosophy”.

What would an Australian ‘world in miniature’ look like, and what should it represent?  It needs to manage torrential rain, drought, provide protection from beating sun – it can have gulleys and rainforest, scrub and bush.  Swimming pools can become waterholes with planting providing natural shade.  Creek beds can allow water to flow through a site in a controlled way, providing adventurous spaces for kids to explore.  A view to a distant hill can feel like an extension of our own back yard or a window seat look out on to the flowering Grevillia alive with Lorikeets.

If a house can re-connect with nature, it can play a small role in reminding us of the that we are a small part of a bigger system. Perhaps the role of domestic landscape in our contemporary lives is to distract us from self-obsession.  To provide us the space to sit, watch the birds and butterflies, and reflect on our place in the natural world.

KG