Latest news with #landscapearchitecture
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Aussie homeowner's fury after council removes 57 new plants from rural roadside
A tense battle between an Aussie farmer and her council over a 400-metre stretch of a rural roadside has come to a 'sad and stupid' end. The nature strip at the centre of the controversy fronts landscape architect Sarah Hunter's property in Doreen, on the outskirts of Melbourne, where she lives with her family. It was with their help that she planted 57 native plants along the reserve late last year after carefully selecting and germinating seeds, many of which came from Indigenous nurseries, costing her roughly $4 each. While she hoped to provide a 'biolink' for local wildlife and increase tree canopy on Middle Hut Road, officers for Nillumbik Shire Council — touted as 'the green wedge shire' — marked the saplings with spray paint and ordered Ms Hunter to remove them by the end of April amid accusations they were planted illegally. The disappointed mum intentionally missed the deadline and urged the council to reconsider, pointing out that the area had been deemed by Nillumbik as an area of environmental significance. Ms Hunter told Yahoo News Australia she put a lot of thought into the placement of the plants, which she said are largely located where 'they would build on the existing forest' of yellow box eucalyptus trees. 'It's a dirt road with no infrastructure in the landscape and there's no power overhead or anything underground,' she said, adding she took into account their distance from the road and space for drivers to pull over safely. After a few weeks of back-and-forth, Ms Hunter received another letter from the council last month informing her officers would be coming by to remove the trees themselves. On July 1 they followed through and pulled out all 57 saplings, the farmer said. Speaking to Yahoo, the Nillumbik Council noted it is 'committed to protecting and enhancing the shire's biodiversity and environment in a safe and appropriate way' but maintained that Ms Hunter's new additions had to go. 'While the trees in Middle Hut Road have been planted with good intent, they are unfortunately illegal and hinder council's ability to undertake crucial fire management and fire mitigation works,' it said. 'Middle Hut Road is a key fire safety area and council needs to be able to mow the roadside and ensure the necessary road clearance is maintained for emergency vehicles access. Trees planted in the road reserve can inhibit our ability to carry out these essential works, which is why a permit is required to ensure plantings are appropriate.' The council said no permits were requested for the plants in front of Ms Hunter's home, which the landscape architect explained was simply an oversight that she retrospectively applied for but was denied. 'The trees were identified for removal during routine inspections undertaken ahead of the fire season,' it added. 'The resident was advised that the trees not impacting fire mitigation works could stay and the ones identified for removal could be replanted on the owner's private property.' 🚘 Aussie council responds after locals stunned by $1k fines 🚦Council responds to bizarre scene on Aussie road 🏡 Aussie neighbourhood's fight to save 100-year-old 'landmark' After returning home last week to find the 'beautiful trees' missing, a disappointed Ms Hunter decided to document the aftermath — a bare roadside reverse with several holes in the soil. The farmer said that while her plants had been taken, the council allegedly left behind known weeds, shattered glass and broken bottles. Nillumbik did not respond to Yahoo's request for comment regarding the claim by the time of publication. 'These plants would have provided habitat for the 70 bird species recorded in this area,' Ms Hunter said. 'The plants removed would have offset around 1.25 tonnes of carbon per year once mature, just going by the average offset of 22 kilograms each per year. It's such a waste of what could have been.' The local is now urging the council to replace its permit system with guidelines for residents. 'Roadsides and nature strips are everywhere that humans are, and by definition in the places where biodiversity has been lost. It makes sense to use them as a space to put back some of that biodiversity, for wildlife but also to improve quality of life for humans.' Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
The enchanted car park: how a ruined multi-storey became a garden paradise loved by lizards and dog-walkers
Lilac-flowering creepers engulf an abandoned house on a street corner in Medellín, Colombia, spilling from the roof and smothering most of the upstairs windows. A giant fan palm is visible through one opening, while a knotty tangle of aerial roots cascades down to the pavement from another. Step through the doorway of this overgrown ruin, and you find not a scene of desolation and decay but a sleek steel frame holding up the crumbling facade, which forms an unusual entrance to an enchanting new public park. 'We behaved more like archaeologists than landscape architects,' says Edgar Mazo of Connatural, the firm behind the Parque Prado, in the working-class neighbourhood of Aranjuez. He leads me through a series of planted terraces; fountain grasses and trumpet trees sprout from where a derelict car park and abandoned homes once stood. 'You dig up the concrete, water gets into the ground, vegetation grows up, and the people come back,' he adds, speaking through a translator. 'That's natural regeneration.' In recent decades, Medellín has been widely celebrated for its astonishing urban transformation. In the 2000s, it went from being one of the most dangerous cities on the planet, riven by murderous drug cartels, to a case study in the miraculous peace-bringing powers of architecture and landscape. Sergio Fajardo, the son of an architect who served as Medellín's charismatic mayor from 2004 to 2008, was hailed for sprinkling the city's poorest neighbourhoods with dazzling new libraries, stadiums and swimming pools. These determinedly 'iconic' projects were enthusiastically feted on the pages of glossy design magazines, and their stories recounted in keynotes at international conferences. Impoverished hillsides were connected to a new metro system with an elegant web of cable cars and outdoor escalators, while parks dotted with expressive architect-designed canopies sprang up across the city. The dramatic fall in crime during Fajardo's term was largely credited to this vision of 'social urbanism', and the increase in the amount of public space per citizen. But the Medellín miracle has since lost some of its sparkle. Take the Biblioteca España, one of the flagship projects, designed by Colombian star architect Giancarlo Mazzanti. It stands as a striking cluster of chiselled concrete boulders, rising from the hillside in the formerly no-go barrio of Santo Domingo. But it has been shuttered since 2015, due to structural defects. Or look at the outdoor escalators, which snake their way up the slopes of Comuna 13, one of the most notorious gangland neighbourhoods. Built to improve access for residents of the steep hillside, they have now become an overrun tourist attraction for Pablo Escobar-themed slum tours (which are often run in cahoots with the gangs). With more than 25,000 visitors riding the moving stairs here each week, locals barely have space to use them. Mazo's work takes a markedly different approach from the 00s penchant for spectacle. When he was asked to look at the sloping half-hectare site in Aranjuez, which was home to a rundown car park and six boarded-up houses, abandoned for more than a decade, there was an existing plan to raze everything and replace it with a park traversed by a big zigzagging ramp. It looked like a hangover from the earlier lust for shape-making, something that might photograph well from a helicopter. Instead, Mazo and his team decided to keep most of what was already there. Almost 70% of the material on-site remains, albeit in a new form. Walls and floor slabs were chiselled from the two-storey parking structure, and the rubble used to fill the basements of the houses, with soil packed on top. The buildings' roof timbers were reclaimed and used to make benches, while the landscape was shaped in such a way that rainwater is retained, meaning that no artificial irrigation is needed. The team even collected seeds from the plants that had sprung up on the plot, so they could be scattered around the new park after the project's construction – allowing the natural colonisers back in. The project was built during the pandemic for a cost of just $1.5m (£1.1m), and the lockdowns allowed time for the plants to establish, without the threat of being trampled by visitors. Five years on, the planting has reached a level of maturity that makes this urban oasis seem like it's always been there – a rare fruition of the Covid-era prophecies of nature reclaiming the city. The result is a beguiling place, where the sloping topography is mediated not by a great switchback ramp, but by a series of stepped terraces and slopes that form little outdoor rooms. The former car park's concrete frame makes for an imposing armature at the centre of the park, supporting a raised steel walkway and framing a series of semi-enclosed spaces beneath it. Reclaimed bricks and stacked roof tiles serve as retaining walls, creating a rugged backdrop to lush clumps of grasses and palms. Gabion cages filled with rocks and rubble line water retention ponds, and provide platforms for seating. A sandy clearing down below makes space for ballgames and events, while park-goers can watch the action from the terraced decks above, and enjoy a grandstand view across the sprawling city and its seven hills. 'When people first colonised this valley,' says Mazo, 'they used to climb up to the top of the hills to communicate with each other. The park now becomes part of that system, giving people an elevated view to connect with others.' Crucially, there's a space for everyone here – from elevated walkways, to quiet shrub-lined reading areas, to seating tucked away from prying eyes. The sense of fragmentation, as well as the level changes, allow different social groups to coexist. On a Tuesday afternoon, most of these different compartments have their own distinct visitors. A student sits cross-legged on a bench by a giant monstera plant, drawing, while a couple canoodle on the deck above him. A solo pensioner takes in the view from the top, enjoying the shade of a kapok tree. Dog-walkers come and go, while a pair of middle-aged guys get stoned in one corner, not very well hidden behind fluffy fronds of purple grass. Parque Prado was one of the pilot projects of the city's Plan de Renaturalización, an initiative launched in 2016 to introduce 120 neighbourhood parks (20 of which Mazo was commissioned to design) and 30 green corridors, ripping up asphalt and concrete to improve groundwater infiltration, and planting urban orchards to mitigate the effects of climate crisis. In some areas, temperatures have reduced by as much as 3C, while several species of birds, lizards and frogs have returned, which hadn't been seen in the city for decades. There have been harder-to-measure social impacts, too. 'Some local residents were initially worried about the park,' says Mazo. 'The area had become known for drug addicts and prostitution, and they thought it would only make things worse.' The opposite has happened. By creating space for different walks of life to mingle, 'people are mixing here without any problems', he says. 'Some people assume that a completely flat, open surface with no vegetation means you can have more surveillance,' he adds. 'But if you have different shapes, levels and conditions, people can identify with the space, feel more comfortable and take care.' Local residents have taken such ownership over the park that they voluntarily clean it up and have started doing some guerrilla gardening – planting seeds for the space to take on a life of its own.
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
The enchanted car park: how a ruined multi-storey became a garden paradise loved by lizards and dog-walkers
Lilac-flowering creepers engulf an abandoned house on a street corner in Medellín, Colombia, spilling from the roof and smothering most of the upstairs windows. A giant fan palm is visible through one opening, while a knotty tangle of aerial roots cascades down to the pavement from another. Step through the doorway of this overgrown ruin, and you find not a scene of desolation and decay but a sleek steel frame holding up the crumbling facade, which forms an unusual entrance to an enchanting new public park. 'We behaved more like archaeologists than landscape architects,' says Edgar Mazo of Connatural, the firm behind the Parque Prado, in the working-class neighbourhood of Aranjuez. He leads me through a series of planted terraces; fountain grasses and trumpet trees sprout from where a derelict car park and abandoned homes once stood. 'You dig up the concrete, water gets into the ground, vegetation grows up, and the people come back,' he adds, speaking through a translator. 'That's natural regeneration.' In recent decades, Medellín has been widely celebrated for its astonishing urban transformation. In the 2000s, it went from being one of the most dangerous cities on the planet, riven by murderous drug cartels, to a case study in the miraculous peace-bringing powers of architecture and landscape. Sergio Fajardo, the son of an architect who served as Medellín's charismatic mayor from 2004 to 2008, was hailed for sprinkling the city's poorest neighbourhoods with dazzling new libraries, stadiums and swimming pools. These determinedly 'iconic' projects were enthusiastically feted on the pages of glossy design magazines, and their stories recounted in keynotes at international conferences. Impoverished hillsides were connected to a new metro system with an elegant web of cable cars and outdoor escalators, while parks dotted with expressive architect-designed canopies sprang up across the city. The dramatic fall in crime during Fajardo's term was largely credited to this vision of 'social urbanism', and the increase in the amount of public space per citizen. But the Medellín miracle has since lost some of its sparkle. Take the Biblioteca España, one of the flagship projects, designed by Colombian star architect Giancarlo Mazzanti. It stands as a striking cluster of chiselled concrete boulders, rising from the hillside in the formerly no-go barrio of Santo Domingo. But it has been shuttered since 2015, due to structural defects. Or look at the outdoor escalators, which snake their way up the slopes of Comuna 13, one of the most notorious gangland neighbourhoods. Built to improve access for residents of the steep hillside, they have now become an overrun tourist attraction for Pablo Escobar-themed slum tours (which are often run in cahoots with the gangs). With more than 25,000 visitors riding the moving stairs here each week, locals barely have space to use them. Mazo's work takes a markedly different approach from the 00s penchant for spectacle. When he was asked to look at the sloping half-hectare site in Aranjuez, which was home to a rundown car park and six boarded-up houses, abandoned for more than a decade, there was an existing plan to raze everything and replace it with a park traversed by a big zigzagging ramp. It looked like a hangover from the earlier lust for shape-making, something that might photograph well from a helicopter. Instead, Mazo and his team decided to keep most of what was already there. Almost 70% of the material on-site remains, albeit in a new form. Walls and floor slabs were chiselled from the two-storey parking structure, and the rubble used to fill the basements of the houses, with soil packed on top. The buildings' roof timbers were reclaimed and used to make benches, while the landscape was shaped in such a way that rainwater is retained, meaning that no artificial irrigation is needed. The team even collected seeds from the plants that had sprung up on the plot, so they could be scattered around the new park after the project's construction – allowing the natural colonisers back in. The project was built during the pandemic for a cost of just $1.5m (£1.1m), and the lockdowns allowed time for the plants to establish, without the threat of being trampled by visitors. Five years on, the planting has reached a level of maturity that makes this urban oasis seem like it's always been there – a rare fruition of the Covid-era prophecies of nature reclaiming the city. The result is a beguiling place, where the sloping topography is mediated not by a great switchback ramp, but by a series of stepped terraces and slopes that form little outdoor rooms. The former car park's concrete frame makes for an imposing armature at the centre of the park, supporting a raised steel walkway and framing a series of semi-enclosed spaces beneath it. Reclaimed bricks and stacked roof tiles serve as retaining walls, creating a rugged backdrop to lush clumps of grasses and palms. Gabion cages filled with rocks and rubble line water retention ponds, and provide platforms for seating. A sandy clearing down below makes space for ballgames and events, while park-goers can watch the action from the terraced decks above, and enjoy a grandstand view across the sprawling city and its seven hills. 'When people first colonised this valley,' says Mazo, 'they used to climb up to the top of the hills to communicate with each other. The park now becomes part of that system, giving people an elevated view to connect with others.' Crucially, there's a space for everyone here – from elevated walkways, to quiet shrub-lined reading areas, to seating tucked away from prying eyes. The sense of fragmentation, as well as the level changes, allow different social groups to coexist. On a Tuesday afternoon, most of these different compartments have their own distinct visitors. A student sits cross-legged on a bench by a giant monstera plant, drawing, while a couple canoodle on the deck above him. A solo pensioner takes in the view from the top, enjoying the shade of a kapok tree. Dog-walkers come and go, while a pair of middle-aged guys get stoned in one corner, not very well hidden behind fluffy fronds of purple grass. Parque Prado was one of the pilot projects of the city's Plan de Renaturalización, an initiative launched in 2016 to introduce 120 neighbourhood parks (20 of which Mazo was commissioned to design) and 30 green corridors, ripping up asphalt and concrete to improve groundwater infiltration, and planting urban orchards to mitigate the effects of climate crisis. In some areas, temperatures have reduced by as much as 3C, while several species of birds, lizards and frogs have returned, which hadn't been seen in the city for decades. There have been harder-to-measure social impacts, too. 'Some local residents were initially worried about the park,' says Mazo. 'The area had become known for drug addicts and prostitution, and they thought it would only make things worse.' The opposite has happened. By creating space for different walks of life to mingle, 'people are mixing here without any problems', he says. 'Some people assume that a completely flat, open surface with no vegetation means you can have more surveillance,' he adds. 'But if you have different shapes, levels and conditions, people can identify with the space, feel more comfortable and take care.' Local residents have taken such ownership over the park that they voluntarily clean it up and have started doing some guerrilla gardening – planting seeds for the space to take on a life of its own.
Associated Press
28-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
dion seminara architecture Introduces Fully Integrated Architectural and Design Services in Brisbane
Brisbane homeowners benefit from dion seminara architecture's fully integrated model combining architecture, interiors, landscape, and custom design. 'Our clients appreciate having one team guiding the entire design journey'— Dion Seminara BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA, June 28, 2025 / / -- Dion Seminara Architecture has announced a comprehensive suite of integrated services designed to streamline the design process for Brisbane homeowners. By combining architecture, interior design, landscape planning, and indoor-outdoor integration into a cohesive offering, the firm provides a tailored approach that puts lifestyle at the centre of every design decision. 'At dion seminara architecture, the best designs come from truly understanding how our clients want to live,' said Director Dion Seminara. 'Our integrated model gives clients the ability to shape their entire environment, inside and out, with one coordinated team.' The firm's holistic approach begins with a deep dive into the client's lifestyle. By understanding daily routines, values, frustrations, and long-term goals, the team ensures every element of the design is tailored to how the homeowner actually lives. Whether that means spaces for weekend brunches in bed, seamless entertaining zones, or calming private retreats. This collaborative process extends into the firm's suite of extra services, which support their core architectural offerings: - Interior Design: Material selection, lighting, furniture layout, and detailed finishes that complement the architectural intent. - Landscape Design: Outdoor zones, planting, pathways, and pool integration that enhance liveability and street appeal. - Indoor/Outdoor Design: Solutions that blur boundaries between interior and exterior spaces for year-round comfort and connection. - Custom Building Products: Bespoke details and elements that reflect the client's personality and elevate everyday function. Each of these services can be incorporated as part of a full architectural project or selected individually based on the needs of the client. The flexibility of this integrated model allows for clearer communication, improved efficiency, and a unified vision throughout the design and construction process. 'Our clients appreciate having one team guiding the entire design journey,' said Dion. 'It removes confusion, speeds up coordination, and delivers more considered outcomes.' dion seminara architecture has over 30 years of experience delivering architect-led residential projects across Brisbane and Southeast Queensland. From new homes to renovations, the firm's holistic design approach ensures that architecture, interiors, and outdoor environments work together to reflect how people truly want to live. Dion Seminara dion seminara architecture +61 7 3899 9450 [email protected] Visit us on social media: LinkedIn Instagram Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
Bloomberg
26-06-2025
- General
- Bloomberg
Squeezed by Crowds, the Roads of Central Park Are Being Reimagined
When Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux presented their design for New York City's Central Park — then called Greensward — in 1858, they designated spaces by speed. The park's traverses could handle crosstown carriages. Bridle paths were for foot traffic. And the drives would be treated as a promenade for all, split first between pedestrians, soon bicycles, and, later, cars. 'There should be separation of ways, as in parks and parkways, for efficiency and amenity of movement,' Olmsted wrote, 'and to avoid collision or the apprehension of collision, between different kinds of traffic.'
