Unfolding space

How  a space unfolds into a place is a mystery. What ingredients are required to make our cities valued? We go about our daily lives and the things we touch and feel remind us of who we are and where we belong. For most of us the things we care about are actually small and […]

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Dis location – Survival of the local

The marketplace is clearly failing the landscapes and the towns we live in. Australian country towns are dying as the global economy seeks to extract the cheapest goods in the cheapest location. We live in a very large island with a small population and with inbuilt inefficiencies of distance and time to markets. Our standard […]

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Sunshine Coast Industrial Park

By John Mongard For Landscape Architecture Australia, No. 129, 2011 The following article is a review of contemporary industrial landscapes and corporate parks, focussing on the recently completed Sunshine Coast Industrial Park on the Sunshine Coast by Gamble McKinnon Green. Industrial estates are the parts of our cities which are normally the ugliest and most […]

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Robelle Domain

Review by John Mongard FAILA for Landscape Architecture Australia 2011 South-east Queensland continues to grow, and new cities are emerging in its bushland periphery to cope with the pressure of around 66,000 people arriving every year1. Springfield is a new planned city to house an estimated 89,000 people by the year 20252, and its town […]

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Feeding, Greening, Caring

The challenge for designers in this moment of change is to re-conceptualise people as citizens rather than consumers, to place value on civic life and to create a shared democratic citizenship. This paper focuses on three important actions required to achieve a more ethical public realm: feeding/greening/caring. 1 MB PDF

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The world’s most sustainable small subdivision

South-East Queensland is rapidly morphing into a continuous fabric of suburban development. Interstate migration and the call of the sun are sustaining housing booms on the edges of Gold Coast City. Landmatters Pty Ltd in collaboration with John Mongard Landscape Architects set out to `build a project that inspires and sets a world’s best standard […]

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Sustainable communities or urban sprawl?

Hervey Bay is one of the fastest growing regions outside the capital cities, buoyed by the migration to the sun coast of the elderly, and by the sea-change affecting peoples desire to live with more amenity. Places like Hervey Bay however, do not have the level of planning, design and development sophistication available in the […]

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