2 degrees: up close and personal

When young people protest on the street and tell us that we are destroying their future due to our failure to act on climate change, we know we have really ignored all the signs. Who cares about climate change? We are numb to the issue because we are daunted by its size and extent. We […]

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The Green Space Strategy

The big idea in our strategy is that we can reclaim at least 11 hectares of unused public spaces to create the public realm that the community needs now and into the future. This space is available now on unused road reserves and crown lands within the peninsula and should be used to build the […]

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The parsley, the pig and the farm

Is it a myth that Australia’s cities are amongst the most liveable in the world? That tag may be true for the lucky people who live within a 10 kilometre radius of each city. All our ‘sustainable’ cities are quite nice within their core. Outside of that core we appear to have failed to make […]

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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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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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The plant machine: between entropy and evolution

Designers: John Mongard, Landscape Architect/PoetSeth Remaut, Architecture GraduateBarbara Steiner, Landscape Architect/Environmental Artist Authors: Barbara Steiner, John Mongard Introduction Industrial landscapes are as much part of our cultural landscape as any highly aesthetic sculpture park, agricultural landscape or suburban agglomeration. Through the achievements of industry, science and technology, contemporary Western societies enjoy higher standards of living […]

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