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Abstract
This article considers the potential of Fourth Nature urban forestry tactics at Birrarung Marr—the City of Melbourne’s largest open space contribution in over 100 years—as a speculative planting and maintenance strategy for adapting to excessive heat and drought. This paper is structured in three parts. The first section briefly discusses the theoretical and adaptation qualities of spontaneous planting practices, such as Kowarik’s Fourth Nature philosophy, and its impact on the design and maintenance of Natur-Park Schöneberger Südgelände (Berlin). The second part introduces the designed landscape of Birrarung Marr and provides an overview of its evolving planting strategies and urban forest since 2002. It analyses how climate change, municipal policy and recent planting designs such as the Woody Meadow insertion have impacted—and continue to impact—changes to the park’s forest. Lastly, part three utilizes Schöneberger Südgelände as a reference to speculate on future planting design approaches and climate adaptation tactics for Birrarung Marr as the City of Melbourne seeks new design responses to predicted urban heating.
Notes
1 Waldheim explains that designers and theorists working in these decades' ‘articulated the potential for ecological systems to be seen as self-organizing and open-ended while affording a strategic framework for urban intervention’. Charles Waldheim, Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 32.
2 These themes continue to be explored in the new millennium. See: Peter Del Tredici, ‘Spontaneous Urban Vegetation: Reflections of Change in a Globalized World’, Nature and Culture 5 (2010), 299–315.
3 For an overview of Clément’s theory and its impact on his planting design approach, see: Allessandro Rocca, Planetary Garden: The Landscape Architecture of Gilles Clément (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008).
4 Derborence Island’s plants are positioned on a 7-m-high inaccessible plateau, which allows the abandoned planting design to evolve (and adapt) to broader landscape systems.
5 Ingo Kowarik, ‘Cities and Wilderness: A New Perspective’, International Journal of Wilderness 19 (2013), 32–36.
6 As Kowarik explains, ‘it is absolutely clear for almost everybody’ that Fourth Nature is ‘considered in new planning and architecture schemes’ and that ‘landscape architects are trained to include this type of nature in their designs’. Ingo Kowarik interview with Brent Greene, 6 October 2014. Examples of the Fourth Nature design approach are evident at Park am Gleisdreieck, Park am Nordbahnhof and NaturPark Schöneberger Südgelände.
7 Ingo Kowarik interview with Brent Greene, 6 October 2014. Kowarik’s theory is supported by 1970s ecological research that studied the adaptability potential of spontaneous plants in Berlin wastelands. See: Herbert Sukopp, Hans-Peter Blume and Wolfram Kunick, ‘The Soil, Flora and Vegetation of Berlin’s Waste Lands’, in: Ian C. Laurie (ed.), Nature in Cities: The Natural Environment in the Design and Development of Urban Green Space (Chichester and New York: Wiley, 1979), 115–131: 121.
8 Edna Walling, The Australian Roadside (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952).
9 Betty Maloney and Jean Walker, Designing Australian Bush Gardens (Sydney: Horwitz, 1966).
10 See: Catherine Jane Bull, New Conversations with an Old Landscape: Landscape Architecture in Contemporary Australia (Mulgrave, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2002); Bruce MacKenzie, Design with Landscape: Australia (Sydney: Bruce MacKenzie Design, 2011); Kate Herd and Jela Ivankovic-Waters, Native: Art and Design with Australian Plants (Port Melbourne, Victoria: Thames & Hudson Australia, 2017); and Julian Raxworthy, Overgrown: Practices between Landscape Architecture and Gardening (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018). These texts loosely reference spontaneous planting approaches, albeit with a lack of theoretical underpinning and still within the range of Australian native and indigenous plants.
11 Timothy J. Entwisle, Chris Cole and Peter Symes, ‘Adapting the Botanical Landscape of Melbourne Gardens (Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria) in Response to Climate Change’, Plant Diversity 39/6 (2017), 338–347: 339.
12 The Nature Conservancy and Resilent Melbourne, Living Melbourne: Our Metropolitan Urban Forest (2019), livingmelbourne.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Strategy_online. pdf. Recent native planting trials that address climate mitigation and heat adaptability through design are limited to experimental displays and are not yet impacting landscape architecture practice. See: Hui-Anne Tan et al., ‘Designing and Managing Biodiverse Streetscapes: Key Lessons from the City of Melbourne’, Urban Ecosystems 25/3 (2022), 733–740.
13 Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1984).
14 See: Jens Lachmund, Greening Berlin: The Co-Production of Science, Politics and Urban Nature (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013) for a detailed overview of the development of novel ecological perceptions in Berlin.
15 Linda N. Groat and David Wang, Architectural Research Methods (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2013).
16 Joseph Pearson, Berlin (London: Reaktion Books, 2017), 89.
17 Jouni Häkli, ‘Culture and Politics of Nature in the City: The Case of Berlin’s “Green Wedge”’, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 7/2 (1996), 125–138: 137.
18 Ingo Kowarik and Andreas Langer, ‘Natur-Park Südgelände: Linking Conservation and Recreation in an Abandoned Rail Yard in Berlin’, in: Ingo Kowarik and Stefan Körnern (eds.), Wild Urban Woodlands: New Perspectives for Urban Forestry (Berlin, Springer-Verlag, 2005), 287–299: 288–290.
19 Lachmund, Greening Berlin, op. cit (note 14), 172.
20 Kowarik and Langer, ‘Natur-Park Südgelände’, op. cit (note 18), 291.
21 Ingo Kowarik interview with Brent Greene, 6 October 2014.
22 Kowarik and Langer, ‘Natur-Park Südgelände’, op. cit (note 18), 291.
23 Lucia Grosse-Bächle, ‘Strategies between Intervening and Leaving Room’, in: Kowarik and Körnern, Wild Urban Woodlands, op. cit. (note 18), 231–246: 243.
24 Daniel Fenner, et al., ‘Heat Waves in Berlin and Potsdam, Germany—Longterm Trends and Comparison of Heat Wave Definitions from 1893 to 2017’, International Journal of Climatology 39/4 (2019), 2422–2437: 2434.
25 Robert Vautard et al. ‘Human Contribution to the Recordbreaking June and July 2019 Heatwaves in Western Europe’, Environmental Research Letters 15/9 (2020), 1.
26 Personal communications with Grün Berlin, 24 January 2023. Grün Berlin is a Berlin state-owned landscape development and management company. Grün Berlin does not irrigate the nature or landscape conservation areas.
27 Schöneberger Südgelände also stores carbon and regulates the climate. See: Kees Lokman, ‘Vacancy as a Laboratory: Design Criteria for Reimagining Social-ecological Systems on Vacant Urban Lands’, Landscape Research 42/7 (2017), 728–746: 743.
28 Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People (Forest Hill, NSW: Harriland Press, 2001).
29 Kim Dovey, Rob Adams nad Ron Jones, Urban Choreography: Central Melbourne, 1985 (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2018), 124.
30 Ibid., 125.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 163.
33 Ronal Jones interview with Brent Greene, 29 January 2016.
34 Jones and Phia’s original concept design included an urban forest. However, the Victorian Government’s economic and planning agendas led to the abandonment of the proposed forest, which was replaced by turfed terraces and TCL’s planting design. See: Brent Greene and Fiona Johnson, ‘Millennial Urban Park Design in Melbourne and Wellington: How Divergent Colonial Foundations within the TransTasman Bubble Impact Landscape Practice’, Proceedings of the 37th The Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand Conference (SAHANZ 2020), 330–341, sahanz.net/conferences/what-if-what-next-speculations-on-historys-futures/.
35 Perry Lethlean, ‘It's Hard Getting Messy When You're Compositional—TCL Braided Pathways, A Practice Sustained by Difference’ (PhD Dissertation, RMIT University, 2013), 150.
36 Ibid., 175.
37 TCL’s design failed shortly after the park opened. Rayner and Williams write that the failure was driven by poor plant selection, abandoned maintenance and evolving climate pressures that could have been sidestepped with ‘better professional relationships across disciplines’. Alternatively, Lethlean suggests that ‘short-term marketing ploys rather than longterm management realities’ was the main agent that influenced the removal of TCL’s planting design. For more details, see: John Rayner and C. C. Williams, ‘Learning from Failure: Evaluating Plant Performance in Urban Landscapes’, Acta Horticulturae 1108 (2016), 220–226: 225; and Lethlean, ‘It's Hard Getting Messy’, op. cit. (note 35), 158.
38 City of Melbourne, Urban Forest Strategy: Making a Great City Greener 2012–2032 (2012), melbourne.vic.gov.au/ SiteCollectionDocuments/urban-forest-strategy.pdf.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 City of Melbourne, Climate Change Adaptation Strategy Refresh (2017), melbourne.vic.gov.au/sitecollectiondocuments/ climate-change-adaptation-strategy-refresh-2017.pdf.
42 All strategies include developing new planting and management tactics to combat global warming.
43 City of Melbourne, Urban Forest Strategy, op. cit. (note 38), 7.
44 David Callow (Director Parks and City Greening at City of Melbourne) describes the Wildflower Meadow as a ‘breakout project’, which later influenced the Woody Meadow. David Callow interview with Brent Greene, 16 October 2015.
45 City of Melbourne, Woody Meadow Pilot Project: Guidelines to Create Diverse Flowering Landscapes (2020), melbourne.vic.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/ woody-meadow-pilot-project.pdf.
46 Megan Backhouse, ‘Melbourne Gets Its Own “Wild” Meadows’, Sidney Morning Herald, 11 September 2016, smh.com.au/ entertainment/melbourne-gets-its-own-wild-meadows-20160909-grcmto.html.
47 City of Melbourne, Woody Meadow Pilot Project, op. cit. (note 45), 6.
48 Ibid., 5.
49 Ibid., 8.
50 Claire Martin, ‘Rambunctious Research: Planning the Life Cycle City’, Landscape Australia, 13 September 2017, landscapeaustralia.com/articles/rambunctious-research/.
51 Paul Thompson (landscape architect), Rodger Elliot (native plan specialist), Digby Growns (plant breeder), John Arnott (horticulturalist) and Warren Worboys (horticulturalist) assisted the research team in selecting plants for the Woody Meadow project. Note that Paul Thompson is identified as the only design voice among the plant specialists.
52 Anita Bakshi and Frank J. Gallagher, ‘Design with Fourth Nature’, Journal of Landscape Architecture 15/2 (2020), 24–35.
53 Ibid., 34.
54 Brent Greene, ‘Designing Melbourne’s E-Gate Brownfield: A Novel Urban Renewal Strategy Foregrounding Ecological Performance and Toxicity’, AD19 Conference Proceedings: Design Research (2020), 201–218.
55 VicTrack Rail Development Interface Guidelines (2019), victrack. com.au/-/media/victrack/documents/resources/victrack-raildevelopment-interface-guidelines.pdf.
56 Ma-gorzata Wrzesie- and Bo-ena Denisow, ‘Factors Responsible for the Distribution of Invasive Plant Species in the Surroundings of Railway Areas: A Case Study from SE Poland’, Biológia 72/11 (2017), 1275–1284; Randy Mertens, ‘Weeds and Railroads: Plant Scientist Keeps Crossings Free of Dangerous Vegetation’, CAFNR News, 6 October 2014, cafnr.missouri. edu/2014/10/weeds-and-railroads/, accessed 22 January 2023.
57 City of Melbourne, Climate Change Impacts on Melbourne (n.d.), melbourne.vic.gov.au/about-council/vision-goals/ eco-city/Pages/adapting-to-climate-change.
58 Birrarung Marr is situated on the banks of the semi-tidal Yarra River on top of a drained ephemeral wetland.
59 Melbourne Water, Planning for Sea Level Rise Guidelines February 2017: Port Phillip and Westernport Regions (2017), melbournewater.com.au/sites/default/files/Planningfor-sea-levels.pdf.
60 Manel Bellache et al., ‘Comparative Analysis of Tolerance to Salt Stress and Water Deficit in Two Invasive Weeds of the Genus Erigeron (Asteraceae)’, Plants (Basel) 11/15 (2022), 2059; Gülüzar Duygu Semiz, ‘Salinity Impact on Yield, Water Use, Mineral and Essential Oil Content of Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill.)’, Tarım Bilimleri Dergisi 18 (2012), 177–186; Panagiota Filippou et al., ‘Proline and Reactive Oxygen/Nitrogen Species Metabolism Is Involved in the Tolerant Response of the Invasive Plant Species Ailanthus altissima to Drought and Salinity’, Environmental and Experimental Botany 97 (2014), 1–10; Arifa Khalid and Faheem Aftab, ‘Effect of Exogenous Application of 24-epibrassinolide on Growth, Protein Contents, and Antioxidant Enzyme Activities of In Vitro-grown Solanum tuberosum L. under Salt Stress’, In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology—Plant 52/1 (2016), 81–91; Muxin Liu, Huixuan Liao and Shaolin Peng, ‘Salt-tolerant Native Plants Have Greater Responses to Other Environments When Compared to Salt-tolerant Invasive Plants’, Ecology and Evolution 9/13 (2019); Agriculture Victoria, Salinity Indicator Plants: A Guide to Spotting Soil Salting (2020), vro.agriculture.vic.gov.au/dpi/ vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/water_spotting_soil_salting.
61 Matthew Gandy, ‘Entropy by Design: Gilles Clément, Parc Henri Matisse and the Limits to Avant-garde Urbanism’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37/1 (2013), 259–278.
62 Many scholars have written on the agency of design research/design speculations as a contemporary mode of creating knoweldge. See: Julie Ellison and Timothy K. Eatman, Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University (Syracuse, NY: Imagining America, 2008); David Salomon, ‘Experimental Cultures: On the “End” of the Design Thesis and the Rise of the Research Studio’, Journal of Architectural Education 65/1 (2011), 34–44; Peter Downton, Design Research (Melbourne: RMIT Publishing, 2003).
63 While the Woody Meadow withstands heat and drought stresses, the utilization of native plants limits spontaneous innovations that are also adaptable and resilient.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Brent Greene
Brent Greene is a lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Brent’s teaching and research focuses on urban ecological design through spontaneous plants, queer ecology, marginalized landscapes and post-industrial urban renewal. He utilizes design research methods to investigate the impact of cultural values on urban ecological design approaches—and to expand perceptions of spontaneous urban plants in the metropolis.
Wendy Walls
Wendy Walls is a lecturer in Landscape Architectural Design at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Wendy’s research and teaching focuses on the use of data and digital technologies for designing with dynamic climatic phenomena in external open space, innovative design methodologies and interdisciplinary practices. Her PhD addressed issues of thermal sensation in Australian cities where current climate change predictions suggest more frequent, intense and dangerous heatwaves.