DESIGN

Design Research

Cultural Pluralism in Australian Designers

Landscape design in Australia currently is represented by two main design approaches; international design styles and an Australian landscape design ethic using abstract representations of the Australian landscape. There are also new design approaches emerging from a group of designers who are migrants or children of migrants. These designers are working in a cross-cultural way which has the potential to become a uniquely Australian design approach for the 21st century. Research is exploring this including the Spirit of the Greeks in Australian Cities – see Exhibitions

Australian-Greek Designers – Alec Tzannes

Design Master Class

‘Building a Design Culture’ – a Design Master Class run in 2000 – consisted of twenty outstanding Queensland architects, landscape architects and artists under the leadership of the award-winning landscape architect from Germany, Professor Peter Latz. Professor Latz has achieved world recognition for his exceptional work on the disused industrial sites which dominate the landscape of the Ruhr Valley in Germany.

The Master Class in Brisbane focussed on a collection of light industrial sites along the Brisbane River. Peter Latz argues that industrial sites are laden with information and that by understanding industrial destruction and exhaustion, a vision of a new landscape should emerge. The Master Class is described in the publication Landscapes from the Downside , available from School of Design and Built Environment, QUT, Brisbane.

Design Studios

Australian advanced design studios are run with graduate students looking at a range of design issues from working with inland Queensland towns to the unusual landscape of the Gold Coast with its beach, high-rise, cane-fields and mountains. Studios are also run internationally including China and Vienna. A number of publications describe the design studios in detail.

Advanced Design Studios – Interpreting the Cultural Landscape of the Scenic Rim and the Gold Coast.