Site Knowledge: in Dynamic Contexts

A project submitted in fulfilment of the

requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Richard Black
M.Arch, B.Arch

School of Architecture and Design

Portfolio of Design and Social Context
RMIT University
February 2009

1
For Michelle and Oscar
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Site Knowledge: in Dynamic Contexts

A project submitted in fulfilment of the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Richard Black
M.Arch, B.Arch

School of Architecture and Design

Portfolio of Design and Social Context
RMIT University
February 2009

3
DECLARATION

I certify that except where due acknowledgement

has been made, the work is that of the author alone;
the work has not been submitted previously, in whole
or in part, to qualify for any other academic award;
the content of the thesis is the result of work which
has been carried out since the official commence-
ment date of the approved research program; and,
any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a
third party is acknowledged.

Sign here:

Name:

Date:

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 CONTENTS

Introduction: PhD statement and overview

CHAPTERS

1. SITE 12

2. MAPPING THE RIVER MURRAY 34

2.1 Inventing a site: The River Murray 34

2.2 Transitory 82

2.3 Mobile Landscapes 102

3. LIVING WITH THE RIVER MURRAY 116

3.1 Amphibious Architectures 116

3.2 Tidal Garden 134

4. CONCLUSION: DESIGNING THE SITE 242

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 Site knowledge diagram. The diagram
illustrates the impact of site knowledge
upon my design process. Off-site and on-
site operations play a formative role in the
construction of site knowledge.

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 INTRODUCTION

Statement The River Murray provides a context for the project

The PhD commenced with the question: what are the work of the PhD. Site knowledge emerges from a
consequences for a range of architectures of living process of investigating a location. It is generated
with the River Murray – rather than living against the by on-site and off-site operations. This involves the
River Murray? architect in a dynamic set of relationships – between
encounters on the ground in the here and now, with
The PhD is concerned with the construction of site more remote encounters with the site from the studio
knowledge and how this is transformed into knowing and archive. This mode of site study amplifies the
where and how to intervene in a river system close impact of scale shift and it exposes the variable and
to ecological collapse. It involves three overlapping provisional status of a location, while also providing
topics: a way of operating in environments that can be
considered dynamic.
 Site knowledge and its impact upon the
design process The PhD is premised upon the need for a work to
 Development of tools and techniques relate to its surrounding environment. The hinged
appropriate for working on a particular type meaning between the terms a site and to site have
of site condition: the threshold between land relevance to the design process. A site, as a noun,
and water suggests a specific place, such as a plot of land,
 Transitory: the impact of dynamic processes whereas the verb, to site, suggests that a work will
and events on inhabitation be placed in relation to other things. Site knowledge
is thus generated through the act of describing a
place, through the act of making drawings and other
descriptions of that place. It generates ways of
conceptualising a site and leads to action: knowing
how and where to intervene in a location.

Projects that form part of this PhD belong to a

genre of architectural design work that can be
considered speculative. An exemplary project of
this type would be Temple Island1 by Michael Webb.
Speculative design projects are unbuilt works that
exist as drawings, models and sketches. They are
not made for a client, nor are they generated from
an architectural competition brief, and they are
not developed for a pre-existing site or brief for
a building. As an academic, I have taught design

7
studio since 1991. In parallel to these activities I presently occupy the floodplain. Living with the River
have endeavoured to continue to practice, making Murray is a proposition to embrace a future where
speculative designs. During this time my practice has land-use and ways of inhabiting a floodplain do not
explored a particular type of landscape condition, compete with its ecological processes. The project
developing a set of tools and techniques appropriate work of the PhD sets out to examine the floodplain
for working in sparsely populated terrain. This is and its river, as a means to develop a range of
a territory, I believe, that has been overlooked by amphibious architectures that are mapped closely
conventional architectural practice. The project work to its terrain, derived from, and working with, the
of the PhD continues this trajectory of work. process of the river’s rehabilitation.

Dynamic Contexts Structure of the PhD

Dynamic contexts occur at the convergence of land The PhD is structured into four parts. These are:
and water. As water recedes and advances along Site, Mapping the River Murray, Living with the
a shoreline it creates a landscape of change. The River Murray, and then finally Conclusion: Designing
River Murray is Australia’s second longest river and the Site. The first section situates the research
has been likened to a long inland shoreline. When and how it addresses perceived gaps in the field.
settler Australians first encountered the Murray, they The following sections introduce the project work
found an unpredictable river governed by cycles of that has been undertaken in conjunction with the
flood and drought. Big floods would spill out across written component of the PhD. The various chapters
the land for up to 20 kilometres from the main introduce each project through the development of
channel, whilst drought periods saw the water recede the key research themes. Finally, in the conclusion I
exposing the river bed. During the early part of the reveal a way of generating site knowledge that can
twentieth century, dams, weirs and barrages were have a significant impact upon the design process.
constructed along the length of the river transforming
it from a wild river into an irrigation canal. Now, too 1. SITE
much water is extracted from the river and its natural In this review I locate the research within the field of
flow regime has been inverted, bringing the Murray site study and its influence upon the design process.
close to ecological collapse. Ecologists realise that I expand upon terminology and situate the research
the cycles of flood and drought, that regulation in relation to overlapping disciplinary areas between
had minimised, are part of a river’s ecological life. architecture, landscape architecture and art practice.
Current thinking argues for a return to a variable Through the hinged relationship of a site and to site
flow pattern, and it is this point of view that is I proceed to build an argument for a site specific
embraced by the project work of the PhD. But while design practice. In the process I identify a series of
the ecological benefit of a variable river has been gaps that the research sets out to address. At the
well documented, there has been little discussion of heart of my argument is the proposition that site can
its impact upon the river towns or the land-uses that exert a formative influence upon the design process.

8
But, this requires a more creative exploration of river, and the river of the present. While this phase
a site’s full potential in the formative stages of a of the study revealed the immensity of the Murray
project; only then can it motivate where and how to it also started to construct an overview of the river
intervene in a location. towns and their precarious siting on its floodplain.

2. MAPPING THE RIVER MURRAY 2.2 Transitory. Water Theatre was a commissioned
This marks the commencement of the project work work for the visual arts program of the Melbourne
of the PhD and is structured into three chapters. Festival. It required the making of an installation for
Mapping the Murray charts the techniques used to a laneway on the city campus of RMIT University.
start to understand a river system. While it was physically distant from the river, it
became a project where I could develop a way
2.1 Inventing a site: the River Murray. This project of working with water on an intimate scale. For
is the beginning of transforming a river into a site. me it provided an opportunity to shift scale to
The chapter elaborates upon the process used. It work at one-to-one on a project that would be
examines three different ways in which the river was constructed. From the distance of Melbourne, the
approached: from the archive, from the ground, and river provided a conceptual context for the work:
from above. These are strategic techniques used firstly, to make a work that was transitory informed
to examine a location implicating scale change and by the dynamic flood events being discovered along
time as integral for engaging place. Material from the river; and secondly, to explore the potential of
the archival work generated a new drawing of the water as material. The installation grew out of a
River Murray that explored three relationships: the close understanding of the physical context as a
flood river, the existing river channel and the survey site already filled with a presence of activity. The
grid of each town. Another sequence of encounters installation explored what a transitory occupation of
with the river, this time from the ground, generated the lane might be. Water was pulsed into its spaces
an intimate understanding of the spaces depicted in to resonate with the memories of flood events along
the line drawing. I travelled thousands of kilometres, the Murray. As a transitory event, the interaction
driving to and along the river, walking it, canoeing between the planned and the unexpected was
along part of it, crossing it and living temporarily seen as a significant outcome. Additionally, this
by it. Over this period I progressively worked my project introduced the political implications of water
way along its length, from its upper reaches at the use, which took me into further reading that would
Hume Reservoir to its estuary in South Australia. contribute to the next chapter.
Photographic documentation assembled these
journeys as a sequence to be read in relation to the 2.3 Mobile Landscapes. This chapter articulates
drawn line. And in the process, the River Murray a proposition for living on the floodplain and
began to be defined through the presence and consolidates a broad range of subject material. It
absence of water; a flood river (floodplain), a drought summarises my understanding of the river threading

9
a path through the archival material and journeys, of off-site and on-site operations became apparent.
and then relates these to other disciplinary areas This shift into a teaching environment, also
of knowledge on the river, particularly its ecology, suggested a way into an architectural scale of
management and politics. The key issue to emerge engaging the Murray, which thus far had been
was that the flood was seen as a normal event for hindered by the immensity of scale encountered in
the river. Its floodplain was understood as a mobile the mapping phase of the study. While the studio
landscape defined by the absence and presence of phase of the study solved the scalar problems and
water. This created a set of specific conditions that established rules for selecting particular sites, they
could be directed back onto each town to challenge did not sufficiently engage with the range of site
their future. How might the towns start to live with material now accumulated between the scale of the
the river? This text was a significant turning point for town and the scale of the river.
the project work of the PhD where the various topics
began to converge and the study of site informed 3.2 Tidal Garden. Tidal Garden is a speculative
possible projects. But what was not yet clear was design project for a location on the floodplain within
how these descriptions of the River Murray could the river estuary. In Tidal Garden, the process used
impact upon the verb understanding of site: that is to to engage the whole river was re-visited, but here
know how and where to intervene in a location. applied at a different scale – an island in the river’s
estuary. This instigated another series of off-site
3. LIVING WITH THE RIVER MURRAY and on-site operations that constructed (what I had
begun to refer to as) site knowledge. The process of
3.1 Amphibious Architectures. The text Mobile constructing site knowledge became instrumental in
Landscapes summarised key issues from which I the development of the project. I demonstrated how
framed five teaching programs for the design subject a study of site can start to have a significant impact
stream at RMIT University. Moving the research into upon various aspects of the design process: from
a teaching environment offered a way of exploring site selection to the development of programs and
several locations along the river in further detail. land-use; to knowing how and where to intervene;
Interventions were revelatory, marking the territory of and how formal, spatial and material characteristics
the floodplain with building and landscape elements. are derived from this understanding. Tidal Garden
More importantly, the design studio offered me an is a place constantly evolving; its spaces being
opportunity to spend time in communities along the constantly altered by the transitory action of the
river to gain an intimate understanding of the issues estuary landscape.
raised in the previous section – but this time from the
perspective of being on the ground. Towns identified 4. CONCLUSION – DESIGNING THE SITE
as sites for a studio program were selected for their The PhD demonstrates the need to commit time
relationship to the floodplain and inundation. Site to understand the particularities of a river before
visits proved to be invaluable, and the significance knowing how to act. The consequence, then,

10
for living with the Murray River is to derive new NOTES
approaches that do not separate the study of site 1. Michael Webb, Temple Island: a study by Michael Webb, Mega
V, London: Architectural Association, 1987.
from the act of designing. It is a way of operating that
is neither bottom-up or top-down, but takes aspects
of both of these approaches to create a dynamic set
of relationships that allow a more imaginative way of
living with a river. The construction of site knowledge
and its application into the design process is seen
as the significant contribution to the study of site. In
the conclusion I elaborate upon the significance of
on-site and off-site operations and how they shift the
focus of the site from a static entity into a provisional
state where site is constantly constructed through
its relationships with the natural and inhabited
landscape. This approach implicates a wider range
of scalar investigations with a specificity of time as
a way of investigating a location. This allows me to
design the site.

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 CHAPTER 1
SITE

‘In architecture the demands of relating a building to conceived imaginatively and how my design process
a physical location are necessary and inevitable’.1 has adjusted to these conditions. My argument is
structured around the hinged relationship between a
Architectural literature has been more than site as a noun, and to site as a verb. It is this hinged
forthcoming about how to ‘relate to’ or to ‘fit in relationship between these words that would appear
to’ urban situations. But these are not readily to have relevance to the design process.
transferable to locations that are characterised by
the absence of built fabric. How might a work relate My argument is structured around three topics that
to its setting in the open landscape? Is a landscape address perceived gaps in architectural thinking
free of the usual constraints, a place where anything about site: firstly, that more creative and imaginative
is possible? Could this suggest that landscape is descriptions of site are needed; secondly, that there
imagined without the site encumbrances associated are inadequate architecture examples that show
within urban settlements? Terms such as a ‘green how site description motivates action; and thirdly,
field site’ and a ‘cleared site’ would certainly suggest that design decisions can be motivated by site
the answer to be yes. But such thinking usually descriptions, and thus forge a relationship between
results in arbitrary interventions on the land’s surface what the site is and how it might evolve in the future.
with minimal regard for the existing situation.

A site specific approach, on the other hand, would

focus on the careful examination of the landscape
and its relationship to the site. Alternate reference
points other than buildings are implicated. In this
sense, it is a critique of architecture’s inability to
move beyond formal concerns of the built fabric. By
engaging with the concept of landscape this essay
tries to find a space for an architectural work within
this territory.

This chapter examines site and its role in the

design process. Firstly, I look at site and how it
is conceived in relationship to a wider context. I
then review key precedents in architecture, art
practice and landscape architecture that have been
helpful in finding ways of operating in the sparsely
populated terrain of the Australian continent. I
then suggest ways in which the ground has been

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 Plan Landbridge, Richard Black, Yarra River 1998

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1.1 A SITE inadequate when applied to the sparsely populated
ground encountered in Australia. Subsequent work6
According to the English Oxford Dictionary, a site, has developed ways of making site investigations
as a noun word refers to ‘an area of ground on in sparsely populated terrain. This has led to a
which something is located’.2 In architecture, a re-assessment of site and its role in the design
site is commonly understood to be a parcel of land process. Increasingly, I made projects for places
having dimensioned boundaries that define its defined by the meeting of land and water. Lake
location and size. To imagine a site connected into Eyre7 and the Yarra River8 were notable examples.
its surroundings is to move it into more dynamic Both places were seen as companion locations,
territory. Sites interact, spatially and conceptually, Lake Eyre as a place relatively untouched by human
with other places. This can occur at a number endeavour, whereas the Yarra’s path to the sea
of levels. An unobstructed visual field can bring had been constantly altered with the expansion and
near, middle distance and the distant horizon into industrialisation of the city. These projects have
relationship. An ecological point of view can also pushed the role of the architectural project beyond
contribute to connecting near and far. A friend3 its usual scale, where the built response may well
has often discussed how land-use practices on be equal, if not secondary, to other concerns. In
his property can potentially impact on the water this work, the site for each project became a space
quality of Adelaide – a city over 700 kilometres marked by shifting boundaries, and the project’s
from his farm. While this environmental ethos is interaction with landscape systems became a major
commendable, it reveals that landscape systems point of exploration. Engaging with landscape
such as water catchments form networks that do not processes has also challenged the normative scalar
adhere to property boundaries. It is this reciprocity relationships between a building and its setting.
and interconnectedness between the micro and One of the challenges posed by this has been to
macro scales of landscape which challenges an reconcile the small scale of the built intervention with
interpretation of site as a bounded piece of property. the perceived immensity of the landscape. Drawn
Too often, architectural works4 remain conceptually investigations of increasingly larger territories are
constrained by the legal property boundary – instead a necessary part of this process. The following text
of interacting with the landscape. outlines a range of tools and techniques that have
been developed to break a place down, so that it can
Site as a topic of study and research emerged from be opened up for scrutiny.
a sequence of speculative design projects. The more
distant work was undertaken in Germany5, having Landscape has been the common denominator,
an urban focus. This was followed by a return to forcing me to consider other disciplinary points of
Australia and a sequence of projects in remote parts view. I have benefited from others who operate
of Western Australia. Tools and techniques used to within this context, in particular, artists9 who
examine the densely populated European cities were have made architectural enclosures tuned to the

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 1. 2.

phenomena of place, while others who have made Landscapes are dynamic places evolving over long
more ephemeral interventions have challenged the and short durations of time. Consider, for instance,
need of enclosure. Reading has developed another the frequency of Lake Eyre filling and emptying
layer to my understanding of landscapes’ complexity. with water, as it has on four occasions during the
Unlike an architectural context, landscape often previous century. While its filling and emptying can
has infrastructural networks that can encompass last a year, it might be another 20 to 30 years until
regional and continental spheres of influence. John this cycle occurs again. By the time rivers discharge
Dixon Hunt has used the notion of a second nature into the lake, they have traversed an immense
to articulate a way of conceiving of the relationship distance through the deserts of Central Australia.
between nature and human inhabitation. Second Typically, landscape systems span large distance
nature is a ‘landscape of bridges, roads, harbors and time intervals far beyond any comparable
(sic), fields – in short, all of the elements which architectural equivalent. It is impossible to imagine
men and women introduce into the physical world landscape as static. Even stone can appear to be
to make it habitable’.10 A second nature could exist mobile. Robert Macfarlane has suggested that ‘to
in degrees of intensity. A good example would be understand even a little about geology gives you
the Netherlands, where the land has successively special spectacles with which to see a landscape.
been remade and cultivated over centuries. Many They allow you to see back in time to worlds were
commentators have often referred to this as an rocks liquefy and seas petrify, where granite slops
artificial nature. Wilderness, on the other hand, about like porridge, basalt bubbles like stew,
would be a place untouched by human endeavour and layers of limestone are folded as easily as
– a first nature according to Hunt. Whether such a blankets. Through the spectacles of geology, terra
place still exists on the earth today is questionable. firma becomes terra mobilis, and we are forced to
There would seem to be different intensities at reconsider our beliefs of what is solid and what is
which land has been processed and made habitable not’.11 If observation and a little knowledge can reveal
for human purposes. Because landscape can the landscape to be provisional, always on the move,
include buildings, the ground surface, roads, and even slowly evolving into something else, then it may
infrastructural networks it necessitates a greater also be possible to consider the act of inhabitation
range of scalar shifts to adequately grasp its as provisional. Lived time of human existence
complexity. Where an architectural investigation may takes place at a different pace to the immensity of
include the consideration of the built context beyond landscape processes. Again, Macfarlane has written
the scope of the site, a landscape context may well eloquently of his encounter with the remote mountain
include investigations of territory beyond the horizon, regions of the world: ‘Contemplating the immensities
combined with an encounter with the particular – of deep time, you face, in a way that is both exquisite
combining near and far. and horrifying the total collapse of your present,
compacted to nothingness by the pressures of pasts
and futures too extensive to envisage’.12 Comparison

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 1) On-site installation, RMIT design studio, Lake Eyre.
2) On-site drawing, Kookynie, Western Australia. Drawing by Dim-
mity Walker undertaken during the Groundcode work with Richard
Black and Stephen Neille.
3) Light and shadow studies, Kookynie, Western Australia.

3.

of lived time with the time of the landscape provides works on the drawing: rarely on the building. If the
a way of conceiving of the act of inhabitation beyond drawing is a substitute for working on the building,
a problem of form. To consider the life of the building then it is also one way in which a site is mediated.
as an active evolving set of possibilities may prompt However, David Leatherbarrow has noted that:
parallel analogies with landscape processes. ‘because of our dependence on site plans and other
Looking at places over time reveals patterns of similar spatial abstractions as adequate symbols of
change. Rather than thinking of things in stasis I the full reality of place, we have largely missed the
propose conceiving of things in dynamic relationship. creative aspect of site definition and the architect’s
To follow on from Macfarlane’s observation, I responsibility to “invent” the site of any design
suggest conceiving of and inhabiting the landscape project’.14 I concur with Leatherbarrow on this point,
as a relational framework: where intervals of change particularly as the complexities of conceiving site
are considered, slow to fast, of different pace and and landscape are often overlooked by conventional
frequency. A relational understanding between site documentation. Drawing the site (as opposed to
landscape processes and the events and actions receiving a drawn site survey and a data file) enacts
associated with the act of living might be a more a process of selecting and arranging information –
productive way of designing. Too often, in built up it is a way of describing a place. This may involve
areas, a work is assessed to ‘fit-in’ by examining its revealing what is seen and unseen, as well as testing
formal adjacencies to its neighbouring buildings. This its real and imagined boundaries within the wider
can quickly degenerate into purely visual similarities context. This process is exploratory and imaginative
between what already exists and what is added. A rather than just a mirror of reality. Certain features,
relational understanding, on the other hand, would qualities and allegiances will be identified through
privilege events over form. Formal considerations this process and these may influence how and where
could then be allowed to recede when considering to intervene in a location. Only then can the site have
landscape and building from this perspective. I potential to inform the design process. My practice
propose a way of thinking through architectures has developed a set of techniques to investigate site
relationship to the wider landscape, where a built as a formative stage of a project, where site and its
intervention enables action to unfold over time: relationship to the wider landscape are examined
between the landscape and the building fabric. in detail. I have endeavoured to delay the act of
intervention, placing emphasis upon the investigation
Drawing the site of a location, opening it up to scrutiny. The following
Site enters the design process through the act of summarises three ways of approaching site and
drawing. Robin Evans has stated that, ‘architects landscape.
labour, never with the object of their thought, always
working at it through some intervening medium,
almost always the drawing…’13 Unlike the artist who
works directly with paint on a canvas, the architect

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 1. 2. 3.

From above: plan drawings, maps and aerial could also reveal the hidden, transitory processes
photographs provide selective modes of representing that are often absent from site drawings.
the world from above. Maps rely upon cartographic
conventions to represent the land’s surface. Some From the archive: the archive has provided rich
artists have used (or misused) these conventions source material to reconstruct aspects of the
to convey ideas about a site or landscape. The natural and inhabited landscape. The term archive
plan view, on the other hand, has persisted as the refers to material that has provided evidence
preferred architectural drawing to represent sites of a site’s past, and might include manuscripts,
and buildings and entire city regions. From the newspapers, photographs, maps and survey
1970s, figure ground drawings were revived by Colin drawings. Photographs and maps in particular
Rowe and Fred Koetter in Collage City.15 Mario have provided insights into the changing character
Gandelsonas continued to cultivate a plancentric of landscapes over time. These may be of lapsed
mode of representation as a means of investigating events that have taken place, personal memories,
the American city.16 These were startling for their or of landscape processes. Data from the archive
selective use of drawn conventions, resulting in has provided source material to make drawings
highly reductive views of the city and its spaces. of change over time. By drawing the Yarra River
Both practices privileged a singular mode of channel over a 134-year period, I was able to expose
projection, with limited scale change. Architectural a landscape of excavation and reclamation that
drawing has proven to be particularly good at provided a conceptual framework to imagine the
articulating compositional arrangements but has estuary landscape. At its best, material from the
not been adequately exploited to reveal the land’s archive can help give a sense of time’s passage. It
surface. Consider, for instance, the figure-ground can challenge other encounters with the landscape,
plans as championed by Rowe and Koetter. They making the aerial, and on the ground, experience
are indifferent to open space, rendering it as a seem provisional.
void as do many other forms of architectural plan
projection. The plan view may even recede in On the ground: a location experienced on the ground
importance as other forms of imaging support, add in real time differs from the same place depicted
to, and complement the aerial view. Artists’ use of on a map. These tensions have been played out
cartographic conventions could also have relevance particularly well through art practice. When an
here.17 To overcome the sense of detachment from art work is executed in a location remote from a
place, multiple plan views crossing a broad scalar gallery19, an artist has to rely upon documentation
range, from detail to overview, would be helpful. This to capture a residue of the work for display back
technique has been explored by Peter Eisenman18, in the gallery. This process has mirrored my own
where plans of various scale were superimposed to experience of combining two modes of operation –
register a greater range of information of a location. working in the field as distinct from working in the
Drawings made in time, rather than out-of-time, studio. Architects perpetuate site documentation

18
 1)Figure-ground plan drawing, Parma, Colin Rowe and
Fred Koetter.
2) Exploratory plan drawing, Chicago, Mario Gandelsonas.
3) Concept sketch Chiba Golf Club, Morphosis. Note the absence
of site conditions.
4) First model, Morphosis, Chiba Golf Club, showing inclusion of
site conditions

4.

produced in the studio – remote from the site. tasks of the site visit, drawing of the site and
The plan drawing and site survey are good other research associated with these activities are
examples. With further reliance upon data files considered to be the formative stages of a project’s
and the computer, the severing of contact with the inception.
reality of the site is becoming common. However,
to be outside, in the field, to produce drawings Site and the design process
and other forms of recordings is to engage with If drawing is ‘the instrument through which
the immediacy of the here and now. Tools and architecture is most often brought into virtual and
techniques borrowed from art practices have helped actual existence21’, then by looking at drawings
overcome the inadequacies of architectural modes by other architects I would expect to discover
of documentation. Rather than work from simplified how they have engaged with a site and how this
abstractions of a place, visits to a location can reveal has led to action. The Austrian architect Raimund
its lived experience; the difference between morning, Abraham has claimed that ‘…the intervention
afternoon and midday may be of significance. and transformation of a site is the true beginning
Being in-situ foregrounds diurnal time and the of architecture…’22 Abraham would not be alone
sensed encounter with the landscape. Remarkably, in believing that architecture commences at this
these are the types of encounter that have been moment of intervention. But architects have done
noticeably absent from architectural literature. particularly well in concealing the impact of site on
But, for some artists these concerns have been the design process. If architecture commences at the
particularly present. John Wolseley20, for example, moment of intervention, how are we to know where
an artist based in Melbourne makes drawings in the and how to intervene? Consider for a moment, a
landscape, sometimes leaving works buried for up to sketch by Thom Mayne from the Los Angeles based
a year, allowing the ground to make its imprint on the practice Morphosis. It is a conceptual sketch for the
work. Chiba Golf Club23; a project that remains unbuilt, but
nonetheless had several publications dedicated to its
While there are numerous examples of documenting design process. If the beginning of architecture, as
site from above, in architecture there are few Abraham has claimed, is the moment of intervention,
examples that adequately account for approaching then preliminary sketches like Mayne’s should
site from the archive or from the ground. The provide evidence of the motivations that initiate a
potential is for new combinations to emerge, the work. While there is a prolific amount of information
adjacencies of plan, an on-site encounter, and conveyed about the intricate formal complexity of the
the archive can construct inventive and detailed building, there is less evidence to suggest how they
descriptions of place. Site selection necessitates the approached site and the landscape.24 Did Mayne
investigation of a location to articulate boundaries. and his colleagues visit the site and, if so, what kinds
To locate boundaries from unbounded terrain is of documentation might have been undertaken?
to establish a site. In this process the mandatory How might they have impacted upon the preliminary

19
 1. 2.

sketch studies? Taking the published accounts of Shifting context and scale provides further evidence
the design process into consideration, there is little of thinking through an encounter with a site as a
evidence to answer these questions. The concept formative part of the design process. Mary-Ann
sketches are devoid of the surrounding context. It is Ray and Robert Mangurian were commissioned
only in the developed drawn and modelled studies to undertake the urban renewal of Santa Monica
that the surrounding terrain becomes present. This, Boulevard. Like Domenig’s study they made a point
I believe, echoes Abraham’s notion of architectural of initiating on-site documentation and analysis.
beginnings – that are with the building rather than Interestingly, this mode of documentation was
the site. Conceiving of the site as full, on the other motivated by their desire to explore the diversity
hand, would suggest a range of investigative studies of the streetscape. Mangurian and Ray state that
with the site and broader landscape as its focus. the: ‘bias of most planning and many architects is
Such studies would precede the act of intervention. trying to make a place have an identity (at times
we are for this). Our parting of ways comes from
In the mid 1980s, Günther Domenig became famous making the identity emerge through the application
for his own house at the edge of the Ossiacher of devices that gives the area a kind of uniformity
See, in southern Austria. The Stone House25, as it –stitching together, ”blending in”, and so on. While
became known, was based on a series of studies of not being totally against this way of thinking, we
the local mountainous terrain. Domenig had spent attempted to see commonalities as backgrounds,
some time making drawings of this landscape, instead of providing frames for the great variety and
through a series of imaginative and interpretative diversity that exists along Santa Monica Boulevard.
studies that explored found geometry of the local We also felt that the strong identity for this section
terrain. These preliminary drawn studies are of Santa Monica Boulevard could come from the
evidence of the architect struggling with a way of hidden (and not so hidden) exceptions, oddities,
seeing site as a microcosm within the mountainous and anomalies that exist’.26 These observations
terrain. Nevertheless, they seem to have influenced provided the stimulus for on-site documentation,
the formal development of the house: its faceted such as photographic studies and interviews, that
surfaces reflecting the abstracted geological forms catalogue the range of ‘exceptions, oddities, and
found in his earlier studies. Domenig’s design anomalies’. Cataloguing places using photographic
process is of interest for its privileging of a drawn documentation reflected techniques used by the
investigation of the local landscape from direct artist Edward Ruscha in the 1960s, where he
observation, a process that preceded design work. undertook factual documentation of apartment
This project reveals how site studies can have buildings, carparks and the Sunset Strip.27 For
generative impact upon the design process. Mangurian and Ray, this mode of documentation
seemed to have been pivotal for generating a set of
rules that could be used to determine how and where
to intervene. Interventions were to further strengthen

20
 1) Transition between vegetation and stone, sketch by
Günter Domenig.
2) Stone House under construction, Günter Domenig.
3) Blue Zones, - an example of intensification of found detail. The
blue currently used on street furniture and light posts is applied to
buildings and architectural details to create a large scale pattern in
West Hollywood. Mary-Ann Ray and Robert Mangurian

3.

these found situations. Sometimes this would involve through the remaking of site imagery that I believe
changing paint colour, modification to shop fronts, the creative opportunities of a site investigation
or the addition of landscape infrastructure. Analysis can translate and affect the design process. Rather
of the local context produced site knowledge than receive the site as a given, it is the role of the
that generated the rules of operating along the architect to imagine the multiple ways in which the
streetscape. Mangurian and Ray show how site site is grounded into the local context, at different
thinking becomes strategic. Close observation drives scales and for different times of the day, month
a set of principles for intervening: from the most and year. I see the role of the architect as that of
minimal cosmetic adjustments, to more permanent discovering and revealing a relational understanding
costly transformations of civic infrastructure. between a site and the landscape of which it forms
a part. For this to take place, the notion of site has
According to Andrea Kahn, ‘Conventional site to be conceived as a dynamic place, and not a static
analysis – which privileges the clear over the entity.
chaotic, the elemental over the relational, the
static over the mobile – are inadequate to the task I prefer the term of ‘mapping’ to ‘site analysis’ to
of recognising (or representing) the incalculable describe this joining of site and design. Mapping
angles of a site’s lived complexity’.28 Architects remains a potent metaphor to describe a process
have been too reliant upon site documentation where connections are discovered and things
that limits the site to the property boundary, rather brought into relationship. Mapping constructs a
than seeing the act of analysis as a more creative way of seeing and, as James Corner writes, is ‘a
process extending beyond the physical limits of the fantastic cultural project, creating and building the
site. An understanding of site is also reliant upon world as much as measuring and describing it’.29
a range of different documentation techniques that ‘Building the world’ suggests a process of assembly.
can engage the complexity referred to by Kahn. Data retrieved from the air, ground and archive can
Reliance upon one mode of documentation such as provide the raw material to commence this process.
aerial photography and plan drawing generalises Mapping is where the notions of a site and to site
rather than particularises. So far I have elaborated are formulated and tested through drawn information
upon two practices that expanded the range of – a process that leads to knowing how and where
documentation. Domenig took to the mountains, to intervene in a location. Mapping is more than
while Mangurian and Ray traversed the Boulevard just making representations of place – it should
conducting interviews and taking photographs. also be speculative and generative, suggesting
These methods challenge the engagement with a how to intervene. Mapping is thus a strategic part
place from the distance of the studio. Instead, they of the process hinging between operations that
prompt the architect to become enmeshed within would normally be termed ‘(site) analysis and
the surroundings, walking and traversing its spaces, design’. Authorship is a necessary component,
documenting its nuances and specific character. It is selecting and arranging this material into a new set

21
 1. 2. 3.

of relationships. Rather than just replicating what is In architecture, mapping has been associated with
already known, mapping unearths hidden aspects organisational techniques capable of addressing
of a place, allows its working parts to be seen and urban and landscape scale problems. Here the
understood; it can bring a collision of scales and time problem has been one of structuring processes
frames into relationship. Mapping can thus become and uncertainty rather than building design.
a strategic part of the design process. It not only The unbuilt competition entry to the Parc de la
reviews and re-assesses the found conditions of a Villette competition by the Office for Metropolitan
place but constructs new realities. It brings together Architecture (OMA) is often identified with this
analytical and propositional thinking. approach.31 OMA offered a compelling strategy to
organise the exhaustive schedule of requirements
In landscape architecture several works have called for by the competition brief. It included
provided a critical insight into the role of buildings, infrastructure and various types of
representational techniques to disclose landscape landscaping all of which had to be implemented over
processes. In Taking Measures Across the a given period of time. The scale and complexity
American Landscape30, James Corner examined of the project also called for a plan that could
agricultural and industrial landscapes of North accommodate unforeseen changes along the way.
America. His drawings reveal how working parts The resulting organisational system has been
of the landscape fit together, in the same way that frequently referenced by landscape architects.
an analytical drawing can dismantle a building to Rather than a fixed plan form, a strategy of
understand the relation of the part to the whole. He layers was proposed, all of which could co-exist
has combined fragments of topographic maps, aerial simultaneously to provide a kind of thickened
photography and line drawing. The Pivot Irrigator ground surface. James Corner saw the potential
series are an excellent example where multiple in these techniques to accommodate open ended
forms of representation have been layered together indeterminate processes – something that landscape
exploiting different scales of information. Corner’s architecture had been grappling with. Alex Wall,
drawings are constructed and assembled, recalling a one-time OMA collaborator, has reflected on
Leatherbarrow’s demand for drawings to ‘invent the the paradigm shift of the la Villette proposal. The
site’. They are creative and imaginative depictions ‘problem, then was less of design in terms of style
of reality, as opposed to site surveys and data that and identity, representation, or formal composition,
undergo limited transformation, and thus account and much more one of strategic organisation.’32
for why Corner’s drawings are understood as a
critique of representational techniques in landscape These mapping practices do not adequately address
architecture. However, they do remain in the realm the transition between site analysis and design
of description as opposed to other types of drawings activity. In the la Villette proposal, the existing site
that hinge between description and proposition; they conditions were reduced to a single line marking
are not drawings that lead to action. the perimeter site boundary. Again, this recurring

22
1) Pivot Irrigator I, James Corner.
2) The strips divide the site into a series of parallel bands, Parc de
la Villette, OMA.
3) Point Grids and Confetti: small-scale elements such as pavil-
ions and kiosks, Parc de la Villette, OMA.

problem has already been discussed33 – where

the very absence of existing site features reveals
the agenda of the practice to be elsewhere.
Conversely, Corner’s mapping technique is almost
the symmetrical opposite to that of OMA; it is all
description, but without any indication of how this
leads to action. An alternative mapping process
would span this division, from description to action,
and would lead directly into design activity. The
mapping process I envisage is similar to a design
process, but engages with organisational strategies
outlined above and with site and the landscape
in a way that Corner exemplifies. The process
embraces multiple points of view rather than a
singular overview associated with master planning.
However, unlike Corner’s work it extends beyond
representational techniques into a range of strategies
to inhabit the landscape. Mapping can bridge what
a site has been in the past, what it is in the present
and what it might become in the future; and as such
is propositional. I have already discussed how an
architectural design process can exclude site and
landscape. Alternatively, the mapping I propose is
about making connections, bringing different scales
and times into relationship. It offers an alternative to
master planning, where oversimplified geometries
are often arbitrarily projected onto site with little
regard for existing topographic and environmental
conditions. Instead, its inclusiveness encourages
working with the particular, the topography and the
ground. This is the potential of mapping as a tool
to start to inform the design process, bringing this
into relationship with Kahn’s notion of a site’s ‘lived
complexity’.

23
 1. 2. 3.

1.2 TO SITE were fed back into their work37, and then reworked
further. The following text outlines a similar set of
‘The minimal intervention to trigger regeneration, the observations derived from several years of practice,
least possible to start the process … the essence of teaching and travelling. I use the titles of Grounding,
urbanism’.34 Living and Making to structure a way of relating a
work into its physical context. These observations
To site, as a verb, is ‘to fix or build in a particular have helped guide the types of investigative studies
place’.35 Thus, to site is to know where and how described in the first part of this essay. They describe
to intervene in a location. I have already outlined the transitory action of time on places and things
an approach to the noun understanding of a site seen through teaching, research and practice of
as an act of description. Having derived a detailed architecture.
understanding of a place, it is the architect’s role to
use this understanding to drive, and to motivate, a Grounding: operating in sparsely populated territory
works’ participation in its setting. Thus, the noun and has forced me to consider the ground as an active
verb understanding of site have a reciprocal action part of a work. Rather than a passive participant,
motivating design decisions. building and ground impact on one another in a
reciprocal relationship. The ground can be shaped
The point of view of the author – here the architect and sculpted or, alternatively, it can be left intact.
or landscape architect – is, of course, another Elsewhere, I have suggested the land is dynamic.
critical influence on site and siting, and must be Active processes embedded across its surface can
considered. To elaborate, I will return to an earlier make the ground seem like a constantly shifting
example. Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray, earthwork. These possibilities require a careful
when commissioned to examine the streetscape of examination of the found conditions, to determine
Santa Monica Boulevard, saw it as a place defined what might be happening, before deciding how
more by its ‘exceptions, oddities, and anomalies36’, and where to act. This is different to the notion of
rather than things that would give the area a uniform clearing the site ready for the arrival of a piece of
identity. Their point of view was to create identity architecture. Instead, the addition of a work onto the
by reinforcing differences, and thus the designed ground is perceived as another layer onto that which
interventions were conceived to further intensify already exists, and like a process of accumulation
these qualities of the Boulevard. A point of view is the various histories of the site remain intact. The
derived from close observations of a place, and following ideas suggest ways in which the particular
through the accumulation of knowledge gained aspects of topography can create a reciprocal
from having worked persistently in a region. Alison relationship between the work and the earth on
and Peter Smithson were also careful observers which it sits.
of the environments in which they operated and
have left a trail of thoughts and observations that

24
 1) Sea Level, Richard Serra.
2) This plan reveals the incisive linearity of the Great Avenue at
Castle Howard.
3) View along the Great Avenue.
4) Movement along the Great Avenue brings buildings and
landscape into relationship. Here the Mausoleum is visible in the
distance.

4.

The act of placement can reveal the topographic and upon the approach to the estate. By changing its
material characteristics of a site. Richard Serra’s orientation, it bisected the undulation terrain. The
work, Sea Level38, in the Netherlands, is exemplary incisive linearity of the Avenue is more evident in
of this approach. Consisting of two concrete walls, plan view, as once it is projected onto the rolling
each measuring 200 metres long, they straddle the topography it follows the folds of the land’s surface.
opposite banks of a waterway. While separated, the As an armature, the Avenue anchors a set of
twin walls are aligned in plan and in section. The top incidents along its path, directs movement, and
surface of each wall is horizontal and flush with the choreographs a set of visual relationships with
ground. As each wall extends towards one another, distant buildings and the surrounding landscape.
the land falls away, so the depth and presence Movement along the Great Avenue brings all of this
of each increases in sequence with the fall of the into play. These relationships rely upon a precise
ground. Serra’s project can be seen to be a register understanding of the lie of the land. Each building,
of the subtle shift in the sites topography – as though pavilion, statue, and monument seems to have been
it were a built sectional slice of the landscape. Its set down to exacting levels, using the topography
title, too, refers to the history of the area – a polder to heighten the presence of each intervention. The
landscape, where land has recently replaced the Mausoleum in particular is at least one kilometre
sea. So the sectional reading of the landscape from the Avenue and has been scaled to be viewed
is also a poignant reference to the larger battles from such a distance; so, too, have the many other
between water and land that underpin the Dutch built objects that are scattered across the estate.
landscape. Serra’s work is indicative of many other Castle Howard has been of significance, bringing
works that also utilise very simple formal devices, me into contact with a set of architectural conditions
such as the line39, to trigger a complex set of I had only imagined through drawn information – the
relationship with the site. This has been an enduring careful and precise setting down of buildings onto
principle that has underpinned much of my work. the land’s surface, so that they could be experienced
from near and far. This requires a precise
Shifting scale and context, another type of line relationship between plan and section with an
superimposed onto the land’s surface, led to a anticipation of how things are viewed from distance.
movement sequence that brought distant objects into While the Avenue and Sea Level have been useful
relationship. Castle Howard has been described as in elaborating upon the opportunities presented by
a ‘great scenic creation’.40 It is approached from the the found topography, they have also forced me
Great Avenue, a six kilometre stretch of road that to consider the opportunities of simple geometry.
straddles the undulating terrain of the Howardian This also recalls the work of many land artists who
Hills. Apparently, when Vanbrugh41 received the have utilised the line as a device to identify human
commission, he decided to reorient the Avenue from intervention in the landscape.
an east west direction along a flat ridge line, to a
north south direction. This had a significant impact

25
 1. 2.

Another way of using the ground is to shape and images taken by Charles. Many of the scenes
prepare it in order to receive a building. This has recorded were of the everyday acts of inhabitation.
a long architectural tradition, and it is exemplified Other transitory moments, such as the formation
in a residence designed by the Frankfurt based of fallen leaves on external paving, reinforced
practice of Gabriela Seifert and Götz Stöckmann.42 an underlying theme of stasis and movement
The setting for the house is a hillside overlooking a throughout the film. Architectural surfaces, too,
village in the valley below. At street level, the highest were portrayed as registers of time’s passage
point of the site, the ground has been excavated, as the glazed skin of each pavilion was shown
and the house inserted into this space. This aligns transformed by morning, afternoon and evening
the roof of the house with the level of the road light. The film illustrates the life of a building likened
above. Excavated material is then relocated to make to a performance. This approach is the opposite to
two landforms on the garden side of the dwelling. that of an architect like Le Corbusier, who would
Carving the site won numerous benefits. It retained often ‘rearrange and compose the ordinary domestic
the view of the valley from the road, created a private objects of his interiors for photographic purposes,
courtyard between the road and the house and lastly, giving the appearance of a scene frozen in time’.43
and most importantly, signalled an allegiance to Instead, the Eameses were intent on conveying the
the landscape rather than the surrounding houses. duration of architectural enclosure as an ongoing
Seifert and Stöckmann have used the ground performance. This mode of documentation was
creatively, carving into it and then sculpting a series continued in the work of Alison and Peter Smithson.
of forms from the earth to weave a sequence of In their publication Upper Lawn: Solar Pavilion
implied connections between foreground, middle Folly44, they too recorded the design, construction
ground and the distant landscape that recalls, in and inhabitation of a small pavilion. Like the film,
a reduced scale, the spatial experience of Castle this book traced the interaction of a pavilion with
Howard. seasonal change, and the lives of the inhabitants
over 20 years.
Each of the preceding projects brought the ground
into play. This requires a sectional understanding The Schindler-Chace house is another example
of the land, its subtle variations in level, and to of rethinking use and how it is accommodated.
anticipate movement across the surface to predict an Designed by Rudolf Schindler in 1922, it has a series
unfolding spatial experience. of spaces that are structured to delay the transition
from interior to exterior. Whereas the Eames’ house
Living: in 1955, Charles and Ray Eames made a possessed a clear demarcation between inside and
short film titled House: After Five Years of Living. outside, Schindler crafted a far more ambiguous
As the title suggests, this film reflected a period of gradation of spaces giving this house a degree of
inhabiting their house over five years. Apparently, porosity to the exterior world. A loose fit sequence
the film had been made from thousands of still of spaces anticipated a range of winter and summer

26
 1) The allegiance of this house is to the surrounding landscape,
Flammer House, Gabriela Seifert and Götz Stöckmann.
2) Sculpted landforms on the garden side of the Flammer House.
3) Walter De Maria, Lightning Field, 1977.

3.

living conditions. Most porous were the roof-top moment of completion – often marked by the client
sleeping baskets. These were sacrificial spaces: taking possession of the work. Instead, these
useless during winter but suited to hot summer projects have been imagined as living systems.
evenings. Draped in mesh netting they allowed the They alter shape, have adjustable parts, and can
cool air to pass freely through – more like a tent accommodate a range of dynamic processes and
than a building. During cooler months the occupants events over time.
would retreat into the interior of the house leaving
the baskets dormant. To accept that certain parts Anticipation of a human body walking, climbing and
of a building could remain dormant – or inactive – descending can provide another opportunity for
during the course of the year, suggests one way of architectural enclosure to frame movement. This
considering use in relation to seasonal time. The differs in duration from the other types of movement
garden courts also seemed to have been conceived already mentioned. Elsewhere, various architectural
in relation to the seasons. Furnished with open responses to the slower rhythms and cycles of the
fireplaces, and protected by the pin-wheeling arms seasons have been discussed. But the ambulatory
of the house, they extend the range of options for motion of a body through an enclosed space is
living. This loose fit relationship between form and the most immediate and spontaneous of events,
use offered the occupants a choice of space, each elapsing in seconds and minutes. Imagine a body
providing different degrees of protection from the in motion, moving between, through and across
weather. Their house would have been in a constant space. The eye experiences compression, stretching
state of flux, closed down and dormant, or opened and foreshortening of architectural surfaces and the
up, full of anticipation, offering the Schindlers a range consequential shift in detail between the foreground,
of territories for living between interior and exterior. the middle ground and background.45 Juhani
Pallasmaa has described this encounter with building
In each of the preceding projects, events and as an ‘inherent suggestion of action’.46 He went
processes unfolding within the ongoing life of the further, discussing the ‘verb essence of architectural
building have been emphasised; movement and experience as the act of entering the room, not of
change being a constant theme. Glazed surfaces the formal design of the porch or the door’. How
of the Eames’ pavilion provided a datum to record could this motivate design? How might a building
the diurnal movement of light from the sun. In the be formed to anticipate its future use or misuse?
Schindler residence, movement of the inhabitant Certainly, houses by the Eames, Schindler and the
became the focus, as spaces were either occupied Smithsons seemed to have been conceived with this
or vacated during the seasons of the year. Of in mind. Through the stages of the design process,
significance here has been the aim to factor the the architect could be attendant to these and other
ongoing life of a building into its design. This types of movement that may unfold in the life of the
would appear to be at odds with the belief of many building. Imaging and anticipating such movement
architects who imagine buildings to have an idealised during the design process would be critical. One

27
 1. 2.

imagines that the enclosing envelope could stage architectural ideas. Formal and spatial characteristics
the simultaneous coincidence of a sound, a glimpsed of raw material can provide a means to relate a
view, and a shaft of light brought in relation to the work to its wider context. An understanding of the
passage of a body moving through space. phenomenal characteristics of raw material can
also help reinforce the relationship of the work to its
The edge of a building could become a dynamic broader context.
zone accommodating and adjusting to the
variable opportunities of inhabitation. This could A building can only ever be modest in comparison
be where landscape and site forces, referenced to the immensity of the landscape. This poses a
previously, could weave in and out of the enclosure. challenge for any architectural project: how can
Consideration of building in relation to the passage a small work start to take on the expanse of the
of time can reveal potential processes and intervals landscape? Inevitably, this invites consideration of
of change. Rather than being static and frozen, the physical presence of an object, building or art
buildings can be made available to the rhythms of work. By physicality, I am thinking of its material
afternoon and morning, night and day, winter and qualities and how these are articulated to sustain a
summer. The challenge is to find strategies which spatial relationship to its setting. A building that can
can embrace, resist or amplify these variables: to be viewed from a kilometre away presents a different
orchestrate collisions, overlaps and misalignments proposition to one that is only ever seen close up. In
between hourly intervals of light entering a room, the an open landscape the possibilities of seeing a work
seasonal vacancy and occupancy of space, and the from varying distances is inevitable. Suppressing
unfolding of bodily movement in real time. A building surface detail can make a building appear larger
could be considered to be analogous to a schedule than it really is. An alternative approach might
of events and processes. Could the task of the involve the dispersal of fragments across a wider
architect become that of anticipating, ordering and terrain to engage the larger context. The Lightning
staging those events? Such a scenario would require Field, by Walter De Maria, is an artwork dispersed
the architect to consider different rhythms, cycles across the desert floor. It is comprised of 400
and movements which might be incorporated into stainless steel poles arrayed across the landscape,
the enclosure, placing emphasis upon the threshold marking out a one kilometre by one mile field. This is
separating interior and exterior as a dynamic place of a work that is simultaneously big and small – made
exchange and porosity. from poles that have a diameter of 35 five millimetres
and are five metres long. It covers an area larger
Making: David Leatherbarrow has suggested that than any building, but uses the most minimum of
‘materials are invented in construction, location material to do so. The milled stainless steel poles
and inhabitation’.47 I think Leatherbarrow is oscillate between visibility and invisibility depending
claiming, rightly, that material selection is not just upon the weather conditions and seem to have been
about constructional logic, but also informed by a strategic choice of material to heighten the physical

28
 1) Thatched roof villa near the entrance to the Plaswijckpark.
2) Thatched roof pavilion, Plaswijckpark by Drost van Veen Archi-
tects.
3) This building looks like it has been landed onto the existing
walled garden. New and the old are seen in relationship. Upper
Lawn Solar Pavilion by Alison and Peter Smithson.

3.

presence of this artwork in the expanse of the desert. with the site’s history. Repetitive framing expressed
on the surface of the pavilion helped to visually set
In Rotterdam, the architectural practice of Drost the new work apart from its surroundings. Other
+ van Veen designed several pavilions using material finishes, such as glazing and aluminium
thatch as a roofing material. Use of this material contributed to this sense of difference. Consequently,
seemed appropriate given there were several old the pavilion appears to be distinct from its setting –
thatched roof villas nearby. The material itself has as though it had been brought to site in one piece
connotations of a vernacular building tradition. and lowered into place. The Upper Lawn pavilion
These were associations the architects were reaffirms the Smithsons’ concept of the minimal
happy to promote.48 However, they were worked intervention. The notion of minimal intervention
into other reference to create a more complex is used here, in the sense of lightness-of-touch,
allegiance between a vernacular and contemporary brought about through the strategic act of placement.
architectural identity. Contributing to this were the Placing, without the destruction of the remnant bits
fully glazed perimeters of each pavilion that were of wall and terracing, enabled the old and new to be
closer in spirit to the Farnsworth house than to any seen in dialogue. This could be likened to a process
farm building. This ambiguity was further reinforced of accretion allowing a site’s historical continuity to
by the articulation of each roof as a folded planar remain intact.
surface – in preference to traditional roof detailing.
But the thatch sustained a strong material presence Material selection encourages a move away from
– to suggest on the one hand an allegiance to the the abstraction of the architectural drawing, forcing
old villas, while on the other, being unlike any other an engagement with the site and context at varying
building nearby. So, selection of material, articulated scales. Conversations with the local and particular,
through detail design, can bring new and old into rather than the general, are encouraged triggering
relationship, thus weaving a work into its context. further observation and analysis of surrounding site
conditions. This is where the character and identity
Materials can also be used to heighten a site’s of a project can be generated and given life.
historical continuity. Rather than reflect the material
character of adjacent buildings, a work might be
set apart from its surroundings. This can be useful
where there is already evidence of historical layering.
Alison and Peter Smithson used this strategy in their
pavilion at Upper Lawn, where there was already an
accumulation of built remains present on site.49 By
clearly demarcating the difference between remnant
buildings and their own pavilion, the Smithsons
were able to bring their architecture into dialogue

29
Conclusion  The concept of transitory is an enduring
Through this review I have attempted to thread a theme running through the text that suggests
range of ways in which site is embedded into the the provisional dimension of things acting on
design process through an understanding of its one another over time, from the site and the
definition as both a noun and a verb. A site is seen landscape, to the building and how it allows living
as a dynamic place possessing shifting spatial and patterns to unfold.
conceptual relations with its surrounding context.

The research is positioned to straddle a perceived

gap that exists between site analysis and design;
as I have tried to outline in the text, the lack of
evidence in architectural literature to account for
the transition between how a site is approached,
conceived, and then drawn, and then how these
operations have relevance to the design process.
Project work undertaken for the PhD will straddle this
space, making a more coherent transition between
how a site is approached, invented, and then
how these operations motivate knowing how and
where to intervene in a location. This has particular
significance as the particular outcomes of this
process can impact on the design process. I have
proposed a mapping process as a way of bringing
together activities associated with site analysis
and design. The following points summarise the
arguments of the review:

 A site is not a given, but needs to be constructed

and invented.
 A site is bound into a wider physical context –
not just about how buildings look, but how they
perform and interact with their surroundings.
 The ground has a more active context, rich in
potential, topography, landform, imprint of human
traces, layers of occupation.
 Design decisions begin with the site.

30
NOTES 10. J D Hunt, Gardens and the picturesque: studies in the history
of landscape architecture, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1994, p. 3.
11. R Macfarlane, Mountains of the mind: a history of a
1. C Burns, ‘On site: architectural preoccupations’ in Andrea Kahn fascination, Granta Books, London, p. 43.
(ed), Drawing Building Text, Princeton Architectural Press, New 12. Macfarlane, p. 43.
York, 1991, p.147. 13. R Evans, ‘Translations from drawing to building’, in AA Files,
2. Oxford Dictionary online, www.askoxford.com/dictionary. The Annals of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, no
compact Oxford English Dictionary entry for site: ‘noun 1, an area 12. Summer 1986, p. 4.
of ground on which something is located’ and; ’verb, fix or build in 14. D Leatherbarrow, The roots of architectural invention: site,
a particular place’. enclosure, material, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
3. Maurie Dynon is the project coordinator and president of the 1993, p. 7.
Guildford Landcare, Victoria, Australia. Maurie has spoken on this 15. See, for instance, ‘Crisis of the object, the predicament of
topic to architecture students, as part of on-site fieldwork, and as texture’, in C Rowe and F Koetter, Collage City, The MIT Press,
part of Architectural Design studios I have directed with Michelle Cambridge, 1978, pp. 50–85.
Black at RMIT University. 16. This work can be seen in M Gandelsonas, X-Urbanism:
4. This is not only confined to architects. For instance, even in architecture and the American city, Princeton Architectural Press,
large scale landscape urbanism projects, such as the entries New York, 1999; and, also, M Gandelsonas, The urban text, The
to the Downsview Park competition, the site is rarely conceived MIT Press, Cambridge, 1991.
– if even at a conceptual level – beyond the confines of the 17. Here I am thinking of works such as Water Way Walk, 152
legal property boundary. See, for instance, J Czerniak, Case: miles southwards, Wales and England 1989, by the artist Richard
Downsview Park Toronto, Prestel Verlag, Munich, 2001. Long. In this work, text is used to convey a range of water courses
5. Projects designed for Frankfurt and Berlin, were undertaken encountered on one of his walks. And through its composition
while a post-graduate student in the architecture class of on the page, its hierarchy and colour, it is reminiscent of notation
Professor Peter Cook, at the Städelschule, Frankfurt, Germany, found on topographic maps. In Anne Seymour, Richard Long
1989–91. Published as ‘Frankfurt-Berlin: 3 Projects’ in Transition, walking in circles, Thames and Hudson, London, 1991, p. 103.
Discourse on Architecture, no 39, pp. 6–18. 18. In particular the project by Peter Eisenman: Moving arrows,
6. R Black and S Neille, Groundcode: speculation on architecture Eros and other errors, in the AA Files, Annals of the Architectural
object and landscape, MDB Publications, Fremantle, 1995. Association School of Architecture, no 12, Summer 1986, pp.
The publication was launched as part of an exhibition and an 76–84.
installation of architectural projects undertaken with Stephen 19. Several artists work have provided useful speculations on
Neille that explored the sparsely populated terrain of Western this idea, in particular, the work of Robert Smithson, his Site and
Australia, at the Door: exhibition space, Fremantle, 1995. This Non-Site projects, in RA. Sobieszek, Robert Smithson: photo
work received numerous CHASA refereed design citations, and works, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1993; M
prizes from the RAIA for unbuilt architecture. A condensed version Gilchrist and JL, Robert Smithson, IVAM Centre Julio González,
of this work was published in G Hansen (ed), Imaginary Australia, Valencia, 1993. Also, see various works by Richard Long, in A
B no 52/53, Architectural Magazine, Arhus: Arkitekturtidsskrift B. Seymour, Richard Long: walking in circles, Thames and Hudson,
7. Marking the Earth: a lower pool design studio, I directed at London, 1991.
RMIT, 1996. 20. S Grishin, J Wolseley: land marks, Craftsman House, North
8. Landbridge: a design project completed as part of my Master of Ryde, 1998.
Architecture Degree. It was sited on reclaimed land at the estuary 21. See E Robbins, Why architects draw, The MIT Press,
of the Yarra River. My architectural and teaching practice has Cambridge, 1994, p. 29. This publication gives an excellent
continued to explore the architectural potential of sites between account of the role of drawing in architectural practice, through
land and water. the stages of sketch design, design development and contract
9. Artists include various works by Maria Nordman and Herman documentation, discussed through several case study reviews
de Vries. My experience of Nordman’s work comes from three of several architectural practices. However, it fails to discuss the
publications: M Nordman, De Sculptura II, Verlag Cantz, Ostfilden, role of drawing and site, particularly as pre-design drawing. Such
1997; M Nordman, De Sculptura: works in the city, some publications continue to see design as: commencing with the built
ongoing questions, Schirmer/Mosel, Munich, 1986; M Nordman, object, rather than with the surroundings in which the building is to
De Musica: new conjunct city proposals, G Mastalerz and R be situated.
Bournat, Chatres, 1993. Also a suite of projects by Herman de 22. R Abraham, in M Friedman (ed), ‘Site: the meaning of place
Vries that place a wilderness into cultivated landscapes, such in art and architecture’, Design Quarterly, no 122, The MIT Press,
as: Sanctuarium in K Bussmann, K König, F Matzner (eds), Cambridge, 1983, p. 14.
Contemporary sculpture: projects in Munster, Ostfildern-Ruit: 23. K Feireiss, Morphosis, rhythm/movement, project in Chiba,
Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1997, pp. 430–435. Also, M Fehr, ’Herman’s Japan, Aedes, Berlin, 1990, and also T Mayne and R Weinstein,
Meadow, in Daidalos Architektur Kunst Kultur, no 46, 15 Morphosis: buildings and projects, 1989–92, Rizzoli International
December 1992, pp. 34-39. Publications, Inc, New York, 1994, pp. 33–63.

31
24. Thom Mayne has suggested that: ‘The Blades House London, 1999, p. 237.
anticipates our current work, all of which is predicated on working 32. A Wall, ‘Programming the urban surface’, in J Corner (ed),
very literally with the ground itself as opposed to objects on the Recovering landscape: essays in contemporary landscape
ground’, in T Mayne, T Robins and A Vidler, Morphosis volume 3: architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1999,
buildings and projects, Rizzoli International Publications Inc., New p. 237.
York, 1999, Appendix IX II.13. The absence of any published pre- 33. When an architect’s design processes is opened up for
design drawings helps to cultivate a sense of the sites absence scrutiny through publication, there are seldom references to
from the design process. Such drawings could provide insights what might be called pre-design drawings. These are the types
into how the architects imagined the ground prior to the moment of drawings that might start to engage with the pre-existing site
of intervention. Such drawings might inform the reader of pre- conditions. I have already cited the unbuilt Chiba Golf club by
existing and past conditions and how they may have influenced Morphosis as exemplary of this attitude. This attitude can also
design decisions. be reflected through the subsequent documentation of built
25. The design approach promoted by Domenig in publications of works where the surrounding context can often be excluded or
the Stone House project was influential in my early architectural even erased through digital manipulation of the photograph.
education, particularly the range of exploratory drawings of the Some architects and photographers advocate this position. As
landscape that preceded the design. In particular, see the boxed an educator promoting the role of site in the design process, I
set of drawings: G Domenig, Steinhaus-Stonehouse, Folio XI, have struggled to find adequate reference material to account for
Architectural Association, London, 1986. See also, P Cook, the ways in which site representations impact upon the design
‘Beyond the normal limits of twentieth-century architecture’ in process.
AA Files, Annals of The Architectural Association School of 34. A Smithson and P Smithson, The charged void: urbanism,
Architecture, no 7, September 1984, pp. 44–55. Later, as a The Monacelli Press, New York, 2004, p. 323.
young architectural graduate in Western Australia, I had assisted 35. Oxford English Dictionary on line www.askoxford.com/
in acquiring the exhibition of the Grazer Schule visit to Perth, dictionary.
in which Domenig was well represented. Several years later, I 36. M Ray and R Mangurian, ‘City proposals: 29 drawings
worked in Graz for Konrad Frey. During this period I visited many for East West Hollywood’, in C Spellman (ed), Re-Envisioning
of Domenig’s buildings, and in particular the Stone House, which Landscape/Architecture, Actar, Barcelona, 2003, p. 107.
was still under construction at this time. 37. Writing the foreword to Italian Thoughts, Bengt Edman said of
26. See M Ray and R Mangurian, ‘City proposals: 29 drawings this process: ‘I feel that this kind of thoughts offer us tools – not a
for East West Hollywood’, in C Spellman (ed), Re-envisioning method but rather a deeper understanding – for our architectural
landscape/architecture, Actar, Barcelona, 2003, p. 107. This work. Other kinds of thoughts, e.g. theories, rarely do so. As
project is one of a few examples that elaborate upon a way many buildings produced are ”out-of-context-objects”, this way
of approaching a site, and how this leads to particular design of thinking is urgent’. See, A Smithson and P Smithson, Italian
outcomes. It brings the role of site into relationship with the design Thoughts, Sweden, 1993, p. 5.
process in a way that few others have done. Consequently, I have 38. Sea Level, 1996, a work comprised of two concrete walls,
used this project constantly in teaching programs as a reference pigmented concrete, each 250 millimetres wide, 200 metres long.
to students. The work is located in Landscape Park, De Wetering, Zeewolde,
27. See E Ruscha ‘Every building on the Sunset Strip (1966)’ and the Netherlands, a collection of De Verbeelding. See, J Brand and
Jeff Wall ‘“Marks of indifference”: aspects of photography in, or as, C de Muijnck, Artificial and natural networks: 11 Projects on the
conceptual art’ in A Goldstein and A Rorimer, Reconsidering the web, in the forest, along the dike, in the water, and in the village
object of art: 1965–1975, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1995, of Zeewolde, Zeewolde: De Verbeelding Art Landscape Nature,
pp. 247–267. 2001. I visited the Sea Level in 2005.
28. A Kahn, ‘Overlooking: A look at how we look at site’ in 39. A tradition of setting linear elements onto the land’s surface
D McCorquodale, K Rüedi, S Wigglesworth (eds), Desiring can be seen through the work of many artists associated with
Practices, Black Dog Publishing, London, 1996, p. 182. the land art movement. Here the linearity of the work and the
29. J Corner, ‘The agency of mapping: speculation, critique topography of the ground resonate with one another. The following
and invention’ in D Cosgrove (ed), Mappings, Reaktion Books, projects are exemplary of this: Running Fence, (1976) by Christo
London, 1999, p. 213. and Jeanne-Claude; Secant (1977), by Carl Andre; and Untitled-
30. J Corner and A MacLean, Taking measures across the England (1967) by Richard Long.
American landscape, Yale University Press, New Haven,1996. 40. C Steenbergen and W Reh, Architecture and Landscape:
And also J Corner, ‘Taking measures across the American The Design Experiment of the Great European Gardens and
landscape’, in the AA Files, Annals of the Architectural Landscapes, Prestel-Verlag, Munich, 1996, p. 271.
Association School of Architecture, no 27, pp. 47–54. 41. William Telman had been commissioned to design the first
31. C Waldheim, ‘Landscape urbanism: a genealogy’, in A scheme by Lord Carlisle. Carlisle, apparently ‘was not impressed
Schafer and A Reeser (eds), Praxis, Issue no 4, p. 13, and by the design and… enlisted Vanbrugh, who designed an entirely
J Corner, ‘The agency of mapping: speculation, critique and different house and changed its aspect’. Vanbrugh reorientated
invention’, in DE Cosgrove (ed), Mappings, Reaktion Books Ltd, the house and its approach so that ‘the irregularity of the site,

32
which was later always being elaborated upon, became part of the
layout in a single stroke’, in Steenberg, p. 259.
42. Similar experiences to those at Castle Howard (the weaving
together of near, middle and background), but in the more modest
Flammer House, these ideas are realised in a scaled down and
compressed manner. An extended review of the house and these
themes was published in Richard Black, ‘Territorium: Wohnhaus
Flammer’, in M Cuardra, Die Bauten, Das Leben, Die Stadt, Am
Ende Der Neunziger Jahre, Junius Verlag GmbH, Hamburg,
1999, pp. 188–190. Also, in Richard Black ‘Material Presence’,
Monument, no 28, pp. 46–59.
43. M Mostafavi and D Leatherbarrow, On weathering: the life of
buildings in time, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1993, p. 82.
44. A Smithson and P Smithson, Upper Lawn: Solar Pavilion
Folly, Edicions de la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
Barcelona, 1986. And, also, see B Krucker, Complex ordinariness,
gta Verlag, Zurich, 2002.
45. This thinking has been helped by visits to: the Wohnhaus
Flammer, Biedenkopf, Germany, designed by the architects
Gabriela Seifert and Götz Stöckmann; and in the gardens and
buildings of Castle Howard designed by Sir John Vanbrugh and
Nicholas Hawksmoor. This encounter with a work through an
ambulatory experience heightened a set of relationships between
architecture and landscape that I had, until this time, only explored
through the medium of drawing – particularly in the Groundcode
and Landridge projects. To visit Wohnhaus Flammer and Castle
Howard was to experience these conditions in the here and now
of real time experience.
46. J Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin: architecture and the
senses, Academy Editions, London, 1996, p. 44.
47. D Leatherbarrow, The roots of architectural invention:
site, enclosure, material, Press Syndicate of the University of
Cambridge, New York, 1993, p. 210. Elsewhere, Leatherbarrow
has also reflected upon expressing and heightening the different
identities of things, rather than uniformity, as a siting strategy:
‘Landscape and building can only be joined only if they are
distinct, interlocked only if separate, for only when they are
different can they perform their roles similarly, and only then can
the energies of the first, the landscape, animate the second, the
building, by filling it to capacity’; see D Leatherbarrow, Uncommon
ground: architecture, technology and topography, The MIT Press,
Cambridge, 2000, p. 183.
48. In conversation with Evelien van Veen (partner of Simone
Drost), during a visit to the Park.
49. In the publication Upper Lawn: Solar Pavilion Folly, it reveals
an architectural awareness of inhabiting the landscape over
time. Documentation reveals the site connected into the wider
landscape of the Fonthill Domain, and how the more localized
ruins and built surfaces impact upon the design of the siting of
the pavilion. This is an exemplary project that has underpinned
much of my thinking. The publication not only outlines the site’s
past, but how the new pavilion adjusts to, and is impacted by,
the surrounding site conditions and weather over 20 years of
residency.

33
 Brisbane

er
Riv
ng
rli
Da

Sydney
Adelaide
Ri
ve
r
Canberra
Murray

Melbourne

Netherlands

River Murray

Murray-Darling Basin

34
 CHAPTER 2
MAPPING THE RIVER MURRAY

2.1 INVENTING A SITE: THE RIVER MURRAY The Murray-Darling Basin covers the south-eastern
corner of the Australian continent. Its size alone
The project work of the PhD commences with the poses challenges to what might be considered
noun understanding of site. If the River Murray as site study. Much of the basin is in semi-arid terrain
a physical location is to anchor the project work of and has an extremely low gradient in comparison
the PhD, then how could it become a site? Its sheer to other water catchments around the world. The
size challenges the conventions of a traditional site Darling is the major northern river, flowing down
analysis. It was of a scale beyond anything I had through central Queensland, into New South
encountered previously and architects do not usually Wales for a distance of just over 2500 kilometres.
engage with rivers. How could an architect approach The Darling enters the Murray at the small rural
a river? What tools would I use? Richard Long1, an town of Wentworth. In comparison, the Murray
artist, has walked along river beds as part of his is slightly shorter in length but has a much wider
ongoing landscape works. Robert Smithson2 once profile and flows through the southern region of the
proposed making a film of the Panama Canal – an basin. Its headwaters originate from near Mount
earthwork comparable to the scale of the Murray. Kosciusko descending in a westerly direction through
Another artist, Maria Nordman3, has used a barge to progressively flat and arid terrain to its confluence
document various cities along the Rhine in Europe. with the Darling. From here it continues further west,
Paul Sinclair, a writer and historian, has perhaps passing into South Australia, entering a progressively
summarised this predicament more poetically when confined section where its channel has been incised
he likened it to acquiring ‘The conceptual tools deep into limestone rock. Here, limestone cliffs
needed to begin thinking oneself into the Murray’.4 define its path to the big lakes of Alexandrina and
Sinclair, a writer and historian, has travelled the river Albert before entering the ocean at Encounter Bay.
collecting oral testimonies from people who have
lived with the Murray.

The chapter outlines my methodology of approaching

the Murray. Tools, outlined in the previous chapter,
formed the basis of this investigation. I began
the process with the archive, collecting images of
the river that had been drawn by others. These
investigations were paired with journeys to, and
along, the Murray to experience it in real time. New
images emerged of the Murray and its floodplain,
beginning the process of its transformation from a
river into a site.

35
 1.

Archive The river’s plan-form is one of its most distinctive

Collecting different types of drawn information features. This is a consequence of the geology and
on the river was a way of starting to catalogue topography of the land, which has impacted upon
ways of representing its distinctive plan-form. Map the frequency and the geometry of its meandering
collections in the state libraries of Victoria and South profile.8 Along the middle reaches of the river,
Australia provided the source of many forms of anabranches are common. This is where the
cartographic and survey information. Other archives main channel becomes braided into two or more
in state authorities were also used to source drawn channels that connect to the main channel further
material. Fred Williams5 has painted the Murray downstream. This has created long islands along the
on several occasions, and his way of representing middle sections of the Murray. The floodplain also
the landscape from an aerial view makes a useful has a distinctive series of wetlands that can create a
comparison to the orthodox survey drawing. complex interaction of land and water.

Detailed surveys6 of the entire river were only This range of drawn material emphasised a range
undertaken once it became apparent that damming of drawing styles, as much as intent of the map or
the Murray might guarantee water supply during survey. It was also revealing how this process of
dry months. Before then, hand drawn maps7 of the encountering a river through the archive also made
river had been produced for navigational purposes. present the various ways in which governments and
These flattened out the meanders of the river to fit authorities have divided and compartmentalised the
onto a narrow continuous scroll. The river in these river into arbitrary zones that work against its natural
charts resembled a straight continuous channel that behaviour. For instance, county maps drawn in
anchored occasional features such as sand bars Victoria would show detailed land subdivisions on the
and buildings that would assist navigation. Detailed Victorian side of the river, while the area on the New
surveys undertaken along the South Australian South Wales side of the river was left blank. Other
section of the river were amongst the first drawings commissioned studies and surveys would suddenly
to fully convey the full range of wetlands across stop once they hit state or local authority boundaries,
the width of the floodplain. These are particularly as though the world had ceased at the border. These
compelling images of the river’s scale and order reminded me of the first maps of the Australian
when seen against the adjacent survey town grid. coastline where sections would be left blank. So
Another drawing revealed the sense of geological these early forays into the river started to reveal a
time captured in the ancestral channels of the middle patchwork of uncoordinated attempts to start to track
section of the river. Other techniques of delineating and measure the bends and meanders of the river.
reduced the river to a single line that concealed the
richness of its floodplain and geomorphology.

36
1) Panel 4, Murray River, Number 4, 1972-73, Fred Williams.
2) Riverbed (D) 1981, Fred Williams.

2.
37
Flood and Drought collection of the South Australian Library I found a
A significant discovery started to define the mosaic of black and white aerial photography10 that
scope of the research. A flood atlas9 found in the complemented the area that had not been covered
map collection of the State Library of Victoria by the flood atlas.
revealed a different type of river. It documented
the impact of flooding and its frequency through It was during the search through pictorial collections
aerial photography. What I found remarkable was that I also discovered the impact of drought upon
the extent to which a flood could transform the the Murray. In many instances its channel has been
surrounding landscape. In the flatter sections of the exposed during long spells of low rainfall. In order
river, floodwaters would spill out over 20 kilometres to control the supply of water year round, weirs and
from the main river channel inundating roads, dams began to be constructed along the Murray
infrastructure and towns. The flood seemed to be like from the 1920s.11 Locks were also built into the many
other large scale transitory processes that had been weirs so that the river could remain navigable. Larger
present in other landscapes I had worked on prior to dams provided greater storage capacity to supply
the PhD. Instinctively I knew this would narrow the the growing irrigation communities. With this came
focus of looking at the river. further construction of channels to convey water
out of the river onto the farms. Levees were also
While the atlas revealed the magnitude of the constructed along the floodplain to protect townships
flood as a footprint, it did not provide sufficient and agricultural land from inundation.
other evidence of what it was really like on the
ground during the time of a big flood. Neither did By now the archive had revealed a range of different
it give adequate sense of how the landscape was material on the river. Maps, drawings, photographic
transformed by the flood. Further, the atlas had been records and reports told a particular story of the
commissioned by New South Wales and Victoria. river. While I had been accumulating this material I
Nothing comparable had been commissioned for the had also started to embark on journeys to the river,
South Australian section of the river. The next series guided by the archive.
of archival searches would address these gaps.
Pictorial collections provided aerial photography and On the Ground
occasionally images from being on the ground of The archive had revealed many things: a river of
the flood. I then tracked back through newspapers flood and drought, the infrastructure of irrigation,
from May 1956 through until September 1956 to and the floodplain and its towns. Over several years
gain another sense of the duration of the flood I embarked upon many expeditions along the river,
and the distance and its impact in the river towns. documenting and cataloguing these conditions
Newspaper accounts gave a sense of the flood from the ground. These were often sporadic trips,
moving progressively along the river, its impact undertaken over a weekend or over a week.
upon the life of river communities. In the map Sometimes the destination would be a specific

38
point on the river or its floodplain, along sections of between the shoreline of the 1956 flood and the
the river. Roads rarely follow the river; they tend to existing river channel, passing through rugged
converge upon the river at towns and then separate. remote terrain and ending in the urban edge of
Several journeys took me by canoe and boat so as Renmark. Detailed drawings of the ground and
to obtain a different vantage point, observing the photographic documentation recorded the subtle
land from water, and took me to places that would shift in topography and other found conditions along
have been inaccessible from land. a sectional slice of the floodplain: a space that would
have been submerged under water in 1956.
Each journey increased my awareness of the
landscape as I started to develop the skills
necessary to identify parts of the floodplain. The
floodplain is like a phantom, almost imperceptible to
the untrained eye. This is where the archival material
was of benefit – it gave me a footprint of its extent
that became useful while travelling to and from
the river. Roads elevated above the ground for no
apparent reason, kilometres from the river channel,
were found to be crossing sections of the floodplain.
These became a constant reminder of water’s
absence. Black box trees were also another way of
identifying the extent of the floodplain. Progressively,
the archival information made sense of the
landscapes that I visited. Some visits were paired to
archival material. A visit to Mannum was undertaken
to document its street from the same vantage
points of two photographs taken in 1956 – when the
street was submerged under two metres of water.
Progressively I covered the length of the river, from
the Hume Reservoir to its estuary. On my travels, I
used the camera as the means of documentation, a
process of cataloguing the river and its floodplain.

At Renmark in South Australia another variation

to this method of cataloguing took place. A 24
kilometre walk was paired to the archival material
of the 1956 flood. The walk traversed the space

39
40
River Survey undertaken for determining the position of locks
and weirs, Renmark South Australia, 1910. These drawings
map the intricate network of wetlands along the floodplain.

41
 3.

1. 2.

4. 5.

1) Survey of Echuca town site, between the Murray and

Campaspe River, 1856.
2) Flood at Echuca and Moama, 1974.
3) Prediction of 1 in 100 year flood on Moama.
4) County map, New South Wales side of the River Murray.
The river marks a political boundary between two sates,
revealed by the absence of settlement patterns in the state
of Victoria.
5) Moama floodstudy.

42
1.

2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

1) Prediction of 1 in 100 year flood on Echuca.

2) Survey, Hume Reservoir.
3) Oblique aerial view of the 1974 flood at Echuca and
Moama.
4) County map, Victorian side of the River Murray.
5) Flood Echuca, 1974
6) Shinbone Alley between Moama and Echuca.

43
44
Page 45-46 River Survey undertaken for determining the
position of locks and weirs, Blanchetown, South Australia,
1910. These drawings map the intricate network of wetlands
along the floodplain and the relative scale of river towns.

45
 2.

1. 3.

4.

5. 6.

1) Flood Renmark, 1956

2) Low Water Renmark, 1914
3) Construction of irrigation infrastructure
4) Hume dam under construction
5) Flood near Mildura, 1956
6) Flood Renmark, 1956

46
 2.

1. 3.

4.

1) Aerial photography from the Floodplain Atlas showing the

impact of a 1 in 100 year flood at Mildura, Victoria.
2) 1876 Survey from Albury to Red Cliffs along the Victorian
and New South Wales section of the River Murray.
3) Drawing showing the proposed levee construction to
Renmark, South Australia, 1924.
4) 1927 survey of the river channel, near Wentworth.

47
 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

1) Flood near Mildura, RMP/M188.

2) Flooded street of Mannum, South Australia, 1956.
Image SLSA: B20274.
3) During major flooding along the River Murray, high water
levels remained for up to four months.
Image SLSA: B23201.
4) Evacuating flooded building Renmark, 1956.
Image SLSA: B23228.
5) Flood fighting in Mannum, South Australia, during the
1956 flood. Image SLSA: B20273.
6) Low water in the River Murray near Swan Hill (date
unknown). Image SLV: RWG/819.

Opposite. Photographic mosaic of the South Australian sec-

tion of the River Murray during the peak of the 1956 flood.

48
49
Shoreline to Shoreline. July 2001. Distance approximately 24 Kilo-
metres. A walk commenced at the 1956 flood shoreline in a south-
erly direction, passing from open landscape through the urbanised
part of the floodplain, and terminating at the edge of the present
river channel. Two types of documentation were made during the
walk. Firstly, line drawings recorded found shadows cast onto the
ground surface. Secondly, at the location of each line drawing, a
series of photographs were taken to record north, south, east and
west directions, complimented with a photograph of the ground.
The following pages document twenty two locations along the walk.

50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
 p.68

p.69

p.67

p.66 p.70

p.65 p.72

p.64

62
p.71

p.73 p.74

p.75 p.76 p.77 p.78

The following pages chart three ways of imagining the River

Murray. Pages have been arranged into three bands. The
photographic sequence charts my encounter with the River.
These have been edited from a wider selection, but focus
upon a range of various ways of cataloguing the landscapes
I have passed through. Below this sits a series of quotes that
track the unfolding of the 1956 flood event and a sense of
its duration over almost half a year. A series of drawn maps
chart the relationship of three things: firstly the existing river
channel, secondly, the shoreline of the 1956 flood, and finally
the river towns. The adjacency of photograph, text and line
drawing suggests a reading of the transitory dimension of the
river: the lived time of each journey, an elapsed event, and
the time of the river.

63
Months after the flood peak had passed, the water was still at very high flood level, even though it had fallen 4ft. By now it was summer, and we often went
swimming over our land. I used to love rowing the boat out amongst the tops of the box trees, and found all sorts of things floating…

Mortimer P, Flood : riverlanders face the flood of fifty-six, p 67

64
In 1920 builders were at work erecting Eudunda Farmers Co-operative Store in Berri, where it stands today. Dan Cresp, then just a lad, went into the town one
Saturday morning with his Dad, who started talking to an old aborigine, George Disher’s father. Mr.Cresp remarked what a fine shop it is going to be, and the
old aborigine said “It will be alright until we get a big flood, and then it will be flooded”…

Mortimer P, Flood : riverlanders face the flood of fifty-six, p 82

65
 The Herald 28th August 1956

Flood waters nearly reach the levee bags packed under the balcony of the Mannum Hotel, in the flooded main street of the town in South Australia…

Renmark, Today. – The Murray River here has remained unchanged in the past 24hours at 30ft. 7in.

66
 The Herald 13th August 1956

Renmark, Today. - Evacuation of patients at Renmark Hospital, began today, after a desperate overnight struggle to keep out floodwaters …

Army Engineers are constructing a Bailey bridge to replace a concrete one which collapsed under the flood water.

67
 The Herald 4th August 1956

All sport in Mildura is off today. Hundreds of volunteers are massing their forces in the fight to save the Red Cliffs power station from the floods… At Euston,
NSW, just over the Murray from Robinvale, the hotel is surrounded by floodwater. The neck of land is protected by a levee 5ft. high, but water is seeping through
in places…

68
 The Herald 3rd August 1956

I saw water lapping against levees within yards of houses, while at Shailers Hotel, in the southern part of the town, the levees that hold off water on three sides
were seeping badly.

69
 The Herald 2nd August 1956

Trapped by the combined waters of the Murray and Darling rivers, Wentworth is relying on one flood – flanked road. About a third of the 1500 people have al-
ready left. Others are staying put until ordered to go…The one road still open – it leads to Mildura – is a thin ribbon…It passes through the flood waters protected
by weakening levee banks

70
 The Herald 14th July 1956

The Murray and Darling Rivers are now flooding for their total length- more than 3200 miles. The Murray is in flood from the Hume Weir to the sea – 1385
miles. In places it is more than 20 miles wide. The Darling flood extends for more than 1800 miles and stretches as wide as 70 miles… For most of their length the
rivers produce a creeping flood with the water rising only an inch or two every day. But for every inch the water rises it spreads over thousands of acres of country.

71
 The Herald 13th July 1956

Mildura City Council today warned residents of Buronga they were in grave danger from the Murray River floodwaters…“Get out while you can,” the council
warned families in the settlement. “There aren’t enough boats to rescue you”…Buronga is almost surrounded by levee banks. Some of them are holding back lakes
that are 10ft. deep.

72
 The Herald 10th July 1956

Boats ply up and down Warren Street Echuca today. Its Echuca’s biggest flood since 1916… Only 300 yards of dry land separates the mighty Murray and the
raging Campaspe in the centre of Echuca today. Levee banks are just keeping the Campaspe out of the main shopping area, but townspeople can do little to hold it
back if the Murray flows over on the other side of the town. Hour by hour the Murray is growing wider and deeper above Echuca, as the water pours in from the
flooded Goulburn River.

73
 The Herald 9th July 1956

Echuca Crisis Looms. The biggest flood since 1939 is swirling around Echuca today, inches below a level that could bring disaster. The Campaspe River, on one
side of the town, is a ragging torrent. The Murray, on another side, is 32ft. 2ins. High – equal to the highest July level in 90 years of recorded history. And reports
indicate that more water will pour down in the next few days from the flooded Goulburn and the Murray upstream. Nearly 50 houses and huts have already been
evacuated in Echuca.

74
 The Herald 3rd July 1956

The River Murray around Loxton (SA) looks like this today – and the big flood is still to come. This picture taken from an aircraft, shows the immense spill of the
flood waters 20 miles south of Renmark. The main body of flood water from swollen NSW rivers has not yet reached this stretch of the Murray.
The normal course of the Murray can be traced by the trees in the centre of the picture.

75
 Murray Pioneer 27th June 1956

Residents now preparing for “biggest flood since 1931”. Engineer-in-Chief said flood likely last(sic) several months.

76
 Murray Pioneer 3rd May 1956

…progress of Darling flood being watched with interest in the view of possible effect on Murray.

77
This rainfall resulted in record volumes of inflow to Hume Reservoir in April, May, and July…overflow commenced on 5th May, 1956.

Harrison G.L. Report on The River Murray Flood Problem. p.2

78
In normal years, the rainfall in the Murray and Murrumbidgee catchments occurs in winter and spring, whilst the Darling is largely fed by Monsoonal rains in
the summer, thus it is unusual for the Darling to be in high flood at the same time as the Murray…

Harrison G.L. Report on The River Murray Flood Problem p.2

79
Conclusion coastal location that would be washed regularly by
I had started to transform the river into a site through the tides, this would be inundated infrequently. So
the remaking of three interrelated images of the river. rather than conceiving the river as a meandering
These developed from the accumulation of archival line on the land’s surface, it became a threshold of
material and the experience of being on the ground. considerable width – sometimes up to 20 kilometres.

 Murray River Drawing: consolidating the archival The flood was a significant discovery that also
material into a new drawing of the river, an related back to pre-existing work I had undertaken.
overview of layers, the river channel, the footprint It had a transitory dimension that had proven to be
of the 1956 flood, and the position of river towns. a way of defining a site in previous work – one that
 Photographic documentation: four years of was dynamic and unpredictable. Through archival
travelling along the Murray, from the Hume material I had also discovered the flood is an event
Reservoir, to the Ocean, 2000 kilometres, photo that unfolded over months along the river. The
documentation. impact of the flood seemed to have significance
 Renmark Flood Walk: a section through the at a range of different levels. Firstly, it revealed
floodplain in drawings and photographs. how futile the various regulatory structures were to
control the force of water. Secondly, the scale and
Encountering the river from the ground and from the duration of the flood impacted upon the river towns
archive had started to forge a series of overlaps. and landscape infrastructure. It was the interaction
Being on the ground was to be reminded of between the flood and the river towns that started
encounters of the river through the archive and vice- to focus the research. Many towns seemed to have
versa. There seemed to be three rivers emerging. been sited precariously in the middle of its floodplain.
The first was the wild river that recalled John Dixon Living on the floodplain seemed to require a field of
Hunt’s notion of a first nature, which many Aboriginal overlapping issues that called upon architectural,
communities had adapted to over centuries; this was landscape and environmental knowledge. Here were
characterised by an unpredictable river, governed by the seeds for the subsequent direction of the PhD.
cycles of flood and drought. The second river was
defined by settler communities that tried to harness The scale of the river had also started to become all
its water and control its flow: a transformation from consuming. I felt lost in the immensity of the Murray.
first into second nature. And finally, the flood river of While the archival work and journeys had framed a
1956 was a reminder of the wild river. more definite way of approaching the river, I still felt
that the there were too many unknowns. Perhaps
The Murray could also be imagined as a massive this uncertainty was the result of being in unfamiliar
inland shoreline as depicted in the River Murray territory and concerned river ecology. What were the
drawing. Its shoreline was the space between the current arguments taking place? How might these
channel and the limit of the big flood. But unlike a help frame the project? These led into a period of

80
reading and reflection that will be outlined in another two timber rollers (like a scroll). This would allow the map to be
constantly unfurled to keep pace with the vessel as it traversed the
chapter. river. These maps were hand drawn, ink on calico, and depicted
the width of the channel with any obstructions to navigation noted.
Several are held in the State Library of South Australia.
8. I Rutherford, ‘Ancient river young nation’, in N Mackay and
D Eastburn, The Murray, Murray Darling Basin Commission,
Canberra, 1990, pp. 17-35.
9. Flood Atlas: Cameron McNamara Pty Ltd; Gutteridge, Haskins
and Davey; New South Wales Water Resources Commission;
Laurie, Montgomerie & Petit, Murray River Flood Plain Atlas, Rural
Water Commission of Victoria, Armadale, 1986. Also Cameron
McNamara Pty Ltd; Gutteridge, Haskins and Davey; New South
Wales Water Resources Commission; Laurie, Montgomerie &
Petit, Murray River Flood Plain Management Study, Detailed
Report, Water Resources Commission of New South Wales,
Sydney, 1986. Also helpful, G.L Harrison, Report on the River
Murray Flood Problem (with particular reference to the 1956
flood), River Murray Commission, Canberra, 1957.
NOTES 10. Aerial Photography: South Australia, Department of Lands,
River Murray flood line 1956 (cartographic material): aerial
photo mosaic series, Department of Lands, Adelaide, 1956. The
1. Dartmoor Riverbeds: a four-day walk along all the riverbeds photomosaics were produced from aerial photography taken on 14
within a circle on Dartmoor, Devon England, 1978, in GA September 1956, during a flood of the River Murray. The 21-sheet
Tiberghien, Land Art, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, series covers the stretch of River Murray between the border of
1995, p. 178. the Victoria and South Australian states, and the mouth, including
2. A sketch by the artist Robert Smithson of a proposed film of Hindmarsh Island and the Coorong Channel.
the Panama Canal, in J Masheck , ‘The Panama Canal and some 11. Construction of the barrages, weirs and dams helped hold
other works of work, in Artforum, May 1971, pp. 38–41. water in the river during dry months. They were effectively small
3. A work by Maria Nordman titled: ‘A Ship, 1981-82 Tjoba, water storages of varying size, often located in proximity to
Docking at various cities on the Rhine and Waters of the irrigation communities. Building these structures transformed
Netherlands: Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Bonn, Strasbourg, Basel, the river into a series of steps. Upstream the height of the water
Cologne, Rotterdam, Groningen, Winschoten’ in M Nordman, De increased creating a permanent flood. Downstream the water
Sculptura: Works in the city, some ongoing questions, Schirmer/ level could be three metres lower. But with the much larger
Mosel, Munich, 1986, pp. 20–75. constructions of the Yarrawonga Weir, and Hume Dam these
4. PG Sinclair, The Murray: a history of a river, its people and aspects were amplified, creating even larger lakes upstream
ecology, 1945-1999, PhD thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, (such as Lake Mulwala at Yarrawonga and the Hume Reservoir
1999, p. 12. close to Albury-Wodonga). In 1966 at Chowilla, close to the South
5. Panel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Murray River, etchings (1972-73), Australian and Victorian state border, another large dam was
in I Zdanowicz and S Coppel, Fred Wiliams, an Australian vision, proposed for construction that would have created the largest
British Museum Press, London, 2003, pp. 103-107, and Murray lake on the river, stretching over 100 kilometres upstream to
River panels, lithograph (1975). Adelaide Festival Theatre Murals, Wentworth; refer to The River Murray Commission, Chowilla
Ensemble A, 1972/73. Adelaide Festival Murals, Ensemble B, Dam ,a regulation storage on the River Murray, The Government
1972/73. In P McCaughey, Fred Wiliams, Bay Books, Sydney, Printer, Adelaide,1965.
1980, pp, 241-247.
6. For the South Australian section of the river, A Vaughan, The
River Murray general plan (cartographic material) : showing levels
etc. for determining position of locks and weirs, Engineer-in-Chief,
Adelaide, 1910. For the New South Wales and Victorian part
of the River the following maps were sourced from the drawing
archive of Murray-Goulburn Water, Tatura, Victoria. 1876 Survey
downstream from Albury to Red Cliffs, 49 sheets of drawing; 1927
River Murray Waters Scheme, Wentworth to Echuca Locks and
Weirs Survey Plans and Sections, 122 sheets of drawing.
7. Roll charts were used in paddle steamers for navigation. They
consist of a map of up to 17 metres in length passing between

81
 Diagram of the operational sequence of the Water Theatre
installation

82
2.2 TRANSITORY

‘In looking at architecture we often focus on

the façade and the internal spaces. But what of
the left-over bits? The unused, yet necessary
undercrofts, yawnings (sic) and gaps produced
by the internal use and shape of buildings. These
are the disenfranchised pieces of architecture; the
forlorn effects of the frontal, glamorous intent. The
Unused evolves a number of architect and artist
projects that inhabit these inhospitable spaces to
create narratives and nuances which reflect upon
economics, the collection and archive, the grand tour
and social spaces.’1

83
An invitation to participate in the Unused Exhibition During the initial commissioning phase of the
provided an opportunity to reflect on the material I installation, participants were requested to select a
had unearthed thus far. Shifting scale and context site from those identified by the curatorial committee.
also provided a healthy distance from which to Most were tucked into the narrow laneways on the
evaluate the mapping of the river. The Murray had University’s city campus. My criteria required a space
become all consuming, grappling with its scale that already had a transitory dimension. Sunlight can
and masses of archival material, difficult and at transform Melbourne’s laneways from deep shadow,
times overwhelming. But it was the accumulation for a brief moment at midday. I selected a space
of imagery depicting the presence and absence of that had a north to south orientation, a place that
water along the floodplain that provided a starting received direct sunlight for a brief moment of the day.
point for this project. Beyond the requirements of At 1.00 pm the angle of sunlight created a dramatic
the festival program, I saw the Unused exhibit as play of shadow across the walls of each building: a
an opportunity to think about possible future project one-hour performance between the play of light and
work that may emerge later in the PhD. In this sense shadow revealing every imperfection of the wall’s
I saw it as a step beyond the mapping phase of the surface. There were very few drawings produced;
work, to actually test out a scenario on site. More the project evolved through a process of direct
importantly, it provided me with an opportunity to observation, spending time in the space, from early
work with water. I assumed that this would be a morning through to evening to see how the space
necessary development of the project work, after changed over the course of the day. This led to
the completion of the mapping. It also provided an exploring the performance of water pours and testing
opportunity to work in a more direct manner, with the prototypes on site.
material itself, rather than through drawing. Water
presented several opportunities. Firstly, it had a Over the following months there were several
fluidity and transitory dimension that sat comfortably presentations made to the curators of the visual
with the research material already outlined. arts program for concept approval, and approval
Secondly, rather than design an object, I considered to proceed to construction. A construction budget
the response to be more of an event that had some of $4000.00 was allocated to each participant.
relationship to the duration of the festival. Water Prior to construction taking place further approvals
seemed like an appropriate material overlapping were required from RMIT Property Services, and
with the dynamic cycles of flood and drought being occupational health and safety.
explored along the Murray. Thirdly, I was excited
to be offered the opportunity to construct a work The following text summarises the intentions of the
outside, rather than inside, where the unpredictability project; it was written for inclusion in the Melbourne
of the weather might contribute to the work. Festival program.

84
Water Theatre In Melbourne, the intention is to follow the thematic
The project is inspired by the theatre of water spilling of water to create an event that will continue to
across urban and rural surfaces. In particular, I am unfold for the duration of the festival.
reminded of instances when water has a transitory
presence through the process of wetting and drying. The site is a narrow lane that has connections into
A short film made by Ray and Charles Eames in the the city’s water infrastructure. A stormwater channel
early 1950s may help elaborate. Titled Blacktop, spans the entire length of the laneway, while a
its subject was the flow of water across an asphalt network of pipes provides water supply to the
surface. Using only close-up details, the film was surrounding buildings.
able to convey the dynamic effects of water flow and
its interplay with the ground. As the bitumen became The strategy is to infiltrate the water infrastructure
momentarily submerged below the thin film of water, to make a water theatre. A discharge outlet to the
the yard became transformed into a surface of stormwater drain – the lowest point on the ground
reflection and transparency. surface – forms the centre of gravity for a series of
interventions into the water supply system. These
On a much larger scale, aerial photography charting are: Flood – a plug, fabricated from river red gum
the floodwaters of the Murray River has also (a timber known for its dependency upon seasonal
revealed a landscape transformed by water. Having floodwaters) is to be inserted into the existing
escaped the confines of the riverbank, floodwater stormwater drain to retard the discharge of water,
from the Murray spills outward across its vast inundating the ground surface. This forms the most
floodplain to find its own level; constrained only by permanent water presence for the duration of the
the contoured ground. Once inundated, the familiar exhibition. Cascade – a line of water sprays to
features of the landscape disappear, such as the release water at periodic intervals onto the treads of
meandering profile of the Murray’s channel. But the the concrete fire stair. Tower – a grid of water sprays
floodwaters also revealed an unfamiliar landscape, in trace the profile of the steel stair structure to release
particular, an archipelago of islands. a mist of water into the volume of the lane, at less
frequent intervals than the cascade. Line – dripping
Paul Sinclair, writing about the Murray, has cited of water from an overhead cable tray onto the
people who witnessed the effects of flooding on the inundated ground below.
Murray and how the floodwater transformed the
landscape. One person recalled that ‘it was strange Collectively, these additions have parentage to the
indeed how submergence of the landmarks affected service infrastructure of the lane. Colouring of the
the sense of orientation’.2 These anecdotes are water supply system reflects the graphic clarity
introduced to locate a series of issues that relate of a service diagram, while the existing service
to time-based processes and events that form the infrastructure lends structural support to the new
background to the project for the Unused Exhibition. additions. As a system, these interventions set in

85
motion a process of wetting and drying. It will be the and consume embodied energy. However, it would
cyclical appearance and disappearance of water be unlikely that a work like Water Theatre would
stains on the surface of the lane that constitutes the win approval from RMIT or the Melbourne Festival
drama of this theatre. under current conditions – unless a recycling system
was implemented. Low rainfall has placed severe
Programming the operating schedule of each water strain on water, and the public perception has
device anticipates interaction with other occupations shifted considerably over the six years since the
of the lane while also taking the duration of the completion of the work. With further lead-in time I
festival into consideration. As an architect, I try to could have captured water in tanks for use during
engage with the lived dimension of the city and the festival. This would have perhaps furthered the
its spaces. This position ultimately challenges theatrical dimension of the work and extended the
the permanence of architecture. I am working parasitic nature of tapping into building services, by
towards an architecture that is open to change and extending into the rainwater collection system. But
modification in use. Water has this quality: it is fluid I suspect that to expel water onto urban surfaces,
and dynamic. These qualities are also reflected even if collected from the roofs of buildings, would
in the performance of light and the people who have still created outrage. This in some way mirrors
pass through the lane. The ultimate theatre will be the argument of irrigators, some of whom see the
the anticipated interaction of water and the other return of water into the Murray, for environmental
transitory occupations of the lane. reasons, to be a waste of a resource. The impact
of these events has remained over the subsequent
Reflection work, building an awareness of the various political
Water Theatre provoked a consideration of water and ethical issues surrounding water use. It also led
politics. Throughout the festival the installation to further reading on ecology and the politics of river
was tampered with on several occasions, and management that emerge in the following chapter.
components were removed and vandalised. I never
met the individual who constantly tampered with the Water Theatre shifted focus away from the built
work, but once it was repaired, I would return the fabric of the laneway to the events taking place in
following day to find another part had been removed. the space. Unlike a physical object, the installation
This process of destruction and repair continued had no fixed vantage point from which it should be
for the entire length of the festival, and was a form viewed. It had an amorphous quality which was a
of interaction that was not anticipated nor desired. consequence of working with the spatial complexity
The ethics of using water was certainly considered of the lane and the way in which different parts of
during the conception of the work and discussed the work would be activated over the course of the
with the curatorial committee and various approval day, particularly at 1.00 pm when the mist filled the
stages. I had decided that whatever material was volume of the lane for five minutes, coinciding with
used, it would consume and impact on resources other fleeting passages through the space. The

86
simultaneous encounter between an unsuspecting This promoted a cataloguing of other works that
person, the mist, the impact of the wind swirling exploit the use of water that would provide a context
the mist, and then the sunlight entering the space for the teaching programs outlined in amphibious
was a way of thinking about siting – as a process of architectures.
staging encounters between the transitory elements
of a place and a work. These temporal and dynamic
aspects were evident while trying to document the
work, but it was impossible to capture in a single
image. Sequences of images provided one method
of capturing its performance over the day.

A consequence of staging events in space opened

up another problem. It required the structuring of NOTES
the timing and duration of various water events. In
1. Curatorial statement accompanying the Unused Exhibition,
terms of the installation, some of these were more Melbourne Festival Visual Arts program, 17 October – 2
successful than others, the most successful being November 2002.
2. P Sinclair, The Murray: a river and its people, Melbourne
when a spray was triggered to operate to coincide University Press, Melbourne, 2001, p. 84.
with a naturally occurring event – such as the tower
of mist at 1.00 pm. Other sequences seemed to be
more arbitrary in their relationship to the events of
the lane. The cascade sprays, for instance, were
activated every three hours and were not timed to
coincide with other events in the lane. During the
construction of the installation, experiments with the
duration of the drying time of water had determined
the intervals of operating the sprays. Once the
ground had dried out these sprays would be
reactivated, a sequence that would continue every
three hours. So to make a work that evolved over
its lifetime also required a way of conceiving at what
rate changes occur and in what sequence.

Woking at the one-to-one scale gave fresh insights

into possibilities to engage with water, particularly its
phenomenal and material characteristics. How could
water be used more creatively in building design?

87
Site # 7 Site # 7 Site # 7
08.03.02 13.50hr 08.03.02 14.05hr 08.03.02 14.10hr

Above. Studies of water poured onto a dry surface.

Preliminary drawings of the site, tracking the path of
afternoon light inhabiting the laneway.

Opposite. Existing site conditions under afternoon sunlight.

88
89
 Above. The Cascade, details.

Opposite. The Cascade

90
91
 Above.15.00hrs, 26 October 2002.
Photographic documentation at 10 second intervals.

Opposite. Cascade detail

92
93
 Above. The installation takes on the appearance of the
service network.

Opposite. Detail

94
95
 Above. The Flood

Opposite. Detail of the river red gum timber plug inserted in

to the stormwater drainage outlet

96
97
 Above. The Tower

Opposite. Water supply system attached to tower structure

98
99
 Above. The Tower at 1pm

Opposite: Detail

100
101
2.3 MOBILE LANDSCAPES a more distant ocean at Encounter Bay in South
Australia. Incised into the deposited material filling
This chapter was a pre-existing text. It was written the bowl is the Murray River and its major tributaries,
midway through the PhD as a way of summarising the Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers. In comparison
and clarifying issues arising from the mapping work to rivers of comparable size the Murray flows across
and various reading. I have chosen to use the text extremely flat terrain2 and discharges a low volume
in its original form, as it reflects the moment in of water. These factors, it is claimed, are responsible
which the writing was undertaken, and it did provide for the rivers distinctive plan-form. Anabranches
a way of concluding this section of the PhD that are also a common feature of the middle stretch of
proved useful for the project work in the following the river where the main channel becomes braided
chapters. As a consequence of its location within into smaller rivers that follow the main channel,
this document, the reader may observe occasional eventually re-entering the river further downstream.
overlap with reference material cited in earlier
chapters. Rivers are dynamic systems constantly on the
move.3 Geomorphologists have discovered that
The Murray River the plan and sectional profile of the channel has
The Murray–Darling Basin occupies the south- continued to alter over geological time. Billabongs
eastern corner of the Australian continent and is found along the floodplain are indicative of this
equivalent in area to 24 Netherlands. It is an ancient change as they are remnants of prior river channels.
drainage basin that has evolved over geological Today, many rivers in the basin have been
time. Ian Rutherford has described the geological superimposed onto more ancient river channels:
form of the basin as a shallow bowl. He states that a process that has taken thousands of years. The
the ‘bowl itself is made up of rock over 350 million Edwards River, for instance, follows the ancient
years old, but the material within the bowl has been channel of the Murray, while the present location of
deposited over the past 65 million years, and has the River Murray at Echuca follows the ancestral
reached a depth of 600 metres’ and, further, that the channel of the Goulburn River. A drawing tracking
bowl ‘is almost full and the surface of this deposited the drift of the Murray’s channel across the surface
material is nearly flat, producing very low gradients of the ‘bowl’ might resemble the type of movement
for rivers that flow across the basin’.1 Rutherford’s captured in Marcel Duchamp’s painting Nude
analogy offers a way of comprehending the size and Descending a Stair where lines and rays of colour
geological history of the basin. The rim of this bowl track the movement of a body through space.
is defined by the Great Dividing Range stretching
along the eastern seaboard into the State of Victoria. The first settler communities would have witnessed a
These highlands have directed rivers westward, different pace of movement than that which occurred
away from the Pacific Ocean, through 2500 over the span of geological time. At the time of
kilometres of semi-arid terrain to eventually enter settlement, the Murray was still in its natural state. It

102
 1) Nude Descending the Stair, Marcel Duchamp.
2) Standing astride the River Murray near Nyah, Victoria, during
the drought in 1923.

1. 2.

was then a wild river with a more variable flow. Early the coastline.9 If the Murray floodplain can be likened
accounts of those living along the river reveal water to a shoreline, then the frequency of its wetting and
levels in constant fluctuation, between cycles of flood drying is far more unpredictable than a shoreline
and drought.4 In Australia this process of wetting and governed by tidal cycles.
drying is now understood to be an essential part of
wetland ecology. Lake Eyre in South Australia is one Native flora and fauna have adapted over thousands
extreme example where water is seldom present but of years to these cycles of wetting and drying.
when its dry bed does fill with water the surrounding River red gum and black box trees, once more
arid landscape becomes transformed. A similar abundant along the floodplain, have adapted to
process occurred along the Murray. During flood the these processes. They can withstand prolonged
river would swell outward, discharging a vast body dry periods while, on the other hand, relying upon
of water across its floodplain. In extreme floods the periodic wetting afforded by rising river levels. The
surrounding landscape would remain inundated for red gum is found on the lower levels of the floodplain
up to six months at a time.5 In several instances and its optimal growing conditions are for six months
the river channel was known to have swollen in of drought and six months of flood. On the other
width from 80 metres to 40 kilometres in width. hand the black box tree can withstand much longer
Even in minor floods these processes would be dry spells requiring wetting every two to five years.
played out, though on a smaller scale, but in greater These species also provide effective visual registers
frequency. On the other hand, during prolonged of the floodplain, indicating the extent of prior floods.
dry periods water levels in the river would subside, Black box trees are more tolerant to drought and can
and in extreme instances the river ceased flowing.6 therefore be found on higher ground, demarcating
It is claimed that during these periods when the the edge of the floodplain.10 At Banrock Station in
fresh water dried out leaving the channel exposed, South Australia, black box trees can be found on
‘sea water would infiltrate upstream for up to 250 a hillside kilometres from the main river channel.
kilometres’.7 Moving up to higher ground, these trees give way
to mallee vegetation marking the fringe of the
Swamps, marshes, flood runners, intermittent floodplain.
lakes, and billabongs are wetlands that form part
of the floodplain and can be seemingly remote Living against the River
from the main river channel. Scientists believe that The river supported an Aboriginal population for
fundamental chemical and biological exchanges take thousands of years until the arrival of European
place between rivers and their detached wetlands settlers. Europeans had a devastating impact on
during flood.8 This was probably why some have the Aboriginal population, attributed both to conflict
described the Murray as being more like a very long and the spread of disease. Over thousands of
shoreline, with the wetting and drying of the land’s years Aboriginal people had developed a pattern
edge analogous to the ebb and flow of tides along of existence that was in tune with the cycles of

103
 1. 2.

the river.11 Settlers, however, struggled to come to marked the transformation of the Murray into an
terms with the strangeness of the river. The Murray artificial canal for the purpose of conveying water
was unlike any European river; its flow fluctuated to farmland. More and more water continued to be
seasonally, and in dry seasons it almost ceased extracted from the river leaving less water for the
flowing. That a river could stop running must river. Clearing of large tracts of native vegetation
have seemed strange to those who had grown made way for agricultural production. River towns
up amongst the wet landscapes of Europe. This grew, fed by a rail and road network connecting into
was not the only difficulty the settler communities distant markets and urban centres. Levee banks
had with the strangeness of the Murray, but it was constructed along the floodplain were designed to
certainly one of the most significant as it impacted further confine the river, providing more land for
on the ability to survive in what was essentially a development. Now hemmed in between levees and
semi-arid terrain. If the tentative river communities its flow greatly reduced, the river became severed
were to survive, then supply of water needed to be from its floodplain, reducing wetting and drying
guaranteed. Paul Sinclair, as discussed previously, processes. The destructive impact of this upon the
has written eloquently on the unfolding relationship ecology of the river and its hinterland has become
between the river and its people.12 Recounting evident in the past 30 years.15
stories and memories of those who lived with the
river, he reveals a rich environmental history where In North America there had been even more
the lives of people are interwoven with the river. audacious attempts to manipulate whole river
catchments. The environmental historian Donald
It was not until the signing of the River Murray Worster has described in detail how irrigation
Waters Agreement in 1915 that the long-planned communities, along with federal government
regulation of the river took place marking the most backing, redirected whole river systems across
dramatic change to be imposed upon the river in mountain ranges to supply farming interests in
recent history.13 With the construction of dams, weirs arid regions.16 A recent visit to the Netherlands
and levee banks, control of water was wrestled also revealed the omnipresence of another kind of
from nature and given over to water managers and water infrastructure. Agricultural plots seemed to be
engineers. During wet months, when water levels ringed by networks of drainage channels; canals
were high, water would be retained in large storages of varying width traced parallel lines of transport
for release during the dryer summer months, thus infrastructure, passing through towns, cities and
inverting the natural flow patterns that had existed agricultural zones. Water seemed to be everywhere,
prior to regulation.14 Largest of these storages unlike the arid fringes of the Murray’s floodplain. But
was the Hume Dam on the upper reaches of the in sections this landscape appeared to be even more
river, followed by the Yarrawonga Weir and then a remarkable. Many water channels appeared to sit
succession of smaller weirs that were positioned above the surface of the existing ground. Elsewhere,
at strategic points downstream. This infrastructure canals seemed to have been incised into the ground

104
 1) This flow diagram of the River Murray reveals how a wild river
has been transformed into an irrigation canal. All flows are closely
monitored and controlled by river managers.
2) Wentworth weir and lock under construction, 1928. Such
infrastructure has allowed the water in the river to be harnessed
for use by irrigators.
3) Living on a floodplain.

3.

(rather than riding the surface) and in such places that ‘Hour by hour, the Murray is growing wider
the water seemed to sit perilously close to the level and deeper above Echuca, as water pours in from
of the surrounding land. Dirk Sijmons, a landscape the flooded Goulburn River’.19 Later, in August, the
architect practising in the Netherlands, has threat loomed further downstream as the headline
written about this phenomena, calling it the ‘Water read: ‘Wentworth in danger, levees weak’.20 With a
Machine’.17 His use of a machine metaphor seems lapse of almost one month between these reports it
to be an appropriate term for this infrastructure and is evident that floodwaters took time to reach peak
could equally be used in reference to the regulated levels and that the huge distances between river
Murray. A glance at the flow diagram, often used to towns also slowed the impact of flooding. For many
explain how water is presently conveyed through the communities this delay did provide an opportunity
river, supports such a reading. It represents the grip to prepare defences, and this was recorded in one
of regulatory control that presently directs when and story where ‘Two hundred men have to fill and lay
where water flows, highlighting the transformation of 300,000 sand bags within the next 10 days if the
the river into a canal. settlement of Curlwaa is to be saved from the Murray
River flood’.21 Peak waters from the Darling did not
As much as the regulatory structures were able to enter the Murray until October, by which time the
harness the flow of water, they were still unable to river levels in the upper reaches of the Murray had
fully control the river in really major flood events. started to subside. Inflow from the Darling, however,
In 1956 the Murray experienced one of its major extended the impact of high water levels on towns
floods in living memory and the extent to which like Wentworth and those further downstream in
development had encroached onto its floodplain South Australia. In Renmark, the peak water levels
quickly became evident. Road and rail infrastructure occurred 2 September, while further downstream
was severely damaged and entire river towns at Mannum the peak water level was not until 9
became encircled by water, severing them from the September.
rest of the country. The 1956 flood was the result of
heavy rains across the entire Murray-Darling Basin18 There was a sublime aspect to the 1956 flood.
that had followed good rains from the preceding year. Perhaps this had something to do with the scale
It is seldom that heavy rains in the Darling catchment of the event and the interaction of water with the
coincide with those in the headwaters of the Murray, flatness of the terrain alluded to earlier. For several
but in 1956 high river levels did coincide. It took months a new landscape appeared above the rising
several months for the rivers to reach peak levels. By water line as familiar features became submerged. A
April of 1956, in the upper Murray, levels had started landscape of islands appeared, stretched out along
to rise and by May the water in the Hume Reservoir the river – a Murray archipelago! Striking a new
began to overflow. From early July through to August datum across the land’s surface this broad sheet
newspaper headlines told of the looming threat to of water altered familiar features of the floodplain.
river towns downstream. In early July it was reported It must have been disorientating for those on the

105
 1) Querini Stampalia Founda-
tion, Venice, Carlo Scarpa. High
tides can enter the interior of the
building. The skirting around the
causeway demarcates the dry
protected parts of the interior.
2) Axonometric study of the
ground floor of the Querini Stam-
palia as an artificial terrain. The
floor is articulated by change
of level and material surface
creating a complex exchange
between interior and exterior,
architecture and landscape.

1.

ground. The familiar meandering line of the channel

became submerged below the flood level while
scattered roof profiles protruding from the water
leant an abstract compositional pattern to this new
datum line. When water spills out across any surface
it has the wonderful ability to reveal forms that had
previously remained hidden. Movement of floodwater
into the various folds and shallow valleys of the
ground seemed to enliven the floodplain topography.
A new shoreline emerged, with softer, less frequent
meanders than those of the submerged river
channel.

Living with the River

‘Billie and Les Mitchell grew up during the 1930s in
Echuca’s regularly flooded Shinbone Alley, an area
inhabited by itinerant workers, timber cutters and
other tradespeople. During the 1930s, as floodwaters
rose each year, Billie’s father hung their furniture
on hooks attached to the ceiling. A dining table and
chairs made of water-loving red gum were left where
they stood. The doors and windows were left open
so water could flow freely through the house, and
the family would move into a rented home in town.
When the floodwaters receded, their house would be
freshly painted and they’d move back in.’22

Living with the Murray River might be a way of

rethinking how we inhabit floodplains and deal
with the threat of inundation. Many river towns are
sited on low ground and the threat of rising water
levels has always loomed large. In the past, the
construction of levee banks had created a defensive
wall against the threat of inundation, along with
the various weirs and storages that have helped
to harness the passage of water. Levees have not

106
2.

107
 1) The entry steps from the water
gate act as a datum to measure
the incoming tides.
Querini Stampalia Foundation,
Carlo Scarpa.
2) Measured drawings of the
ground floor of the Querini
Stampalia.

1.

only encircled some towns but have also been

constructed to constrain movement of the river out
onto its floodplain. Maybe it is time to once again
allow the river to move freely! Water was permitted
to flow freely through the buildings along Shinbone
Alley. Might there be a way of inhabiting the
floodplain that could embrace the uncertainty of the
river? Making spaces to receive water, rather than
fortifications to repel water, could mark the beginning
of such thinking. In a small gallery in Venice the
Italian architect Carlo Scarpa created such a place.23
A series of exhibition spaces inserted into the ground
level of an existing building were crafted to receive
occasional tidal water from the nearby canal. Like
the Mitchell residence, these were sacrificial spaces
given over to water in moments of high tide. But once
water had receded, the more robust material finishes
of these water receiving rooms (as opposed to the
refined material surfaces of the dry rooms) gave
presence to water’s absence. By working carefully
with the fluctuations of tidal water Scarpa was able
to weave his work into the ongoing hydrological
processes that have underpinned Venetian history.

There were other aspects of living in Shinbone Alley

worth reiterating. Movement from low to higher
ground suggests a certain lightness of inhabitation,
evoking ways in which Aboriginal people might have
inhabited the floodplain. How could such lightness
impact upon a contemporary mode of living along the
floodplain? Amphibious architectures might be a way
of living with the river. Inspired by the example of
the Mitchell house, different categories of movement
and mobility might be explored, contributing to
a transitory inhabitation of the floodplain. This
may involve the tradition of portability, of floating

108
109
 1. 2.

structures that could be nomadic in their inhabitation not that made from river red gum. While the timber
of the river landscape, thus challenging architecture’s is notoriously difficult to work, it has developed a
permanence. Another event, this time from the upper resistance to periodic wetting and drying and is
reaches of the river, also reflects this relationship therefore suited to marine environments. Once
between water and dwelling. But here an entire town wet, red gum swells and it was this property that
was relocated to avoid the impact of a permanent made it a favoured material in boat construction.
flood. Early in the 1950s Tallangatta was relocated Swollen red gum planks would lock together creating
to higher ground making way for the planned a watertight hull to ply the waters of the Murray.
expansion of the Hume Reservoir. Its increased Perhaps at this level of detail the action of water and
storage capacity would send water further into the the performance of material could be encouraged
surrounding valleys, thus submerging the township. to resonate with the larger scale processes of the
After much debate the government decided to floodplain.
relocate the town to a new site on ground above the
flood contour. Over several weeks, buildings from These previous examples suggest ways of working
the old town were hoisted onto flatbed trucks and at the edge of land and water that is of a familiar
transported eight kilometres to the new town site. architectural scale. If we are to really live with
Here was a theatre of movement that resonated with rivers, we must also consider the infrastructural
the relocation of the Mitchell family to the safety of implications of this idea. Zooming out of the Mitchell
Echuca. residence, observing the whole river catchment,
encourages us to consider the house in relation to
Shifting scale, to focus upon details and material the river system. This approach can allow ideas
surfaces, can provide further potential for buildings to move back and forth from large to small scale.
and spaces to resonate with the surrounding Such thinking encourages the making of artefacts
landscape. Sculptors who work directly with that are interconnected with complex systems and
materials have often excelled at this smaller scale, processes. Large scale thinking with a local impact
making their works participate within a wider was echoed by Worster when he speculated on
context.24 In architecture, these ambitions have the inevitable removal of the dams to rehabilitate
been discussed by the architectural theorist David the ailing river systems of the American West.
Leatherbarrow who has stated that materials are Elsewhere, in the Netherlands present land use
‘invented in construction, location and inhabitation’.25 policy has started to look at ways of making ‘Room
Materials, according to Leatherbarrow, become for the River’.26 According to Sijmons, the presence
charged by the context in which they are placed. The of water in the Netherlands will have an increasing
‘dining table and chairs made of water-loving red role to play in the future direction of urban design
gum’ left to the mercy of water flowing through the and land-use practices, particularly as ‘there is more
house lends weight to this discussion. Water would water coming into our country, it is hard for it to flow
have been detrimental to the other furniture, but away (because of rising sea levels), and the result is

110
 1)Amphibious architecture, a building on the water.
2) In the Netherlands the landscape has been constantly altered.
This is evoked by the intersection of the water way and the road –
both designed as infrastructure.
3-4) In the Swiss city of Zug, the artist Tadishi Kawamata has
overlayed a series of timber structures between the shoreline of
the lake and the town. They establish a thickening and intensifica-
tion of the threshold were the town meets the water.

3. 4.

higher water levels along the rivers, the increasing data from which to undertake a series of drawings
risk of floods and therefore the necessity of drastic charting the river system. Remote observations
measures to supplement the recent rising of the from my studio in Melbourne, together with direct
dykes’.27 In the Netherlands, land that had previously experience gathered from expeditions along the
been reclaimed from water is now once again being river, have provided a framework for seeing the
inundated. Water management is moving toward river as a dynamic site in various states of change.
an awareness of river ecology. Donald Worster has A proposition to emerge from this work speculates
used the term ‘Thinking like a river’28 to describe a on the making of a River-Garden, extending along
sustainable way of working that places emphasis the length of the river for 2500 kilometres, from
on ecological thinking over technical thinking. On the mountains to the ocean. Taking on Worster’s
the Rhine in Germany such policies that mirror challenge to think ecologically, the River-Garden is
Worster’s ecological thinking are being implemented. to intensify the experience of being on the floodplain.
Along the Murray, poor water quality, high levels of That means more water to support ecological flows.
salinity and reduction in environmental flows and the At the level of infrastructure the River-Garden would
impact these have had on the health of the Murray- generate a series of continental scale interventions:
Darling Basin have been well documented.29 Recent a massive tree planting regime, seeding, removal of
discussion has centred on giving back more water infrastructure such as levee banks and roads and
to the river, especially along the Murray, where perhaps the decommissioning of weirs and irrigation
four icon sites have been identified for additional infrastructure33, and the implementation of more
environmental flows.30 However, even this proposal efficient irrigation practices. River-Garden would
has been attacked by a group allied to agriculture rehabilitate environmental flows intensifying the rise
and fisheries’ interests indicating the charged and fall of water to activate processes of wetting and
political context surrounding water in the Murray- drying that have been part of the Murray’s ecology.
Darling Basin.31 The work undertaken for the PhD The natural benefits of such a proposition have been
constructs an argument around higher environmental well documented, but what about the benefit for the
flows entering the Murray, supported by the towns that are stretched out along the floodplain –
proposal of the four icon sites. Present arguments how might the towns meet this garden?
suggest that water could be redirected into the
Murray by buying back water and making irrigation
infrastructure more efficient.32

This intense study of river ecology has formed the

initial research phase of my PhD. Learning the
particularities of the river system, its character and
idiosyncrasies, has been like learning German to
study Gottfried Semper. This study has provided

111
 1) Lawrence Weiner, On top of above the water. The use of text
dispersed across several silver birch trees evokes the passage
from water to land of the polder landscape of Zeewolde.

1.

Conclusion and mists, water was released onto an urban

This study of the Murray River consolidates more surface for two weeks. The lane was subjected
distant work that has examined ways of inhabiting to processes of inundation, soaking, staining,
the shifting edge between land and water. Underlying wetting and drying. Water is more fluid and
this research has been a growing awareness of ephemeral than conventional building materials,
environmental histories, and the part they can play in and it was this property that was exploited in the
forming strategies for acting in large scale landscape installation. Urban space became transformed
systems. Lake Eyre marked the initial phase of this momentarily, as this dynamic water event moved
cycle, followed by the Yarra River Landbridge.34 between the states of disappearance and re-
These projects have privileged buildings and appearance.
spaces as open structures susceptible to change
(as opposed to fixed objects), enabling overlaps ● operates across the scales of room – settlement
and adjacencies with larger evolving landscape – river system – and inevitably, working across
processes. This has placed emphasis on the life of such broad scales provides a way to unite,
a project by considering living as a verb. Living with cross and test adjacencies of other disciplinary
the river requires the architect to be receptive to the knowledge. An understanding of how the river
presence of water at a range of scales. Amphibious works is an overarching concern of this scalar
architectures can be derived from, designed with, approach, and more particularly testing of this
the regeneration of a river system. The desire is to knowledge on the key question of: how and
develop an amphibious architecture that: where to intervene?

● welcomes water – Scarpa welcomed the high ● takes delight in living as a verb. How might a
tide into his building and similarly architectures of building/space perform over time? Can the act
the Murray must welcome water. Working closely of design involve the structuring of relationships
with the terrain, its levels and specific profile as a across time? An awareness of the transitory
water carrying vessel might be the starting point dimension of living with a river, this may forge
of such an investigation. Bart Brands recently relationships across geological time, flood time,
discussed a similar approach when he spoke of growth time and human time.
the ‘Dutch Mountains’ where any modification of
the ground is limited to a sectional range of 300
millimetres.

● exploits the material properties of water. An

installation commissioned for the Melbourne
festival explored the ephemeral aspects of water
in an urban environment. Using sprays, drips

112
NOTES the Coorong). See, for instance, the bark canoes, eel traps, fishing
nets, and netted bags, basketry and rafts. S Hemming, P Jones,
P Clark, Ngurunderi: an Aboriginal dreaming: the culture of the
1. I Rutherford, ‘Ancient river, young nation’, in N Mackay and D Ngarrindjeri people, South Australian Museum, Adelaide, 2000.
Eastburn (eds), The Murray, Murray Darling Basin Commission, 12. P Sinclair, The Murray: a river and its people, Melbourne
Canberra, 1990, p. 17. University Press, Melbourne, 2001.
2. At Mildura, for instance, the river falls by less than 50 13. There had been a series of infrastructural scale modifications
millimetres per kilometre. Near the sea the gradient is a mere 16 to the river earlier than this. In 1881 wetlands were reclaimed
millimetres per kilometre! See I Rutherford, p. 22. for agriculture on the lower reaches of the river near Wellington.
3. Useful reference texts for an understanding of how the And, from 1887, irrigation settlements at Renmark and Mildura
Murray works have been D Eastburn, The River Murray: history commenced. While these marked early transformation of the
at a glance, Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Canberra, river, the degree of impact upon the river was less significant in
1990; D Mussared, Living on floodplains, Murray-Darling Basin comparison to the regulation of the Murray. See D Eastburn, pp.
Commission, Canberra, 1997; WJ Young, Rivers as ecological 18-20.
systems: the Murray-Darling Basin, Murray-Darling Basin 14. Prior to regulation high water levels would usually occur in
Commission, Canberra, 2001; D Connell, Uncharted waters, spring and low water levels would generally be in the late summer
Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Canberra, 2002; PS Davis, months. At present, high water levels occur in late summer and
Man and the Murray, New South Wales University Press, autumn, low water levels in winter/spring.
Kensington, 1978. 15. For instance, ‘The Murray River is in deep, deep trouble. I’m
4. ‘Before the end of the year (1841), the Murray was little more not just talking about salinity or water quality; I’m talking about
than a chain of waterholes...’, p. 88, a once-rich and productive ecosystem that has taken a real
and ‘In February (1842), the Murray almost stopped running’ and hammering during the past 30 or 40 years in particular’ – D Henry
‘1843 drought continues’ and ‘1844 drought breaks’, p. 89, in A in The Australian, Monday 26 February, 2001, p. 13; and ‘the
Andrews, The first settlement of the Upper Murray, 1835-1845 floodplain is now a saline timebomb, just waiting for a good flood
with a short account of over two hundred runs, 1835 to 1880, DS to release thousands of tonnes of salt into the river and provide
Ford Printers, Sydney, 1920. South Australia with its most disastrous salt plume.’ See The
5. Major floods occurred in 1852, 1867, 1870, 1889, 1916, 1917, Australian, Monday 19 February, 2001, p. 8.
1931, 1956, 1974, and 1975. 16. D Worster, Rivers of Empire: water, aridity, and the growth of
6. Years of drought were: 1839, 1840, 1885, 1886, 1888, 1889, the American West, Pantheon Books, New York, 1985.
1902, 1903, 1904, 1912, 1913, 1919; dry decades 1920s, 1940s, 17. Dirk Sijmons, = Landscape, Architectura + Natura,
and 1960s. Amsterdam, 2002, pp. 29–30.
7. D Mussared, p. 11. 18. The following have been useful references for the 1956 flood.
8. ‘Scientists claim that under natural conditions rivers supply Gutteridge, Haskins & Davey Pty Ltd, Cameron McNamara Pty
water, nutrients and sediments to floodplains; while floodplains Ltd, and Laurie Montgomery & Petit Pty Ltd, Murray River flood
supply carbon (the main building block of life), living organisms, plain atlas, Rural Water Commission of Victoria, Armadale, 1986.
and water treatments to rivers’, in D Mussared, p. 34. Gutteridge Haskins & Davey Pty Ltd, Cameron McNamara Pty
9. ‘Their rising and falling floods wash over the fresh water Ltd, and Laurie Montgomery & Petit Pty Ltd, Murray River: flood
equivalents of estuaries, seagrass beds, mangroves and all the plain management study detailed report December 1986, Water
other cleansing and life-supporting components of the seaside Resources Commission of New South Wales, Sydney, 1986;
littoral zone’, in D Mussared, p. 6. In geological time the Murray GL Harrison, Report on the River Murray flood problem: (with
was part of an inland sea and has been a succession of receding particular reference to the 1956 flood), River Murray Commission,
shorelines. The Mallee zone of the river marks a succession of Canberra, 1957; MJ Chandler, ‘56 memories flood Red Cliffs, MJ
ancient shorelines. For instance, about twenty million years ago, Chandler, Red Cliffs, 1996; P Mortimer, Flood, riverlanders face
an inland sea named the Murravian Gulf occupied the estuary of the flood of fifty-six, P Mortimer, Berri, 1985; GA Grosvenor, The
the river, reaching up to Swan Hill. At this time Swan Hill would Murray pioneer 1956–57 flood diary, Murray Pioneer Pty Ltd,
have been a coastal town. See D Eastburn, The River Murray: Renmark, 1957; State Library of South Australia, Map Collection:
history at a glance, p. 3. Aerial photographs of the 1956 flooding covering the area from the
10. ‘At the peak of the 1956 flood, contour lines of box trees of Murray Mouth to the SA border (1956).
great age were clearly discernable at various spots along the 19. The Herald, 10 July, 1956, p. 3.
Murray well clear of the 1870 and 1956 flood’, in P Mortimer, 20. The Herald, 2 August, 1956, p. 3.
Flood: riverlanders face the flood of fifty-six, P Mortimer, Berri, 21. The Herald, 8 August, 1956, p. 5.
1985, p. 199. It is suggested that a major flood in the year 1780 22. P Sinclair, p. 213.
took place and that water levels exceeded those of 1956 and 1870 23. Querini Stampalia Foundation, Venice 1961–63; see R
by up to 1.4 metres. Murphy, Querini Stampalia Foundation: Carlo Scarpa, Phaidon,
11. An exhibition catalogue illustrates the various artifacts made London, 1993. More recent examples include an exhibition by the
by the Ngarrindjeri people of the lower Murray (from Mannum to Royal Institute of Dutch Architects titled ‘H2OLLAND: architecture

113
with wet feet’, showing how the combination of architecture and established on the Murray in 1930s’ such as the ‘weirs at
water can stimulate creative processes and new insights. See Torrumbarry and Euston’. He has proposed an alternative ‘off river
www.h2olland.nl/overbna.html water storages for further downstream’ in The Australian, Monday
24. A Gallaccio, R Long, R Signer, M Nordman, H de Vries – 12 February 2001, p. 8.
Working at the scale of sculpture, as opposed to an architectural 34. Other projects exploring sites that straddle land water have
scale, these artists are able to forge a range of relationships been: the Lake Eyre Design Studio where a project titled Decay
between a work and its surrounding site. This has relied on an (a proposal for an observatory that deteriorated over time) was
acute sense of material properties and ways of interacting with the representative of design outcomes from the student group,
more transitory site processes. in R Black and M Hook, Topography, RMIT University Press,
25. D Leatherbarrow, The roots of architectural invention: site Melbourne, 2004, pp. 82–85; Landbridge – an urban design
enclosure material, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, project, is discussed in detail in ‘Framing the transitory’, in L van
1993, p. 210. Shaik, Interstial Modernism, RMIT Publishing, Melbourne, 2001; R
26. ‘Room for the River’ is a legislative policy in the Netherlands. Black, ‘Water theatre’, in Kerb Journal of Landscape Architecture,
Its aim is to reduce the urbanisation of the Rhine floodplain, Issue 12, 2003, pp. 18–19.
thus helping to rehabilitate the natural flow regime of the Rhine.
Similar proposals for the German sector of the Rhine are
discussed entailing the removal of dykes and other flood control
infrastructure that are seen to have negative impacts on the
flow regime. See H Havinga, AJM Smits, ‘River management
along the Rhine: a retrospective view’. Also helpful is PH
Nienhuis, JC Chojnacki, O Harms, W Majewski, W Parzonka,
and T Pruss, ‘Elbe, Odra and Vistula: reference rivers for the
restoration of biodiversity and habitat quality’. Both are in AJM
Smits, PH Nienhuis and RSEW Leuven, New approaches to river
management, Backhuys Publishers, Leiden, 2000.
27. D Sijmons, p. 33.
28. D Worster, ‘Thinking like a river’, in D Worster, The wealth
of nature: environmental history and the ecological imagination,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993.
29. See, for instance, D Mussared and D Connell.
30. The four sites identified are: Barmah-Millewa Forest;
Gunbower and Koondrook-Pericoota Forests; Chowilla Floodplain;
and the Murray Mouth, Coorong and Lower Lakes. See ‘River plan
targets key Murray sites’, in The Age, Wednesday, 12 November,
2003, p. 1.
31. ‘A Government-dominated parliamentary committee has
urged the federal government to halt the historic plan to divert
billions of litres of extra water into Murray-Darling system, saying
the river might not be as sick as the environmentalists claim’, in
‘Warning muddies water for the Murray’, in The Age Tuesday 6
April, 2004, p. 3.
32. Banrock Station, a vineyard on the banks of the Murray in
South Australia, is a good example of implementing new water
resource management, employing a full time environment
manager and combining wine production and eco-tourism. The
environment manager states that ‘water-use targets must now
be set and tough penalties imposed for those who fail to reach
them’. See The Australian, Wednesday 21 February 2001, p. 3. At
Banrock Station water is conserved by using computer technology
and drip feed irrigation techniques. ‘A soil moisture probe records
the amount of moisture in the soil every minute, so the irrigation
manager knows exactly when to irrigate’, in Banrock Station
Walking Trail Guide, Banrock Station, Kingston-on-Murray, 2002,
p. 17.
33. Dr Stuart Blanch, scientist and environmental lobbyist is an
advocate of the ‘removal of several giant engineering structures

114
Renmark 2000

Renmark 1931

115
 Renmark
Wentworth

Goolwa

Echuca Tallangatta

116
 CHAPTER 3
LIVING WITH THE RIVER MURRAY

3.1 AMPHIBIOUS ARCHITECTURES already accumulated was invaluable as a basis to

select and frame possible sites and projects for each
In the previous chapter I outlined a hypothesis of the teaching programs. I wondered what impact
of how to live with the river that accepts current the experience of the river towns would have upon
ecological arguments for a return to an unpredictable the mapping that had already been completed.
river. This scenario anticipates future raising and
lowering of water levels by artificial means. While The final sequence of design studios, at Wentworth
the ecological benefits of this have been extensively and then at the Murray estuary, were also used to
argued, there has been little discussion as to the target curatorial themes of Mobility and the Flood as
benefits for the river towns. This phase of the particular design problems. They each respectively
PhD tests this scenario at various points along formed the Australian contribution to the 1st and 2nd
the river by conducting five design studios that Rotterdam Architecture Biennales. A publication titled
explored the notion of amphibious architectures. Mobile Landscapes, co-authored with my teaching
I selected locations that would provide a range partner, captured the outcomes of the work exhibited
of site conditions, from topographic, to variable in Rotterdam.
river and wetland forms, and places susceptibility
to inundation. Locations for each studio were Five stops along the River Murray
determined from the research material that had River towns were often situated on low lying ground
already accumulated. As a suite of projects they close to the river, and the presence and absence
became a way of cataloguing a range of specific of water has loomed large in their past, weaving
site conditions particular to the floodplain. Using the social and environmental histories together. Five
research material to drive the teaching programs had towns were selected for more detailed study that
an additional objective. It gave me the opportunity to offered a range of topographic conditions: from
structure visits to several river towns where I could the mountainous upper reaches of the river to the
organise meetings with local community members. flatness of the terrain downstream. Locations were
While mapping studies had started to prepare an selected for their persistent histories of inundation.
overview of the river, I felt they lacked specificity; The first location, Tallangatta, was a town that was
the work seemed detached and caught within the relocated to avoid being permanently inundated
immensity of the Murray. The tactic of changing by the enlargement of the Hume Reservoir. This
scale1 has always served me well in the past to was followed by Echuca, a place that had been
overcome design problems, so it was called upon inundated on several occasions; while its twin
again. By taking the work into the river communities, town, Moama (which is sited on lower land on the
I saw an opportunity for a much more targeted ‘on New South Wales side of the river), was destroyed
the ground experience’ to project back onto the more by floods in 1870.2 Further downstream at the
remote work done to date: a ‘bottom-up,’ rather than confluence of the Darling and Murray, Wentworth
a ‘top-down’ approach. However, the river knowledge is susceptible to inundation from two directions and

117
 1. 2.

can become completely surrounded by floodwater. year. The studio required the design of a family of
Likewise, Renmark in South Australia can also be small buildings to accommodate services necessary
surrounded by floodwater, becoming an island in for the Murray Marathon event: infrastructure for the
really big floods. Entering the estuary, the big lakes race event. As the canoe event only lasts for five
of Alexandrina and Albert help dissipate high water, days, other uses and opportunities for the buildings
reducing the impact of big floods on the surrounding had to be devised for the remaining 360 days of the
towns. Each of the design studios are summarised year. The challenge was to explore the architectural
below. potential of transformation, of shifting uses over
time seen in relationship to the inevitable arrival of
Tallangatta: during the early 1950s plans were floodwater.
approved to increase the storage capacity of the
Hume Reservoir. This would have a significant Wentworth: sitting at the confluence of the Darling
consequence for the small township of Tallangatta. and Murray rivers makes Wentworth even more
The higher water levels from the reservoir’s susceptible to inundation: a fact that must have
increased storage capacity would permanently escaped those who had first proposed it as a suitable
inundate Tallangatta, so it was decided to relocate place for a town. Encircled by a levee bank it was
the town to a new site at Bolga, on higher ground severed from the rest of the country by floodwaters in
several kilometres away. Many of the timber framed 1956. Wentworth has enjoyed better economic times,
buildings from old Tallangatta were relocated to and like many river towns it was once a bustling port
the new town site. For many years the site of Old exporting bales of wool to distant markets. Now it is
Tallangatta has remained submerged below the the municipal centre of a vast agricultural region that
waters of the Hume. But recently, due to low water straddles the south-western corner of New South
levels the old town site has become exposed. In Wales. Students were invited to identify sites on the
2004 Tallangatta celebrated the 50th anniversary river side of the levee bank, thus having to confront
of its relocation from its original site. The studio possibility of inundation in the future. New land uses
proposed a new museum to commemorate the had to be considered, offering a more sustainable
relocation of Tallangatta, sited at the old town site. future for Wentworth.

Echuca: the Murray Marathon is an annual canoe Renmark: is a latent island. During high floods it is
event involving 5000 people over five days. Unlike severed from the surrounding land by water. Located
many sports meetings this is a mobile event. in South Australia, and like Wentworth, it is encircled
Commencing at Yarrawonga the marathon takes by a continuous levee bank that simultaneously
five days to progress 450 kilometres downstream marks the town’s perimeter and also severs it
to the finish at Swan Hill. The entourage of people from the wetlands beyond. At an urban level, the
who follow the marathon dramatically increase the levee has been considered as a necessary piece
population of river towns for a brief moment of the of infrastructure, but without civic presence. Levee

118
1) Grant Whiteman, General Manager of the Australian Landscape
Trust, in discussion with architecture students from RMIT near
Renmark, South Australia.
2) Chris Alderton, Local Planning case study officer, in discussion
with architecture students from RMIT, Renmark, South Australia.

banks are also one of the only reminders of the

omnipresent floodplain. At Renmark, the levee is
presently in need of maintenance and reconstruction.
This became a catalyst to consider a new type of
the levee as a piece of landscape infrastructure,
one that went beyond the role as purely utilitarian
infrastructure, taking on a duty of the civic. The
levee was explored for its potential to: interact with
the town and the wetlands beyond; to be utilised
for pedestrian access; and to invite additional
use that could benefit the community. Finally, a
more complex threshold between the town and its
floodplain was anticipated.

Goolwa: is a small rural town that straddles the

Murray estuary and the beaches of Encounter Bay.
Being only 70 kilometres from the city of Adelaide
(population 1 million) it is located at the edge of a
pristine wetland wilderness making it an attractive
destination for tourists and day trippers from
Adelaide. During summer the population of Goolwa
can double. Predictions are for continued population
growth over the next 10 years and beyond.
Continued growth is expected with many residents
expected to do the daily commute from Goolwa
to Adelaide. However, urban expansion along the
shoreline will be detrimental to the fragile ecology
of the estuary system. Projects speculated on the
architectural opportunities of this paradox.

119
 1.

2. 3.

5.

4. 6. 7.

1) Tallangatta 1910
2) The town site of Tallangatta submerged 1977
3) Town site exposed in 2003. The remains of the railway
embankment can be seen
4) Remains of Tallangatta 2003
5) Achive, boxed set of images of Tallangatta
6) Aerial view of Tallangatta and a full Hume Reservoir
1971
7) The town site of Tallangatta with buildings removed 1962

Opposite. Buildings being removed from Tallangatta to the

new town site on higher ground, 1954.

120
TALLANGATTA

121
 Above: At Echuca the Murray cuts a deep channel into
the terrain. Here water levels can fluctuate by up to eight
meters in 1:100 year floods.

Opposite: This detailed flood study was discovered in

Echuca during the site visit. It provided a detailed analy-
sis between landform and the various high water levels
recorded since European settlement of the region.

122
ECHUCA

123
 1.

2.

1) Diagram of the levee bank surrounding the town of Went-

worth. A portion of the levee system is mobile, and is stored
within the town. It can be installed in several hours should a
flood be imminent.
2) Diagram of the mobile levee construction system.
Above. Photographs documenting the permanent infrastruc-
ture required to house the levee once it is constructed. The
holes for the columns are filled with foam, that can be easily
removed should the level need to be installed.

Opposite. Floods encircled Wentworth in 1956

124
WENTWORTH

125
 Above: Diagram of Renmark, its topography and relation-
ship to the River. The oldest core of the town is located on
the highest ground shown hatched. As the town expanded
it was built on lower lying land. A levee bank encircles the
town. A new housing subdivision constructed outside of the
levee is built on fill to a new level of 20 metres AHD. The
construction of the weir at Renmark has raised the river
water to an artificial level of 16 meters. Water is extracted
from the river for use by the town and for irrigation.
Above: Photographic documentation of the levee bank that
surrounds Renmark.

Opposite: The Black Box tree in this carpark at Renmark is

estimated to be 300 years old. Black Box trees rely upon
infrequent flooding. Surrounded by bitumen, the tree is a
poignant reminder of how floodplains have become de-
tached from the river by forces of urbanisation.

126
RENMARK

127
 Tidal Walk
Concept: 3 lines to rehabilitate the site
Drift Line + Contour Line + Shoreline

Buildings

Artificial Dune

Experimetal Farm
Experimental Farm

Drift Line

Ghost Road

Floating Archive Plan Detail Drift Line Planting

Legend

Proposed Folly
Proposed Drinking Folly
Existing Barrage
Ramsar Wetlands Site
National Park
Female Reproductive Organ
Ngarrindjeri Clan Territories
1 Kangalindjera Clan
2 Melgindjeri Clan
3 Rumurindjeri Clan
4 Kanduka Clan
6 5 Lungundindera Clan
6 Ratalwerindjeri Clan
7 Ragindjera Clan

1 3
KUMURANGK ISLAND
D

4 7

0m 1km 2km 4km

Murray Bridge Murray Bridge

Taliem Bend Taliem Bend

02

05

Milang Milang 01

Goolwa
Goolwa
05

03
06

04
KEY Meningie KEY KEY
Meningie
SALTWATER
FLOODED AREA Teik Rong, Khoo 01

Bridget Basham 02

Chang Joo, Nguyen 03

BARRAGE
Richard Black 04

Lani Fender 05

John Doyle 06

0 4 8 12km
0 4 8 12km 0 1 2 3km

128
 GOOLWA

Sunday Market Tour De South Australia Wooden Boat Biennale 1 in 100 year Flood event

New housing typology

Sunken Urban Plaza

Regenerated Wetlands/
Golf Park
15
0k
m

1956 flood level

chart datum

ADELAIDE
1 million people
Darwin

50 minutes
70 KM
NORTHERN
TERRITORY

QUEENSLAND

Lake Alexandrina
n
GOOLWA
Murray Estuary Garden
Hindmarsh
WESTERN
As the Murray River approaches the ocean at Encounter Bay it widens to form a series of shallow lakes. Like many Island
AUSTRALIA
other parts of the river system the mouth too is in poor health. This has been attributed to the regulation of the river and the
gradual diversion of water away from the river to irrigators. This has reduced the amount of fresh water flowing into the
estuary and the construction of barrages has severed the tidal influence of the ocean. The federal government recently Murray Mouth
Brisbane
nominated the Murray Mouth and Coorong wetlands as one of several icon sites along the Murray targeting it for a series
of restorative measures aimed at rehabilitating hydrological flows. Presently, the sheltered inlets of this landscape provide
ideal conditions for recreation and sporting activities, making this a favoured holiday destination for people from the nearby SOUTH
city of Adelaide. Pressure to further develop the shoreline for tourism and the sea change phenomena is looming. Water AUSTRALIA
Encounter
n Bay
from the estuary also sustains a large irrigation community while other more remote parts of the estuarine system have
been reserved for the Ngarrindjeri people, and as a sanctuary for wildlife. NEW
SOUTH
Perth
The project is premised upon the removal of infrastructure that presently constrains river flow, returning the estuary to WALES
unpredictable water levels and thus placing pressure on contemporary land-uses that rely on certainty of water supply. This Adelaide Sydney
project speculates upon a future where land-use practices work with, rather than against, the hydrological processes of the
estuary. A series of strategies investigate ways of revealing and intensifying the process of restoring the ecology of the Canberra
estuary while also making propositions for the future inhabitation of its shoreline.
NETHERLANDS
SITE:
The focus for our research has been the small rural town of Goolwa which straddles the Murray estuary and the MOUTH OF THE MURRAY RIVER VICTORIA
beaches of Encounter Bay. Goolwa occupies a frontier situation. Being only 70 kilometres from the city of Adelaide
(population 1 million) it is located at the edge of a pristine wetland wilderness making it an attractive destination for tourists
and day trippers from Adelaide. During summer the population of Goolwa can double in size. Predictions are for the Melbourne
population to increase from 5 thousand to 15 thousand over the next ten years. Continued growth is expected with many
residents expected to do the daily commute from Goolwa to Adelaide. However urban expansion along the shoreline would KEY KEY
be detrimental to the fragile ecology of the estuary system.
MURRAY DARLING BASIN URBAN AREA
Projects speculate on the architectural opportunities presented by this paradox: of predicted population growth, while
on the other hand trying to minimise further urbanisation of the wetlands. We have devised strategies of containment MURRAY RIVER (FLOWS EAST TO WEST) TASMANIA NATIONAL PARK
concentrating the most significant growth close to existing infrastructure thus minimising the sprawl of suburbia onto Launceston
adjacent wetlands and dune systems. A weaving of town and estuary into a more complex interrelationship is the outcome MURRAY DARLING RIVER SYSTEM ROAD
of this research.
HOLLAND SIZE COMPARISON

Richard Black
Architect / Senior Lecturer
RMIT University 0 200 400 600KM 0 20 40 60km

Drawing exhibited at the 2nd Rotterdam Architecture

Biennale 2005

129
Reflection Levels
The lack of detailed levels for each town became
On-site and off-site a constant problem. An appreciation of the ground
A common pedagogical structure was devised and its topography was an essential part of knowing
for each of the design studios and progressively how the floodplain worked. Without accurate levels
refined. During the first three weeks students movement of water could not be anticipated.
would map the town remotely (off-site). These Reconstructing accurate drawings of the terrain
tasks included: redrawing the town using maps and for each of the sites was a slow and often arduous
pictorial information along with carrying out various activity. The archive as a particular component of site
assigned research topics and short esquisses that research provided a way around these obstacles.
introduced students to conceptual issues of change River communities were found to hold drawn and
and transformation. The fourth week would shift photographic material. These would often be in the
pace, with a week long excursion to the town. On- form of personal collections that had been donated
site studies encouraged a personal response to the to libraries or councils. Sometimes individuals offered
issues that had been covered in Melbourne. Getting material to the group during our town visits. These
students from the studio and into the towns opened proved to be of great use for the teaching programs,
up a range of reciprocal relationships between and also contributed to the ongoing archive of
what had been drawn remotely from the studio material I had been collecting. Detailed land surveys
in Melbourne, and what was experienced on the would often be discovered during the week spent
ground. On-site activities involved drawing in the in each township. Such drawings contributed to
field to develop an intimate and personal response an understanding of how a town was sited on the
to the place. In addition, there were meetings floodplain. While the original surveys of the river had
arranged with local community groups, and targeted been made to grid and control its water, the need
presentations. Collectively the range of these to now map the ground precisely had the opposite
activities generated a two-way exchange between intention. Instead of controlling water, the intention
the remote and near investigation of place. Off-site was to allow it to run unimpeded. To design for such
discoveries helped focus where on-site work would conditions, accurate levels of the ground were critical
be undertaken. Once in the field, discoveries would to predict the movement of water.
often help focus the work that had been undertaken
remotely. This was partly because of the reciprocity Buildings and Landscape infrastructure
between reality of the site as experienced meeting Having to structure teaching programs prompted me
the archival material collected and assembled of the to consider the range of projects that might involve
same place: it was like a meeting of worlds. an architect. Initially, the first two studios focused on
the design of small built structures that had to devise
ways of accommodating the presence and absence
of water. Scenarios for each came from the particular

130
circumstance of the location. At Tallangatta, it new levee system. A notable feature was a section
seemed fitting to think of the implication of locating that was permanently removed and stored off-site,
a building back on the old town site, particularly to allowing the heart of the town to spill out onto the
mark the 50th anniversary of the old town’s demise. banks of the Darling River. Within several weeks of
As each studio evolved, I found that the on-site and a large flood coming down the river, the levee could
off-site work started to generate the project. The be retrieved from storage and assembled ready to
museum for Old Tallangatta was perhaps the most protect the town. This sense of adaptable mobile
speculative of the projects, whereas subsequent infrastructure provided inspiration for the living with
projects progressively evolved from detailed the river.
knowledge of the local community and issues arising
from these encounters. Overlaps with key areas On-site: another layer to mapping the Murray
of research would also be examined. Structures If the Mobile Landscapes text had provided the
required for the Murray Marathon evolved from initial framework to structure the studios, then
an inventory of existing facilities used to stage the the experience of staying in each town produced
event. Most studios involved considerable pre- another layer of understanding to living with the river.
planning that triggered further journeys to the river, Staying in each of the towns provided a completely
such as when I followed the canoe race over several different insight into where the work could lead. It
days. These expeditions would then be followed up opened up a range of possible projects that could
with a meeting with the project coordinator of the be encountered, from the small scale delicate
race. built insertion, to new land-use, to infrastructure
scale interventions. Each town visit unearthed new
Progressively, studios started to move beyond just discoveries, providing particular new layers to the
building to engage landscape and infrastructural mapping. By selecting locations that traversed
scale interventions. The need for infrastructure the length of the river, it also started to give me
to become more than just engineering was seen an insight between upstream and downstream.
as an opportunity to imagine its civic and urban Similarities and differences seemed to keep
contribution to the town. The levee bank was a emerging between upstream and downstream, and
constant focus for design investigations. Presently on-site and off-site encounters.
these tend to be rather crude earthen mounds, which
encircle townships severing them from the floodplain. It was during the first design studio that the impact
They can be quite severe visual obstacles in some of the off-site and on-site work became significant.
cases, over two metres in height. Many are in a poor Both ways of operating seemed to create a dynamic
state of repair having had little or no maintenance engagement with a location. Staying at Tallangatta
since the 1950s and would be of little use should a provided a range of different encounters with the
flood of similar magnitude threaten. The Wentworth site, from fieldwork, to meetings and presentations.
Shire had recently completed the construction of a On the journey to Tallangatta, a tour through the

131
 1) Mobile Landscape
publication 1st Rotterdam
Architecture Biennale

Opposite. Australian exhibit

2nd Rotterdam Architecture
Biennale

1.

Hume Dam wall, provided a reminder of the scale NOTES

of competing forces playing out along the river.
The space between the dam wall and the old town 1. Working on a piece of architecture at a range of different
scales is a skill often learnt in practice, but not often discussed
site became palpable: one thing acting on another. in architectural literature. It comes from the tradition of design
operating from more broad based decisions that might impact
In successive studios, the scope of meetings
upon a building and its relationship in its wider context, and at the
expanded, to include environmental organisations, other extreme, of detail design, where it might entail the design of
junctions between material surfaces. Designing across scales can
planning authorities and other groups that had also be a way of operating in the landscape. In previous work, I
strategic control over the Murray. By the final have selected the scales of 1:20000, 1:2000 and 1:200 as a way
of making strategic connections between a built intervention and
studio land-use management plans and strategic the wider landscape.
planning documents were part of the engagement
2. ‘Moama first became aware of the hazards of its location on
of the on-site experience. Taking on the pragmatics low-lying land adjoining the Murray in 1867, when the country
of planning and management legislation was an experienced its first flood for many years… Three years later
the river rose again to a height never before experienced… Old
attempt to ground the research in the reality of Moama was completely wiped out. All the buildings – including
the schoolhouse, post office and police barracks – were
issues being faced on the ground. This was also completely submerged’. H Coulson, Echuca-Moama, Murray River
a way of understanding how various opportunities neighbours, Mc Cabe prints, Wangaratta, 1979. p. 44.
could be able to be played out between competing
user groups. It was as much about finding the gaps
in the documents, as much as finding clues as to
what types of projects might start to overlap with
strategic planning and management guidelines.
What the design studios had not yet provided was
a convincing way of moving beyond the site work
into a design proposal. The most difficult aspect
encountered by students had often been developing
ways of translating the density of site information into
material to generate architectural action. The next
phase of the research would address this issue.

132
133
 This image prompted the initial site investigations for Tidal
Garden. It shows the Murray mouth blocked with sediment
in 1981 – another mobile landscape.

134
3.2 TIDAL GARDEN As a design project, it could be used as a kind of
‘laboratory’ for examining the relationship between
Mobile Landscapes provided a datum of knowledge a site and to site and their potential to influence
that propelled me back out along the river to the river the design process. However, Tidal Garden did
towns where I gained an intimate understanding of not emerge from any pre-existing brief or site. It
particular places. These encounters with the river, emerged from the knowledge of the river that had
between my studio and those derived from being already been accumulated, and this would have
on the ground, became referred to as off-site and a significant impact upon its development. The
on-site conditions. Off-site encounters stood for a following essay elaborates upon this process of
remote experience of a place mediated through realising Tidal Garden. It outlines how site knowledge
the studio and the archive. On the other hand, on- leads towards knowing where and how to intervene
site encounters relied upon going out into the field. in a location. As a starting point, I returned to the
Off-site encounters of the river gave purpose and methodology that has been discussed previously
direction to fieldwork conducted along its floodplain. (approaching site from the archive, from the air,
Discoveries made on the ground would then reaffirm and from the ground), but applied to the estuary
or supplement discoveries made in the studio. These landscape to generate further on-site and off-site
modes of operation created a dynamic exchange operations. This is followed by a discussion of the
– a relationship of reciprocity between on-site key strategic components of Tidal Garden. Finally, I
and off-site experiences – that generated a deep conclude with a review of the design outcomes and
understanding of the site across scales and time. how they address the drivers of my research.

Tidal Garden is a speculative design proposal for a Estuary

property on the River Murray estuary. Selection of Hindmarsh Island, or Kumarangk, is the largest and
an estuary as the location for the final project was most accessible of an archipelago of islands located
seen as a logical conclusion to a journey along the in the Murray’s estuary. The estuary is the traditional
river. Having commenced this sequence at its upper home of the Ngarrindjeri people. Their story of
reaches at Tallangatta, it seemed fitting to complete dispossession and loss of cultural connection to
the sequence at the river’s mouth. An estuary their lands was dramatised through their struggle to
environment also provided further comparison with halt construction of the Hindmarsh Bridge.2 Failure
the floodplain towns and landscapes I had already to halt its construction has led to the urbanisation
encountered. Furthermore, the estuary location of the western edge of Hindmarsh Island. A large
also coincided with the curatorial themes of the residential sub division and a new marina followed
2nd Rotterdam Architecture Biennale,1 to which this the construction of the bridge. Because of the
project would form part of the Australian exhibit. abundance of water and beaches, the region will
continue to face pressure from urban growth.
Predictions3 suggest a tripling of the population

135
over the next 15 years. This will place considerable was chosen as one of six icon sites as part of the
stress upon present levels of infrastructure and the Living Murray initiative.
fragile estuary ecology. Growth is being driven by the
region’s close proximity to Adelaide – a city of over Prior to river regulation, the estuary had a complex
one million people that is within a 50-minute drive, and variable flow pattern. From the 1930s several
and research suggests that a large proportion of a barrages5 were constructed transforming the lakes
future population would commute to Adelaide for into a storage basin for irrigation. Damming the river
work. halted the exchange between fresh and salt water
that had been part of the natural ecology of the
Urban development is planned to continue along estuary for millions of years. It also raised the water
the island’s western edge. To the east and south, level of the lakes to provide certainty for the irrigators
the island is sparsely populated, its flat topography but, like upstream, it inverted the natural flow.
being susceptible to inundation. Most of the native
vegetation was cleared in the nineteenth century to Since 2003 the river could no longer discharge
make way for livestock. Several shack settlements into the ocean: its mouth had become blocked by
populate the more remote shorelines of the island. sediment build-up. This has been attributed to the
These successive layers of cultivation would suggest lack of water moving down the river into its estuary.
the island fits with John Dixon Hunt’s classification of According to statistics, up to 80 per cent6 of water
a ‘second nature’. is extracted from the river for irrigation leaving little
for environmental flows. This has been compounded
From the border with Victoria, the South Australian by record years of low rainfall combined with its
section of the River Murray flows 620 kilometres unusually low gradient. Ecological thinking argues
before it enters the ocean. Over this distance the that river systems are complex interconnected
river descends only 20 metres giving some indication systems, its base unit being the watershed.7 The
of the channel’s low gradient. Downstream from present state of the mouth of the river is an excellent
Wellington the river discharges into two large lakes, example of this theory, where actions upstream are
Alexandrina and Albert. From there, it enters an now visibly impacting the river’s ability to meet the
archipelago of low islands and tidal flats. After ocean.
winding its way around these obstacles the river
eventually enters the ocean through a small gap This short commentary on the estuary reflects
in the coastal dune system. At this point another concerns that can be identified elsewhere along
wetland system called the Coorong follows the the river. Again these can be summarised as living
coastline in a southerly direction for over 140 against the river, where its natural flow pattern has
kilometres. The estuary has been designated a been inverted by regulation. Tidal Garden charts a
wetland of international significance under the different path, exploring the uncertainty that could
Ramsar4 agreement for its high ecological value, and result from more unpredictable water levels and how

136
this can be used to structure ways of inhabiting its offered a way into the project.
floodplain.
Inventing a site
Constructing a Project I have argued that it is inadequate to just find a
The following section outlines the process of site. A site needs to be invented, brought into the
establishing a project at the Murray Mouth, inventing imagination, and only then can it be conceived as
a site, constructing a program, and the relevance of part of the wider landscape.
precedent.
Beginnings: instinctively, I returned to an image
Locating a site which had appeared regularly in publications. It was
A press release from the Commonwealth an aerial photograph10 of the mouth in 1981 (refer
Government provided the first stage of defining a site to page 134), when the river had also been blocked
and the beginnings of an architectural programme. by sediment. Perhaps its frequent appearance in
It stated that the: ‘Federal Environment Minister publication was due to the extraordinary fluvial forms
Robert Hill and South Australia’s Environment of the sediment – it was certainly the reason it had
and Heritage Minister Iain Evans announced the lingered in my mind as it had also resonated with
$3 million purchase of Wyndgate today saying other imagery of the mobile landscape. I now had
the acquisition would protect critical wetlands and two key areas of focus; the plot of land at Wyndgate,
feeding grounds for migratory birds …’ and further ‘... and the aerial image of the Murray Mouth. These
The purchase of Wyndgate provides an opportunity instigated the next sequence of studies: firstly,
to develop a meaningful visitor destination to the zooming out, to look at the island and estuary; and
mouth of Australia’s great river and gateway to the secondly, zooming in, to observe the shoreline. I
Coorong’.8 Wyndgate is located on the more remote embarked upon a process of re-constructing flood
eastern edge of Hindmarsh Island. Its location had events and the impact of tidal action along the
strategic relevance, potentially providing a buffer shoreline. I approached this task from the air, the
zone between the urban pressures from the west archive, and the ground. These were focussed as
and the more fragile and remote wetlands of the either off-site or on-site operations. This process is
Coorong to the south. Wyndgate would become part outlined on the following pages.
of the Ramsar wetlands reserve bringing it under the
management of the Department for the Environment
and Heritage.9 A shack settlement borders the
southern boundary of Wyndgate, fronting onto
the Mundoo and Goolwa Channels. Commanding
spectacular estuary frontage, these ‘make do’
dwellings are from a period free of ecological
consideration, on a 100-year land lease. Wyndgate

137
 Goolwa

Hindmarsh Island

Goolwa Barrage Wyndgate

el
Mun nn
doo Cha

Go Mundoo Barrage
olw
aC
han
nel

Encounter Bay

On-site: Hindmarsh Island + estuary, photographic

documentation of the island edge.

Off-site: Hindmarsh Island + estuary, de-layering the maps

of the island.

Dark gray tone: fresh water.

Light gray tone: salt water.

138
139
 On-site: Hindmarsh Island + estuary, photographic
documentation of the island, roads and topography.

Off-site: Hindmarsh Island + estuary, de-layering the maps

of the island.

140
141
142
Off-site: the archive. Aerial photography of Hindmarsh
Island, September 1956.

143
 Off-site: the archive. Survey drawing of the Goolwa and
Mundoo Channel, 1879.

144
Off-site: the archive. Survey drawing detail of the Murray
mouth, 1879.

145
 1980

1982

146
1984

1987

Off-site: shoreline. A series of drawings made from aerial photographs

recording the shifting edge between land and water, Murray mouth.

147
 1988

1993

148
1997

Off-site: shoreline. A series of drawings made from aerial photographs

recording the shifting edge between land and water, Murray mouth.

149
 On-site: shoreline. Saturday 26th March 2005. 3 minute
drawings made while observing the incoming tide. The
subtle variations of the grounds topography became ani-
mated by the advancing water.

150
151
152
153
 1. 2. 3.

1. Off-site and On-site: Island + Estuary (refer to below the advancing plane of water. These details
pages 138-141). The shoreline of Hindmarsh Island resonated with memories of the interaction of water
was mapped from the air, from the archive, and from and land that had been present in the aerial flood
the ground. Aerial photography and survey drawings photography of 1956. Even across different scales,
were sourced from the map collection of the State place and time, there seemed to be a recurring
Library of South Australia covering a period of 130 interaction of water with the ground plane.
years. They provided the raw data for a series of
new plan drawings charting the shifting boundary 4. A Transitory Line. Drawings of the shoreline and
between land and water. These were paired with islands created an interesting scalar relationship:
another process, photographic documentation of the between the entire river and its estuary. One level
edge in the present. of detail could nest within an ever increasing larger
territory – such as an island nesting inside an
2. Off-site: Shoreline (refer to pages 146-149). The estuary, and an estuary nesting inside a river system
most dynamic shoreline was found to be at the and so on. All of the drawn work had focussed upon
confluence of the Mundoo and Goolwa Channels the linearity of the shoreline, but it took multiple lines
and was selected for further investigation. Another to articulate its thickness and transitory dimension.
sequence of plan drawings was undertaken using Extraneous information has been edited from the
aerial photography from 1949 until the present. drawings. At the estuary, drawings undertaken
Again, this involved constructing a close reading on-site and off-site share these concerns. The big
of the shoreline over time. A dynamic landscape drawing of the River Murray has taken several years
emerged, where islands and edges were constantly to complete. Lines11 are a way of mediating the on-
remade over time. But these drawings could only site and off-site encounters with a site. They are a
ever be an approximation of the reality of the forces device to track an underlying complexity of an edge.
acting on the shoreline. Another level of detail and Having travelled this line over the past 8 years and
complexity would be revealed by walking its edge. to have been confronted by its meanders, twists
and turns is to know something of its complexity. It
3. On-site: Shoreline (refer to pages 150-153). is the discrepancy between these alternative ways
Another sequence of drawn studies undertaken of constructing and experiencing the landscape
on-site revealed a different pace of change. These that fascinates. The drawing can never be a true
were fast drawings, undertaken in minutes; over depiction of reality. The phantom line depicting the
three hours a pencil line captured the incoming tide edge of the flood river is another reference to this
across the subtle topography of the ground. The underlying complexity discovered through mapping.
ground became animated by the planar surface of I am fascinated by the ‘to and fro’ or the zooming in
advancing water. This was a miniature landscape and out, of being on the ground and in the studio. It
appearing before me in seconds and minutes. Subtle is the reciprocity between the astringency of the line
ridges and crests appeared, while hollows receded in comparison to the river’s various lived realities

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 1-5) Museum Insel Hombroich. A network of paths links the dis-
persed museum, bringing the landscape, visitor and museum into
relationship.

4. 5.

that animate this process. These are the magical In some instances, new plantings have further
moments of mapping, revealing the significance of intensified the relationship between landscape and
being in the landscape and making the drawing. The architecture; especially where the wall of trees that
linearity of the drawn work is a pivotal device to start encircle the labyrinth pavilion have heightened the
to reveal a way of seeing the landscape. passage from inside to outside.

Walking Design studios that had been staged along the river
‘The physical involvement of walking creates a had taught me that buildings alone were too small to
receptiveness to the landscape. I walk on the land to sufficiently take on the scale of the floodplain. They
be woven into nature. Vertical trees and horizontal needed an infrastructural scale. Levee buildings,
hills. The character of a walk cannot be predicted. A for instance, bridged the scale of building and
walk is practical not theoretical’.12 infrastructure. Town survey grids also operated at an
infrastructural scale, marking the transition in scale
On the floodplain of the River Erft in northern between the river and an individual building. I had
Germany is a museum that has been integrated found a similar condition at Hombroich, where the
with its surrounding landscape. Museum Insel infrastructure of paths made sense of the site. But
Hombroich13 is surrounded by a dense cover of this was also an infrastructure of lightness, small and
vegetation, of beech trees, cypresses, plane trees yet large enough to act like a network across the
and yews. Unlike other museums, it has been built landscape – as the array of poles in The Lightning
in stages over a 15-year period – it is a growing Field that covered 1 kilometre of the desert floor.
museum. Its art collection is housed in buildings
that have been dispersed across the floodplain. Walking offered a strategic link between the various
The strategy of dispersal encourages visitors to strands of the research. Firstly, it had potential to
wander from building to building, thereby weaving form a level of infrastructure beyond the scope
together landscape and building through the of a building. To walk offered an engagement
act of walking. A network of paths provides the with the landscape that was not possible inside a
necessary infrastructure for wandering. Moving building, bringing the walker into contact with the
inside and outside brings art and the landscape into weather, the site and the land. I had in mind the
collaboration. In this ensemble, the network of paths type of contact with the weather and site that had
become significant, not just for circulation purposes, been discovered in the Water Theatre installation.
but to encourage a more fundamental understanding Secondly, walking could thus provide the link with the
of the museum in its setting. The network of paths is stated objectives outlined in policy documents that
without hierarchy, leaving the order and sequence desired a meaningful destination to raise educational
of a museum visit open. Each pavilion has been and public awareness of the wetlands’ ecology and
carefully set into its surroundings, whether on higher its cultural and natural heritage. Designing a walk
ground and visible, or concealed on the lower land. had become a genre of project that is not without

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 1. 2. 3.

local precedent. In Western Australia, Donaldson additional access from the water. These adjustments
and Warn have designed the Tree Top Walk14, a prepare the site for a further layer of smaller scale
project that takes delight in moving the visitor into the interventions.
canopies of ancient Tingle Trees. In the Grampians
in Victoria, the Pinnacle walk15 takes the visitor Transitory elements of the estuary landscape play
through narrow ravines next to cascading streams, a strategic role in determining how and where to
between rock crevices and onto mountain tops. The intervene. Drawn investigations revealed a thick
Pinnacle walk, like the others I have mentioned, is shoreline where water and land are constantly
free of signage or didactic messages. Instead, they shifting in relation to one another. Images from the
have been conceived and placed with the lightest of archive have shown that this is even more prolific
touches to bring the landscape to life. They are in the over time. Interventions explore ways to engage with
tradition of Alison and Peter Smithson’s notion of the the changing shoreline. As a design problem, this
minimal intervention referred to in chapter one.16 requires anticipation of what may or may not happen
in the future: it is to design for uncertainty. Tidal
Tidal Garden Garden is a transitory place, changing, adapting, and
Tidal Garden is a designed landscape, transforming evolving. Interventions are designed to reveal and
Wyndgate from a second into a third nature.17 It intensify the dynamic aspects of the site.
is a proposition to inhabit a dynamic landscape.
Uncertainty from future inundation and a mobile Siting
edge between land and water are seen as design Tidal Garden is conceived as three separate layers:
opportunities, rather than impediments. Tidal Garden the first is an infrastructural layer and reorganises
is conceived as a place that transforms over time, Wyndgate; a second layer of small scale buildings
from slow to fast: over hourly intervals, days, to is nested into the infrastructure; and the third is a
weeks, to seasons and decades – each visit would series of new planting programs. Collectively, they
be different to the next. transform Wyndgate into a Tidal Garden. Each of
these interventions has been derived from a close
Tidal Garden is a combination of new programs, reading of the site and its surrounding context as
buildings and landscape infrastructure, providing outlined below.
a ‘meaningful visitor destination to the mouth of
Australia’s great river and gateway to the Coorong’. Landscape Infrastructure: Drawn studies imagine
Programs have been developed in response to the site as a series of edges, comprised of lines:
key objectives outlined in management policy some permanent, others fading and reappearing,
documents.18 Presently, access is by road from others mobile. Three additional lines are layered
Goolwa. Infrastructural scale interventions re- onto these pre-existing conditions. The line is
organise the site, reorientating road access and a formal device: it enables me to move from a
site (description) towards to site (action). The

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1) The Pinnacles Walk, the Grampian Mountains, Victoria.
2) Tree Top Walk by Donaldson + Warn Architects, Western
Australia.
3) Walter De Maria, Las Vegas Piece, 1969

diagrammatic and abstract nature of the line has 1. Landscape Walk (3 kilometres)
an allegiance to the language of cartography and This is a transformation of the site’s topography
drawing. But it is through the projection of lines through the construction of a new ground-form. It is
onto the site that they become increasing layered constructed from the relocation of one year (880,000
with the lived complexity of the ground. They are cubic metres) of river sediment dredged from the
progressively layered and brought into existence mouth of the river (dredge is presently pumped into
through the act of design, (scale shift, testing, the ocean). It inverts a process of subtraction into
sections, model making) – this is what differentiates addition. Its form appropriates the levee and the river
my use of the line from those of the land artists19, meander. It is placed to not quite touch three wetland
who would often project lines (derived from edges. Its only direct contact with water would be in
cartography) onto the ground to mark the site. a 1:100 year flood, or from rising sea levels. As an
intervention, it is a provocation – a visual reminder of
Three lines are projected back onto the ground the consequences of failing to act.
surface. Each is conceived:
 as landscape infrastructure, capable of re- The landscape walk makes a new horizontal datum
organising the site of plus 8 metres (above the Australian height
 to be derived from a close reading of the datum) and this is derived from a sectional reading
surrounding landscape of the surrounding dune system. Even the slightest
 to establish clear rules to engage with the sites increase in elevation in the flat estuary terrain can
topography give an overview. This height will also make the walk
 to explore different ways of engaging with the exposed to the fierce southerly winds. Its profile
transitory aspects of the landscape allows for an elevated walk connecting the Goolwa
 to explore different ways of negotiating the and Mundoo Channels, terminating by the 1956 flood
shoreline level and an ephemeral wetland. Its meandering
plan form and sectional profile recalls the levee
They are conceived as landscape infrastructures, common in many river towns. Geo-textiles and
each is given an identity forged from an planting will assist its stabilisation – it is intended that
understanding of the estuary landscape. Through it will become grown-over with time; one side will be
their location and placement they make present maintained, the other left wild.
the lived complexity of the landscape. They are
developed as three different walks, of different length 2. Urban Walk (1.5 kilometres)
and duration. Walking encourages mobility, entwining Its decisive linearity echoes other human
the lived time of the walker with the other elements interventions on the island, such as the road grid
of transitory order already present in the site. The and survey grid and barrages. However, it differs
three walks are: from these in its carefully constructed relationship
to localised site conditions. It follows the subtle

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topography of the peninsular, articulates the rise and remaining timber boat building yards along the
fall of the ground across its length. It is positioned Murray. Their form and profile have allegiance to the
to pass between the most diverse and congested hull construction of boats rather than buildings. Each
moments of the site – a strategy of intensification. It building will be transported to site by barge and then
explores two ways of mediating the shoreline: firstly site assembled. These buildings have been designed
by deviating and running parallel to it, and secondly, to be dismantled should future circumstances require
bisecting it. Water terminates the urban line, creating their relocation. They extend the scatter of buildings
a walkscape that is altered daily, depending upon typified by the shack settlement.
the rise and fall of the tides. Its middle section
negotiates the adjacency of the shack settlement. In Land-form buildings: will provide accommodation
the evening it becomes a 1.5 kilometre line of light for field offices/experimental farm/and car-park.
across the lands surface. Ferries connect the urban They are conceived as spaces subtracted from the
walk to Goolwa. sectional profile of the landscape walk. Materials are
lightweight steel framing, sheet metal cladding and
The material of the walkway is a combination of in- perforated metal cladding. Their material allegiance
situ and pre-cast concrete with a crushed limestone is to the agricultural sheds of the island.
aggregate. Its surface, texture, finish and profile are
articulated to capture, channel, and store rain water Planting: a third layer of interventions
run-off. Planting program native: planting of 8000 saltwater
paperbarks (Melaleuca Haelstrom), a tree native to
3. Tidal Walk (16 kilometres). Hindmarsh Island, integrates an ongoing community
The most ephemeral and minimal of the driven program. Planting is organised on a grid
interventions: it is a found line, a shoreline exposed layout to articulate it as a garden. The growth time
during periods of low tidal levels. Two minimal of this paperbark forest will gradually transform the
bridges connect separate parts of shoreline into a open landscape.
continuous walking circuit. Walking has to be timed
to coincide with periods of low water. Several bird Planting program experimental: a field pattern of
hides are distributed along its length. It provides the small plots for experimental crop production. A
most remote of the three walks, bringing the walker program for researching dry land farming techniques.
into direct contact with birdlife, solitude and silence. It is anticipated that this will gradually expand across
the Wyndgate property.
Buildings: the second layer of interventions.
Boat-buildings: attached to the urban walk will Living with the River Murray
provide accommodation for exhibition, information, Tidal Garden is a place filled with time. It has been
education, shade, and public amenity. They are conceived to coincide with, and intensify, systems
fabricated from timber, and are to be made by the of transitory order discovered in the site: tidal

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cycles, and flood time. Overlayed onto this are channel and capture rainwater. Rather than program
slow and fast durations of time. Interventions are specific, spaces have a loose fit relationship to use.
seen as additional layers onto the existing situation Spaces are considered in relation to seasonal time –
– creating a density to the ground surface. They winter spaces and summer spaces. Building design
are transformative and re-organise the site without anticipates ways of conceiving the lived time of
destroying the site’s past. Tidal Garden will continue inhabitation with the external relationships of weather
to change over time, over days, years and centuries. and sunlight and the landscape.
Each element has been conceived in relation to
the ground, working with the subtle gradients of the An event is marked by the landscape walk. Its
topography, anticipating daily tidal variation, future volume registers a year of dredging the river’s
flooding and rising sea levels. mouth. Its elevation above the existing ground
minimises its contact with cycles of inundation.
The urban walk stretches out into the Goolwa Contact with water will be over long spans of time,
Channel. Coiled back upon itself, its topography and when water levels exceed 1:100-year levels. Should
sectional development anticipate the tidal range and predictions of rising sea level take place then the
future flood events. Its interaction with the fluctuating landscape walk will become an island, severed from
water levels creates a dynamic causeway that will Hindmarsh Island.
change daily: tidal levels concealing and revealing
its profile. Accessibility will be dependant upon the Regulation of the river attempted to control the
timing of the visitor. movement of the river; Tidal Garden attempts to
explore an alternative river of unpredictable levels.
A slower process of change is anticipated with the Over time, parts of the garden will be inaccessible.
saltwater paperbark forest. It explores the slowness Access will be dependant upon the timing of the
of growth time, where the open vistas across the visit. Uncertainty is seen as a design condition to be
peninsular will gradually be replaced by a dense embraced - a way of living with the river rather than
canopy of foliage. This will reinstate the indigenous against it.
vegetation that once covered the shores of the
island. Once the paperbarks come to maturity,
the open vistas between the Goolwa and Mundoo
Channels will exist only as a memory.

Position and orientation of the boat-buildings

anticipate diurnal time and seasonal change as
well as a range of damp to dry ground conditions.
Orientation is toward morning light, midday, or
afternoon light. Their external skins are detailed to

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A series of devices outlined below have been used ambitions are in opposition to those of the surveyors
throughout the project as a means of siting various who measured the river to control its flow. I, on the
elements of Tidal Garden. These devices contribute other hand, have done so to give freedom back to
to the design of the site. They can be seen as a the river. This is a kind of counter cartography that
catalogue of operations that contribute to the design seeks to free water by anticipating how it might
of the site – it is how relationships are structured move, enter into and engage the ground and its
between what the site has been, what it is now and spaces.
what it will become.

 Displacement: taking something from one place These devices are used with a further strategic
and relocating it to another location (dredge) connection in mind: to embrace different
communities up and down the river. This occurs
 Inversion: taking something found, but putting it to
at a number of levels and has motivated several
work for different ends (urban walk)
strategic decisions in the development of Tidal
 Transitoriness: consideration of the life of the Garden. Firstly, it provides a new programmatic
project (how tides are embraced, growth time, structure (experimental farm) that would provide for
etc) partnerships between the Ngarrindjeri people and
organisations involved in research and development
 Scale: always imagining a site in relationship to of dry land, sustainable land-use of the agricultural
wider landscape (mouth, island, estuary, river) land of the of the Murray-Darling Basin. Secondly,
the notion of construction and fabrication of the boat
 Layering: addition and accumulation of
buildings was conceived to connect to the dying
interventions without destroying what already
traditions of the timber boat building trades that still
exists (placing the three lines)
exist upstream in places such as Goolwa, Mannum
 Intensification (the causeway) and Echuca. Thirdly, the planting program is
conceived to be undertaken by the local LAP groups
 Ground: the datum that connects everything (equivalent to the Landcare organisation) to involve
(Tidal Garden) grass roots community participation to rehabilitate
the landscape through the proposed planting regime.
 Adjustments, reorientate, adjacencies (accepting
Collectively, these different communities would help
what is already present)
construct the ongoing life of Tidal Garden and weave
Orthogonal projection has been used constantly, it back into the social fabric of the river.
particularly the combination of plan and section
to map everything precisely to the terrain. Such
precision and careful placement mirrors the
measuring of the river by surveyors. However, my

160
Aerial photography, Murray Mouth

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Diagrams showing the three primary landscape
infrastructural elements that transform the site into Tidal
Garden.

Existing conditions with the position of the 1956 flood

shown in red line

162
Tidal Walk: a found line following the present shoreline of
the Mundoo Channel and the 1956 flood contour

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 Tidal Walk: removed from context

164
Location of dredging channel cut through the silt at the
Murray mouth since 2003.

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 One year of dredge (880,000 cubic metres) to be relocated
onto Hindmarsh Island. Landscape Walk, a new landform
made from the relocated dredge. Its plan form and profile
echo the river meander, levee bank and subtle folds in the
islands topography.

166
Overlay of the off-site shoreline drawings and shack
settlement.

167
 Urban Walk: a line echoing other human interventions onto
the lands surface such as the road grid. It is placed to pass
through the most congested part of the site.

168
Three walks / lines, three ways to inhabit the site.

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The next sequence of drawings track a range of explorations that
test and examine the opportunities of the three lines. Some have
been taken from my sketch journals, others from a collection of
studies on charette, cartridge paper. The diagrammatic nature of
the drawings acts a visual shorthand to explore what might be tak-
ing place in the project. This is where scale shift becomes a useful
tool to develop the design.

Above. Studies exploring the relationship of the three land-

scape infrastructures

Opposite. An early study of the urban walk passing from

shoreline to shoreline and between the shack settlement

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171
 Studies of the Landscape Walk

172
Studies of the Landscape Walk and how it interacts with the
existing site conditions.

173
 Studies of the Urban Walk (west) where it extends into the
water. It is positioned in close relation to the tides so that it
will always be above and below the water line – an intensifi-
cation of the processes discovered in the estuary.

174
Subtle moves can animate the flatness of the landscape.
Being aware of each move in relation to the wider land-
scape.

175
 Studies of the boat buildings

176
Studies of the boat buildings, layered skins, how each
works with the sites topography

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Preliminary test of a floating boat building

179
Design studies outlined on the previous pages helped evolve the
three landscape infrastructures. Each of the landscape infrastruc-
tures were tested in relationship to existing site conditions and
in relationship to further interventions and the development of
program. The plan sequence to follow reveals the three landscape
infrastructures and how these have provided an armature for ad-
ditional interventions.

Tidal Walk: a found edge

180
Existing Road Network

181
Existing Shack Settlement

182
Existing Dunes + Trees

183
 Tidal Walk

184
Existing Dredging

185
 Landscape Walk

186
Urban Walk

187
 Planting program: salt water paperbark trees

188
Planting program: crops, experimental farm

189
 Buildings

190
Comosite Plan: all of the layers.

191
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Tidal garden: aerial view

193
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Study of adjacent site conditions.

195
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Plan detail: Urban Walk (west)

Location Plan: Urban Walk

197
198
Sections: Urban Walk (west)

199
200
Sections: Urban Walk (west)

201
202
Sections: Urban Walk (west)

Elevation: Urban Walk (west)

203
204
Tidal Sequence: Urban Walk (west)

205
206
Plan detail: Urban Walk (east)

Location Plan: Urban Walk

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208
Sections: Urban Walk (east)

209
210
Sections: Urban Walk (east)

211
212
Axonometric: Urban Walk (east)

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Composite section: coordination of ground and tidal levels

215
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Perspective sequence: Urban Walk (east)

217
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Perspective sequence: Urban Walk (east)

219
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Perspective sequence: Urban Walk (east)

221
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Perspective sequence: Urban Walk (east)

223
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Perspective: Urban Walk

225
226
Perspective: Urban Walk (west)

227
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Perspective: Urban Walk (west)

229
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Boat building interior: Urban Walk (west)

231
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Flood sequence: low tide, Urban Walk (west)

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Flood sequence: high tide, Urban Walk (west)

235
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Flood sequence: 1956 flood level, Urban Walk (west)

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Conclusion 2. Site knowledge: Tidal Garden has provided a
The PhD commenced with the question: what are the laboratory in which I have been able to test the
consequences for a range of architectures of living architectural potential of site knowledge. The initial
with the River Murray – rather than living against the phase of the study involved the construction of
River Murray? knowledge about the river. Site knowledge, then,
Tidal Garden can be grouped into four responses. is considered to be the sum of investigations of the
1. Amphibious Architectures: This study of the Murray River undertaken for the duration of this
estuary has examined ways of inhabiting the shifting PhD. It has included a range of encounters with a
edge of land and water. Underlying this work river system, ranging from personal experience, the
has been a growing awareness of environmental archive, the act of drawing, meeting communities
histories, and their part in revealing patterns of flood along the river, and other disciplinary points of view.
and drought. The designed landscape encourages To operate on floodplains necessitates interaction
overlaps and adjacencies with larger evolving with knowledge beyond the scope of architecture’s
landscape processes. This has placed emphasis disciplinary boundaries. For me, insights from
on the life of the project over its completion. Living this process have helped transform the river from
with the river requires the architect to be receptive an unknown into something that is known. This
to the presence of water at a range of scales. Tidal experience recalls the writer Robert Macfarlane,
Garden has developed amphibious architectures whom I have referred to previously, especially when
for living with the Murray. They include landscape he writes: ‘To understand even a little about geology
infrastructures, planting programs and built gives you special spectacles through which to see
interventions. Amphibious architectures can be a landscape. They allow you to see back in time to
derived from, and designed with, the regeneration of worlds where rocks liquefy and seas petrify, where
a river system. Amphibious architectures: granite slops like porridge, basalt bubbles like stew,
and layers of limestone are folded as easily as
blankets’.20 If the PhD has done one thing, it has
 have a reciprocal relationship at the scale of a
given me an insight into the hidden processes that
room - a settlement - a river system
connect a river and its floodplain. But an architect’s
 exploit the material properties of water understanding of a river will differ from that of
the ecologist, the irrigator, the river engineer and
 are mapped closely and evocatively to the terrain author. While I have borrowed arguments from
these adjacent disciplines, they are transformed
 work with the ecological systems of the floodplain
when assimilated with my spatial intelligence.21 Site
 take delight in living as a verb knowledge equips me with a point of view, an ethos,
to be able to act.

238
3. On-site and off-site operations. Site knowledge is the floodplain do not exist, as these ecological
generated through on-site and off-site operations. processes being hotly debated are seldom seen to
On-site and off-site operations are in a reciprocal and overlap onto the urban communities that populate
dynamic relationship. This way of operating has been the floodplain. The town and the ecology of the river
derived from encounters with dynamic landscapes, still seem to me to be conceived by the broader
often beyond any equivalent architectural or urban community as two separate entities, not overlapping
scale. The literature review discussed the role of into one another. The PhD has revealed the lack of
site in the design process and outlined a series of overlap between ecology and the built environment
gaps occurring between site analysis and the design in rural communities. How a floodplain town interacts
process. On-site and off-site operations provide a with a river is a significant design challenge.
contribution to this area of architectural production. Site knowledge has given me an insight into the
As an approach, they bring the site investigation architectural and urban implications of living with the
into relationship with its inhabitation. It is through river. Over 8 years of travelling the Murray, I have yet
the act of drawing and imaging the site that these to encounter any other design professionals engaged
processes overlap. As Edward Robbins has stated, with the architectural and urban implications of living
‘drawing, today, is at the root of architecture. It is with the Murray.
the instrument through which architecture is most
often brought into virtual and actual existence’.22 I
would argue that to draw the site is to make the first
design decision. Drawing a site is to imagine it – to
bring it into existence. Selecting what to include is as
important as what to exclude from the drawing. Site
drawings therefore need to be designed – they are
never given.

4. Designing for uncertainty. During the PhD, I

have encountered many people who have perhaps
doubted and wondered why an architect would
be concerned with a river system. The floodplain
provides a potent example of the limitations of
disciplinary knowledge. Ecologists wonder at the
intricate complexity of the river; biologists, engineers,
and river managers are all concerned with some
aspect of what could be considered the nature of
the river. It is as if the towns that have urbanised

239
NOTES importance. The Coorong and the Lower Murray Lakes, Albert
and Alexandrina, together with the islands in the lakes were
designated as a wetland of international importance in 1985’. See
1. The 2nd Rotterdam Architecture Biennale was held in Coorong, and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert Ramsar Management
Rotterdam in May 2005. The work was exhibited in the Mare Plan, South Australian Department for Environment and Heritage,
Nostrum section of the Biennale in Las Palmas exhibition space. Adelaide, 2000.
The curatorial statement for Mare Nostrum stated that: ‘The 5. A barrage is ‘a construction across the mouth of a river that
Ancient Romans ruled the Mediterranean Sea, and expressed this prevents the entry of seawater; behind a barrage, the water is
by naming it Mare Nostrum – “Our Sea”. Nowadays, coastlines fresh’. Quoted in N Mackay and D Eastburn, The Murray, Murray-
all over the world are appropriated by travellers in search of Darling Basin Commission, Canberra, 1990, p. 356. The barrages
sun, sea and environment. Loaded with money and free time, at the Murray Estuary are the: Goolwa, Mundoo, Ewe Island, and
propelled onward by means of transport that are increasingly Tauwitchere.
rapid and ever cheaper, constantly online, via internet and mobile 6. Wentworth Group, Blueprint for a Living Continent: a way
phone, the tourists are the new colonizers of faraway coasts. forward from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, WWF
As they incessantly expand their dominion of leisure, they are Australia, 2002.
reducing the world’s seas to a modern-day Mare Nostrum’. Co- 7. ‘Another scientist, Robert Curry, has argued that the
curator C de Baan, ‘Mare Nostrum’ in C Janszen (ed) The Flood watershed (the area the river drains, its body, as it were) is the
2nd International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, International most appropriate unit for thinking about and dealing with nature’.
Biennale, Rotterdam, 2005, p. 68. The curator for the Australian Quoted in D Worster, The wealth of nature: environmental history
section of the Biennale was Professor Leon van Schaik. His and the ecological imagination, Oxford University Press, New
curatorial statement issued to the Australian participants stated: York, 1993, p. 124. This thinking is also discussed in relationship
‘Australia is the driest continent, the oldest and the flattest. Eighty to the River Murray in, D Connell, Water politics in the Murray-
per cent of its twenty million people live within one hundred Darling Basin, Federation Press, Annandale, 2007.
kilometres of the coast, in several major cities. These cities 8. Media release: Australian Government titled, Crucial
make huge demands on the water resources of the continent. Murray Mouth Land Protected, and states, ‘Crucial property of
Most water used is devoted to irrigation and an area as large international significance at the Murray Mouth has been secured
as Western Europe – the Murray Darling Basin – is at the threat by the State and Federal Governments so the area can be
from salination as consequence. I have commissioned architects better managed for conservation’ by Senator the Hon Robert
to examine the strip-densification of the East Coast, the Sydney- Hill, 10 August 2001, Department for Environment and Heritage,
Brisbane beach-city (Donovan Hill), the spread of low level Commonwealth of Australia.
holiday development around Port Philip Bay – Melbourne (Martyn 9. This is discussed in the: Coorong, and Lakes Alexandrina and
Hook), the invasion of Tasmania by people seeking solitude that Albert Ramsar Management Plan.
is no longer available on the mainland (Terroir), the mouth of 10. N Mackay and D Eastburn, The Murray, Murray-Darling Basin
the Murray Darling basin near Adelaide (Richard Black), and the Commission, Canberra, 1990, p. 61.
linear city of West Coast Perth, with the still isolated refuges from 11. Exhibition titled, Fred Williams; water, at McClelland Gallery +
development along this, the undeveloped shore (Adrian Iredale, Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, 12 December – 27 February, 2005.
Finn Pederson + Stephen Neille). We will show how Australia is 12. H Fulton, ‘Into a walk into nature’ J Kastner and B Wallis,
different – Sydney, Adelaide and Perth are not southern versions Land and environmental art, Phaidon, London, 1998, p. 242.
of European cities, they lie on the latitude that in the north hosts 13. I visited the museum at Hombroich in 1998 and 2005.
Rabat. Melbourne, the southern most city of any size, is on the On the second visit it was remarkable how the museum had
latitude of Lisbon. New approaches are needed.’ Guest curator evolved since my previous visit: several new buildings had been
statement, see L van Schaik, ’32000 Beaches’ in R Black and M constructed and the landscape had grown to consume some of
Hook, 32000 Beaches, Exhibition Catalogue, RMIT University the buildings. The museum has been published in several sources
Press, Melbourne, 2005, p. 10. that give an account of its evolving status. Particularly useful for
2. M Simons, The meeting of the waters: the Hindmarsh Island comparison are: P Rumpf, ‘With Hermes over the Island. Erwin
affair, Hodder Headline, Sydney, 2003. Heerich’s Pavilions at Hombroich’ in Daidalos, Architektur Kunst
3. These statistics were from a discussion with the town planning Kultur, No 26, 15 December 1987, pp. 102–113, and JP Kastner,
officer at Alexandrina Council in January 2005. ‘Stereometric Sanctuaries. New Pavilions on the Museum Island
4. Ramsar agreement ‘ In February 1971, at the town of Ramsar of Hombroich’, in Daidalos, Architektur Kunst Kultur, no 53, 15
in Iran, delegates from 18 countries and observers from a September 1994, pp. 68–77.
number of other countries and non-government organisations 14. Tree Top Walk in D Richards, L van Schaik and G London,
met because of concerns at the worldwide los of waterbirds Donaldson + Warn Crossing Midfield, Birkhäuser, Basel, 2000, pp.
and their wetland habitats. The result was the first international 52–63.
nature conservation treaty. And further, ‘Contracting parties to 15. The Pinnacles walk is near Halls Gap in the Grampians
the Ramsar Convention are obliged to nominate wetlands that Mountains, Victoria.
comply with the Convention’s criteria for wetlands of international 16. Alison and Peter Smithson linked the notion of the ‘Minimal

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Intervention’ to the unbuilt design for a twin bridge over the
Verbindungskanal, Berlin. ‘The twin bridges … are intended as the
lightest of touches to join the two banks by creepers that will climb
along their structure. The bridges, thus becoming both routes
and arbours, hint at the kind of minimal intervention, the starting
point of processes that could rescue other areas from slipping into
urban sadness’. A and P Smithson, The charged void: urbanism,
The Monacelli Press, Inc, New York, p. 324.
17. Third nature is used by John Dixon Hunt to differentiate
the design of the garden from the landscape of bridges, roads,
harbours fields, etc (second nature); see ‘Introduction: Reading
and Writing the Site’, in JD Hunt, Gardens and the picturesque:
studies in the history of landscape architecture, The MIT Press,
Cambridge, 1994, pp. 3–16.
18. Department for Environment and Heritage, Coorong, and
Lakes Alexandrina and Albert Ramsar Management Plan, South
Australian Department for Environment and Heritage, Adelaide,
2000.
19. Some notable examples where lines have been projected
onto the ground as part of a work include: Walter de Maria, for
instance, Las Vegas Piece, 1969; Denis Oppenheim, Time Line,
1968; and Richard Long, A Walk by All Roads and Lanes Touching
or Crossing an Imaginary Circle, 1977 – all in J Kastner and B
Wallis, Land and environmental art, Phaidon, London, 1998.
20. R Macfarlane, Mountains of the mind: a history of a
fascination, Granta Books, London, 2003, p. 43.
21. A term I attribute to my supervisor, used frequently by him
in lectures and throughout the reflective practice model of design
research. See L van Schaik, Spatial intelligence: new futures for
architecture, Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, 2008.
22. E Robbins, Why architects draw, The MIT Press, Cambridge,
1994, p. 29.

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 PhD diagram

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 CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSION - DESIGNING THE SITE

4. Conclusion - Designing the Site commonly included in strategic stages of landscape

‘But in reality, intuition is the condensation of vast infrastructure design. As an architectural problem,
prior experience; it is analysis compressed and the selection of a river system as site has called
crystallized ... It is the product of analytic processes upon a range of operating procedures capable of
being condensed to such a degree that its internal engaging a regional and continental scale – which
structure may elude even the person benefiting from has been beyond any equivalent architectural scale.
it ...’1
In the literature review I identified a field of concerns
The PhD commenced with the question: what are pivoting around site and its role within the design
the consequences for a range of architectures of process. I argued for an understanding of the noun
living with the River Murray – rather than living and verb definitions of site and the potential of their
against the River Murray? Over the last 100 years reciprocal relation to motivate action. The River
the Murray has transformed from a river into an Murray has consumed the last 8 years of my life.
irrigation canal. While this has been good for I have travelled its length, looked at it from many
agriculture this transformation has been detrimental different vantage points, traversing thousands of
to the health of the river. Now, with the river near kilometres in the process. The French landscape
collapse, ecologists have argued for a return to the architect Christophe Girot has noted that: ‘A designer
flow patterns that had once been a hallmark of the seldom belongs to the place in which he or she
Murray prior to regulation. This would mean varying is asked to intervene. How can outside designers
water levels artificially to replicate the cycles of acquire the understanding of a place that will
flood and drought now understood to be essential enable them to act wisely and knowledgeably’?2
components of Australia’s wetland ecology. While Girot’s question is poignant, perhaps a ubiquitous
the ecological benefits have been well documented, question that could be posed of almost every design
little has been mentioned about the consequences professional but, nonetheless, reflects my concerns
for those living on the floodplain. In section three, with the Murray. However, I would add to this
‘Living with the River Murray’, the research explored question the need to also understand how a place
new ways of inhabiting the floodplain compatible interacts with a larger context. I have spent the last
with its rehabilitation. Over the past 8 years, the 8 years working out how to relate to a river and its
river and its floodplain have been my laboratory to floodplain, and how such an understanding then
examine the role of site in the design process. It informs action. I now understand why an ecologist
has taken me into unfamiliar territory, encountering would suggest that ‘the watershed is the most
new landscapes and disciplinary knowledge beyond appropriate unit for thinking about and dealing with
architecture. A floodplain is a place where multiple nature’.3 In the process I have opened up a way of
disciplinary points of view can potentially intersect imaging a site at a range of scales and times, and at
and overlap: especially where urban systems many levels of engagement, from ecological, to the
confront fragile ecologies. Overlaps may well be political and the personal.
occurring between scientific disciplines, but I have
yet to discover any design professions engaged in The consequence of architectures for living with
the issues at a government or regional level. Clearly, the Murray is to consider how site knowledge
many only see the problems facing the Murray as a is generated and how it is used in the design
scientific and ecological problem. At one level, the process. Only then can it be possible to start living
PhD poses future engagement with communities that with the Murray. Earlier in this document I cited
do not presently consider living on a floodplain as a Raimund Abraham, who suggested that architecture
spatial or architectural problem. In the Netherlands, begins at the moment of intervention. I would
however, architects and landscape architects are argue otherwise, suggesting that the necessity of

243
understanding a location is the true beginning of Here, the overlap occurred where remote and near
architecture; only then is it possible to know how observation came into relationship. On-site and
and where to act. This PhD has provided me with off-site operations are in dynamic relationship - like
the tools for operating in dynamic contexts, for the swinging of a pendulum. This process shifts
designing architectures that are derived from and from a plancentric mode of engaging a site to one
work with the rehabilitation of a river system. The that implicates time into the site engagement, thus
true beginning of architecture is with the site – not bringing the past into relationship with the here and
an intervention. How and where to intervene in a now. The process also confronts scale as a condition
location are decisions that can be informed by site of encountering a place, by considering detail in
knowledge. Site knowledge is generated by on-site relationship to the overview. It shifts the notion of site
and off-site operations. I now refer to this process as from a static entity into a dynamic place with multiple
designing the site. These are the consequences of boundaries and edges.
living with the Murray, and the area in which my PhD
can contribute to an understanding of site and its Site Knowledge
influence upon the design process. On-site and off-site operations generate drawings.
Observed phenomena, personal experience and
Designing the Site data (generated by these operations) are translated
The PhD-diagram and notes below summarise my into drawings. This is where site knowledge is
understanding of site and its impact upon my design constructed. The act of drawing brings things into
process. The diagram is an attempt to reveal my relationship: near and far, 100 years and 24 hours.
design intelligence so that others can learn from it, Andrea Kahn has suggested that representation
but not replicate it. ‘is not about depicting reality, but about making
knowledge. For design, it is a mode of conceptual
On-site and off-site operations operation, a process of knowledge formation. More
On-site operations: include the walk, the journey, than simply amassing facts, figures, and impressions
photographic documentation, on-site drawing, of a given situation, the description and analyses
meetings with communities, timing of the site visit that designers produce actually generate the
… morning, afternoon, evening, and a site over 24 knowledge necessary to engage a given condition
hours. They generate intimate knowledge of the site. of a site’.4 Again, this reiterates the importance of
Off-site operations: include from the archive, pictorial drawing in the process of constructing noun and verb
collections, flood reports, flood diaries, different understandings of site. Because on-site and off-site
types of writing, maps, surveys, from the air, the site operations implicate scale and time as a condition
over 100 years. They generate an overview of the of approaching a site, they introduce specificity into
site, bringing aspects of the past to bear upon the the drawings that are produced. Drawings become
present. time specific, rather than out of time. And this is why
forms of representation such as ‘standard’ site plans
On-site and off-site operations are always in dynamic and topographic surveys are inadequate methods
relationship. To be on-site is to be aware of the off- of documenting a location. Such drawings miss the
site conditions. It is the architect’s role to be alert generative potential of imaging the site. Lines of my
to areas of overlap that may emerge through the drawings are charged with site knowledge. These
performance of these operations. In Tidal Garden, lines take time to materialise and rely upon the
the 3 minute drawings worked in this way. They accumulation of on-site and off-site operations.
were made in-situ while observing the incoming tide, The PhD diagram shows the accumulation of
but resonated with the overview of the river and its site knowledge as a topographic form. This form
flood events I had gained from remote observation. represents the sum of my site knowledge. It can

244
be read as thus: more distant projects, precedent, Designing the site commences with on-site and
personal experience, tools and techniques off-site operations. This marks the beginning of
are located in a lower strata at the base. Each the design process. Sites are not given; they need
successive project can be considered contributing to be designed. To design a site is to instigate a
another layer onto this topography. As more series of on-site and off-site operations. This is the
knowledge of a location is constructed, on-site and opposite of master planning where arbitrary forms
off-site operations tend to overlap and converge are projected onto the ground surface. Instead,
toward a moment of clarity. This moment is depicted the site is encountered from the ground up – and
by the crest of the topographic form. Movement remotely, combining strategic decision making
towards the crest involves drawings that start to with the particular nuance of a place. Drawing the
invent the site, by drawing it into existence (for site initiates the design process, selecting what is
instance, shoreline drawings of Tidal Garden), included and excluded from the drawing: the site
exploring its limits, how to weave additional things constructs the project.
into its surface, drawing the site as a series of
transitory edges. This is where the site starts to be
invented, imagined and brought to life. NOTES

To Site 1. S Halpern (2005), ‘The Moment of Truth?’, review of Blink: the power
of thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell Littel, Brown, and The
Moving upward, towards the crest of my diagram wisdom paradox: how your mind can grow stronger as your brain grows
suggests a point of clarity, where there is a older by Elkhonon Goldberg, Gotham Books, New York Review of Books,
convergence of site knowledge – at the moment of 28 April 2005, Vol LII, No. 7, p. 20.
2. C Girot, ‘Four trace concepts in landscape architecture’ in J Corner (ed),
intervention. This moment is defined by the act of Recovering landscape: essays in contemporary landscape architecture,
deciding how and where to intervene in a location. In Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1999, p. 60.
3. D Worster, The wealth of nature: environmental history and the
Tidal Garden this moment arrived with the strategy ecological imagination, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993, p. 124.
of three lines/walks to rehabilitate the site. The use 4. A Kahn, in Carol J. Burns and Andrea Kahn (eds), Site matters: design
concepts, histories, and strategies, Routledge, New York, 2005, p. 288.
of the line is derived from the drawing of the site
at various scales and is used as a formal device
to anchor a range of transitory processes and
new programmatic activity. This is the moment of
transition between the site as a noun to its definition
as a verb. Moving over the crest of the diagram
suggests a continuation of siting strategies that
may be considered additional layers to the project.
At Tidal Garden, this is where various smaller
scaled elements become nested within the primary
landscape infrastructure components.

Designing the site

In the literature review I tended to consider site and
design as two separate but connected processes.
Upon reflection, I now have a different insight into
their relationship. Every move and decision I make
is about the site: I design the site. Built interventions
are often secondary, and support the way in
which the site has been imagined and invented.

245
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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have many people to thank for their assistance and Stevenson from Albury Historical Society. At Went-
support. Firstly, my supervisor Professor Leon van worth: Leanne Watmuff, librarian at the Wentworth
Schaik has provided encouragement and insight- Regional Library, At Renmark: David Case, Town
ful critique when it was most needed. Michelle and Planner Renmark Paringa Council; Grant Whiteman
Oscar have lived with the PhD and have been my General Manager, Australian Landscape Trust, Man-
travel companions for thousands of kilometres along ager Riverland Operations, Calperum Station; Chris
the Murray. Michelle as a partner in practice, teach- Alderton Riverland Local Action Planning Case Study
ing and life has been a fantastic companion, offering Officer. At Hindmarsh Island: Tim Wilson and Russel
critique and encouragement as well as co-authoring Seaman, Department for Environment and Heritage
several design studios based along the Murray. The South Australia.
many guest critics at the GRC weekends, particularly
Ranulf Glanville. Student assistants, Jeffrey Liew, Mei Fong Ng,
Michelle MacMahon (mapping), Nor Azriah Hassan
Part of the PhD has filtered through into my teaching (modelling and exhibition), Nick Ashby (rihnomodel
practice. Here I thank my colleagues at RMIT, par- and renders).
ticularly Sand Helsel, Martyn Hook, Anna Johnson
and Brent Allpress. They have all helped shape and
refine the direction of the work. I am also grateful to
Anna Johnson for reading the draft manuscript and
her insightful comments. Dr Paul Sinclair was gener-
ous enough to share his research with me and the
student groups I have taught. Niki Kalms as project
manager for the Unused exhibition.

The architecture program and the School of Architec-

ture and Design at RMIT.

The production of this document would not have

been possible without the assistance of Solveig
Almo, who has finessed its layout and shown extra
ordinary commitment in the process. Sam Hunter as-
sisted with diagrams near the end.

Maps have shaped my understanding of the River

Murray. Merridy Lawler at the State Library of South
Australia, and Judy Schofield, at the State Library
of Victoria Australia have attended to every request,
providing valuable assistance. The Murray-Goulburn
Water Authority, at Tatura Victoria.

Several people in communities along the river went

out of their way to provide access to various collec-
tions and share with me their knowledge of the River
and its people. At Tallangatta: Beverly Stuart, Jeni-
fer Catherell, Harold Craig, Jerry Purvis and John

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