International Arboretum + Gardens
Status: Competition Winner
Our stage 1 Winning Entry for the Canberra International Arboretum and Gardens was recognised for its great depth of content. The aim of the design, for a 250 hectare site overlooking Lake Burley Griffin, is to reveal the cultural significance of an arboretum developed in the arid Australian Continent.
The proposal adds a fire axis to the water axis and land axis in the spirit of the Griffin legacy and engages the temporal cycle through water, fire and organic growth.
The identity of the scheme is characterised by how it integrates a number of key ‘events’ and ‘actions’ of social significance into an innovative program of human activity. The form and structure of the site is shaped in relation to the cycles of time marked out by water, fire and organic growth, so as to create an enduring landscape image of the developing character of Australian culture.
The scheme seeks to answer the question of what it means to build an Arboretum and Gardens on a harsh continent, and how such action should address the issue of global climate change.
