As a city renowned for its activated outdoor public spaces Brisbane is set to host the inaugural Forecast Festival of Landscape Architecture, a pioneering event exploring the ‘how’ behind the design and governance of landscapes across cities, public spaces and natural environments.

Above: Perry Lethlean director of Taylor Cullity Lethlean will speak at Forecast. Image Australian Garden Stage 2 (photo by John Gollings)

Above: Andy Sharp Director of Properties Facilities and Development at Curtin University will Speak at Forecast. Andy is charged with bringing to life the Greater Curtin project (pictured).

The October 16 to 18 festival presented by the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) will offer an engaging program of 27 speakers including Perry Lethlean director of acclaimed landscape architecture and design firm TCL and renowned US landscape architect and innovator in the construction of regenerative landscapes, Julie Bargmann.

Festival creative directors Diana Snape and Sharon Mackay say Forecast will bring together architecture professionals, traffic engineers and public sector city planners in an event that also aims to celebrate landscape architects’ collaborative work processes.

Above: International Speaker Julie Bargmann’s founded D.I.R.T Studio in 1992. Project URBN Dry Dock No. 1 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo: from D.I.R.T. Studio)

Mackay says the ability to work “intuitively, strategically and systematically” exemplifies why landscape architects are set to lead new approaches to collaborative practice.

“Many of the issues that landscape architects grapple with have never been bound by site, but deal with complex networks such as biodiversity and green infrastructure.

“One of the sessions in the program – Creative Journeys: Landscape and Collaboration – was specifically put together in order to discuss this issue and to understand, from the point of view of landscape architects working in diverse practices, how their projects and practices have developed through collaborations.”

Above: Perry Lethlean director of Taylor Cullity Lethlean will speak at Forecast. Adelaide Airport (photo by Ben Wrigley) Project a collaboration between Woodhead Architects, Dryden Crute Design, Bluebottle.

A variety of AILA’s members will be on hand to discuss their views during the festival, a move that Snape and Mackay hope will “re-imagine” the way landscape architects meet and celebrate the profession, share stories and learn through discourse and debate.

Above: Forecast Creative Directors. L-R: Di Snape, Dr Catherin Bull AM and Sharon Mackay (Photo: Orion Zuyderhoff-Gray)

The festival will predominantly be hosted at South Brisbane’s State Library of Queensland (SLQ) with highlights to include a hub designed by landscape architects Tract Consultants emphasising Brisbane’s striking natural assets and Forecast’s thought-building intentions, a free public exhibition showcasing the works of prominent landscape and architecture photographers, a Come Back to My Place site seeing tour and the National Landscape Architecture Awards dinner.

“We are interested in giving the profession, through the festival program, the opportunity to get together, celebrate where we are now and to set (the) agenda for the future,” Mackay says.

Forecast Festival
Forecast.aila.org.au