Even though we only spend two days out of the week going to class, our Landscape Architecture Design Studio class has made up for all the missing weekdays we’d normally spend at Uni. This class, worth double the amount of credits of a normal unit, is broken up into both studio/lecture time in the morning and for the past three weeks, the afternoons have involved field trips around Canberra. This has actually been a good way to attempt to get to know the city and its surroundings from a Landscape Architect’s point of view.
Prior to going on our first field trip, we were warned by our teacher that we would be going into brown snake territory (seen in adjacent picture...must avoid at all cost), so we would need to be fully prepared with snake proof boots and jeans…no matter what the weather. Greattt…Unfortunately I didn’t think to pack my work boots so I was kind of freaking out, thinking I would be attacked by a snake on the second week of my trip. She tried to convince us to buy a pair of gators or leather boots but we really didn’t have the money to spend on boots for an afternoon or two, and after talking to some people in class about our situation, they said that we’d be fine with just runners. I was a little more comforted when Alana mentioned she just wears her converse high tops and Toby said he’s never even seen a brown snake before. Thankfully, our first excursion would be brown-snake free so we were free to wear whatever we wanted, thongs (flip-flops) were discouraged.
So field trip day #1 rolled around and after a lecture in the morning, we arranged rides to get to our first destination at the Mt. Ainslie lookout. One thing we’ve noticed here that’s different about field trips back home is that virtually everybody has a car, so the need to arrange a bus for transportation is unnecessary. The class just decides on a place and a time to meet and hopefully nobody gets lost on the way. So we divvied up into our friendly classmates cars and all met back at the top of Mt. Ainslie to get our first entire view of Canberra.
View from Mt. Ainslie lookout
We were instructed to sketch what we saw. Or close our eyes and then draw what we thought we saw. Or take pictures and use them for sketching later. After attempting to sketch the gorgeous but overwhelming view in front of me, I looked down at my visual diary and saw a failed attempt at replicating an intricately planned city. My pictures barely even do it justice. Just as the heat was reaching an unbearable level, we hopped back into our cars and headed towards Parliament House. Like any capital city, Canberra is centered around Parliament, but there is also access to the turf roof, where citizens are then able to be above the government. This is where we stopped for another view of the city, looking directly back where we were standing on Mt. Ainslie.
Mandy, Marina, Me, & Dave at Parliament
On top of Parliament (Mt. Ainslie is that tall mountain in the background)
From this view, the symmetry of the city really stood out to me, with the rows of trees and roads radiating out from the central triangle. After a quick afternoon tea in the nicely air conditioned Queen’s Café, we were off again for our final stop. About 15 minutes later, I was completely disoriented from endless roundabouts, we were at what seemed to be the other side of Canberra, in Weston Park. This was a nicely treed park with a few play structures for kids, right beside the lake. From this location, we were looking onto the site for our design project. We also had a great view of the Arboretum and its surroundings. By this time, we were all pretty tired and found more interest in the curious black swans than the landscape around us. But we took some more pictures to keep the image in our heads and on our computers and finally drove back after a long day on top of mountains, Parliament and in the shade of Weston Park.
I was terrified he was gunna bite my toes off!
The next week we were prepared for finally entering brown snake territory (by prepared I mean, jeans and sneakers). Our afternoon adventure began at the Yarramundi Indigenous Arts Centre, where we were instantly sweating buckets in the middle of the afternoon. It didn’t help that the only jeans I brought are skinny, leaving my legs no room to breathe. Anyway, we were brought to a typical Australian grassland which borders one edge of our site for our project. I won’t bore you with the details of the grassland, but basically grasslands are very important ecosystems, the most endangered in the world and Landscape Architects are designing things that discourage their growth. Oops. There were also no brown snakes there. Thank God.
The next stop was at the International Arboretum. I was pretty excited to see what their Arboretum looked like, since Guelph is famous for theirs. This Arboretum is pretty new, plantings began in 2005. Their design goal is to have 100 Forests and 100 Gardens that are a blend of Australian native plants and other rare and endangered trees from around the world. From the top of the Arboretum, we enjoyed another spectacular view and walked through a Himalayan cedar forest to a cool barbeque/lookout area. This field trip was a little more relaxed than the first one, with one less stop and an early end to the day.
View from top of Arboretum
'Wide Brown Land' sculpture at Arboretum (Marina's beautiful picture...I couldn't seem to get the whole thing in my camera)
On our third week of school, we began our day by meeting at Geoscience Australia at 8:45am. On the way there, just when we didn’t think we could get more confused by this country, we literally drove around in circles, through about ten roundabouts, and ended up having no perception of where we were in the city. Thank goodness our fellow classmate Jared was behind the wheel, he only got lost once and we arrived safely at Geoscience, looking forward to learning about rocks!!! This may seem like something you learn about in grade 5, where they show you the different types of rocks, tell you how they form and then you go around and look at all the pretty rocks…but we’re in third year Uni, so ya know, we were expecting something a little more sophisticated and relating to our rock garden project. But we walk in and are first instructed to sit on the giant carpet in the room full of bright posters and cool rocks. Snake-free. After sitting through an elementary school lecture about rocks, being mildly entertained by getting to actually touch the fossils and pretty rocks, I think it’s safe to say that Geoscience was a nice place to see, but I learned nothing I wouldn’t be able to find on Google.
Our next stop was at the Museum (in ACTON!), where we were shown more rock specimens, but these ones were more specific examples of ones you’d find in Canberra, so this information could actually be helpful in our designs. By the end of this part of the trip, we were all starving and excited for our lunch break at the Australian National Botanic Gardens. This was a beautiful place to enjoy our lunches in the little café in the shade. Of course I brought my lunch but when I saw what looked like a delicious fancy Iced Capp arrive on someone else’s table, I realized that is definitely something I miss about Canada. Our cheap treats at Tim Hortons. What I would kill for an iced capp somedays…
This part of the trip was to take the opportunity to look at an actual rock garden, analyze what’s good about it, what’s not good about it. Some of its features, materials, and all that jazz. Take a look in the picture and try to note some of these for yourself…and if you don’t feel like actually thinking, just enjoy the pic :P
Ok, finally, on the last stop of the day, we actually saw our site! We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, sweating some more, and analyzing all that we could after another long day in Canberra. So far it’s pretty empty except for all the construction for a new bike path going in. So it’s up to us to design a National Rock Garden that features different specimens from all around Australia, also using native Australian vegetation. Somehow I feel like we have a disadvantage here. But, it’s in our nature to try our best to come up with the best designs, so I don’t think a little boulder will get in our way for this project. Us Canadians are gunna rock it.
As you can see (or read), school in Australia is definitely a little more hectic than back home. At first, we were baffled at the amount of trips we made in one day, but now we’re starting to expect it. I don’t see a field trip in the near future, but I think we’ve been through enough to last us a while.
Love,
Laura
Ps. Thanks to all of you who are reading, I know it’s rough to get through long posts like this, hope it’s interesting though!
