Maps of the Month

March 31, 2016 Amalie Wright

Favourite map finds this month:

The incredible detailed maps that record the location, extent and severity of all bomb damage in London during the Blitz. See the pictures in this story.
This new map - also incredibly detailed - documents sites from Iceland's folk tales and places where you might spy elves. There's a push on to have a new national park declared to protect many of these sites. Read more here.

Four Slides, Four Minutes

March 31, 2016 Amalie Wright

Also Known As: Four Things That Made Me Who I Am.

Also Known As: Oh Right, That Explains A Lot.

As you may know, I sit on the National Council of the Australia Institute of Landscape Architects.

The current National Council first met at the end of last year, and our newly elected President, Daniel Bennett, had a great idea: at each of our face-to-face meetings, a few of us would do a small presentation to the group. We would each have four slides, and a maximum of four minutes. There were no other rules, other than we had to somehow introduce ourselves to the group.

A fortnight ago we met again in Geelong, and my number came up.

I decided not to show any landscape-y photos and not to talk about anything landscape-y that you couldn't already find out from my website.

Click here or on the title above to see what was revealed...

So You Think You Know Your Great Parks of the World... →

March 30, 2016 Amalie Wright

This fun online quiz from The Guardian will test your landscape / urban design chops: when street names and identifying labels are removed, can you identify the park, and which city it calls home?

There's no $200, but you can pass GO and play the game here.

Garden Stories

March 30, 2016 Amalie Wright

Claude Monet's house and garden at Giverny. Image: Michal Osmenda, via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence.

This month we enjoyed reading about:

a garden landscape designed for people living independently with autism;
the whys and wherefores about Australia's lack of deciduous trees; and
an upcoming documentary film exploring artist-created gardens.

Click the post title to read more.

Little People Play

March 29, 2016 Amalie Wright

Recently SBS television's Dateline programme ran a story on a Danish 'forest kindergarten', where kids are actively encouraged to run free, play with knives, climb high, explore fallen trees and more.

The show drew a huge audience response both here in Australia and overseas.

Click here to watch the episode.

In Seattle a man has been ordered to demolish part of a home in order to keep the crazy-ass playground he's built from recycled materials in the backyard.

Read the original article here.

Big People Play →

March 29, 2016 Amalie Wright

Earlier in the year, creative powerhouse Nicole Phillips and I had a fun day experimenting with concrete.

It will probably come as no surprise that I was keen to explore pattern and detail, and to see how different shapes and forms would interact with water.

Here's a little Instagram video of the most successful (and yes, it was made with the help of a humble egg carton).

We've just had Concrete Play Day #2, so stay tuned to see what emerges from the rubble this time 'round!