“I really enjoyed working with kids, but it wasn’t without its stress and I felt I wasn’t expressing myself creatively. I decided to look at what was available in design and found landscape architecture at UTS,” says Alex.
The UTS Landscape Architecture program is globally-renowned, having placed top 3 at the prestigious 2021 Barcelona Landscape Architecture Biennial. For Alex, it seemed the ideal fit.
Despite Alex having no prior design experience, he found his footing with relative ease – the UTS program allowed him to start with a six-month graduate certificate before deciding whether to progress to the graduate diploma, or even further to an industry-certified Masters. (UTS deliberately offers this program to students from a wide range of professional and academic backgrounds, as such diverse experiences offer significant value in the landscape space.)
The course is set up to really help guide you into the world of design, even if you’re new to it.
It’s an ongoing process – I’m continuously learning new things. I learn from my peers and from my lecturers.
They all provide unique insights.
Alex immersed himself in the study of everything from hydrology to Indigenous conceptions of Country. He was particularly fascinated by a mycology project in which students explored the interconnected relationships between fungi and other plants.
“We studied a fungi species in a particular environment and explored the conditions it needs for survival. We used a range of tools, like mapping software and CAD programs, to look at where those conditions could be found elsewhere,” he says.
From there, Alex and his partner designed a series of hessian sacks that could be filled with mulch that had been inoculated with the fungi and placed in riparian zones (land alongside a natural water source). Over time, the sacks would biodegrade and the fungi-inoculated mulch spreads through the surrounding environment and waterways, accelerating the regrowth of other species and helping to rehabilitate the landscape after severe bushfires.
Alex’s proposal included planting fungi along waterways to promote regrowth of multiple species and accelerate bushland regeneration after fires.
Alex’s project is just one example of how learnings from the UTS Landscape Architecture program can be applied to some of the broadest and most pressing challenges faced by humanity today, including climate change.
“Going into it, I had a pretty narrow scope in terms of my understanding of landscape architecture. I was drawn to community and green spaces, but I hadn’t extended my thinking beyond that,” he says.
“It ticks all the boxes for me – it combines analytical research, which I love, with creativity, which ultimately results in the formulation of science-based design.
“Studying Landscape Architecture at UTS has really opened my eyes to the connections, the interplay and the complexity of landscapes and designing with them.”
