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Papers by Fiona Harrisson
Representing Landscapes, 2019
A former red-brick housing commission house in the bay-side suburbs of Melbourne has been transfo... more A former red-brick housing commission house in the bay-side suburbs of Melbourne has been transformed by Mark Dymiotis to replicate traditional village Mediterranean practices of his heritage. For many years, people have come into the garden through the Council of Adult Education and the Open Garden scheme to learn wine making and bread baking and other traditional Greek—Mediterranean everyday food practices. Mark draws on his own heritage and the knowledge of older people, the migrants who brought these practices to this land, about which he has been researching, writing and teaching for over 20 years. The garden is a platform for teaching about healthy and aff ordable everyday dietary practices.
Decisions about design are invariably decisions about materials (Temple, 2011, p 50). Design educ... more Decisions about design are invariably decisions about materials (Temple, 2011, p 50). Design education seeks to mimic the design process in landscape architectural practice. Yet the educational process is fundamentally different because design ideas are rarely tested through building. Student learning, therefore, remains in the realm of abstraction: the representation of a design idea without translation into the actual material these ideas are intended to shape. Thinking through ideas at full scale off ers an alternative way to explore design learning so students understand the spatial, social and material consequences of their ideas. Working at the 1:1 scale gives them an insight into the implications of their design decisions and experience in working directly with the materials of their concern. It also off ers an opportunity to work one to one with each other and clients.
In this paper we draw on our experience of teaching in an undergraduate landscape architecture de... more In this paper we draw on our experience of teaching in an undergraduate landscape architecture design studio that aimed to test ways in which sustainability could be incorporated into design teaching. In the studio we pursued an approach to teaching that challenged students to think critically about many of the taken-for-granted assumptions about what sustainability could or should mean, and how this unfixed, critical thinking about sustainability might translate into design.
This paper presents a collaborative practice producing artists' books in the teaching of land... more This paper presents a collaborative practice producing artists' books in the teaching of landscape architectural design. The collaboration arose from a shared scepticism with conventional modes of representation, presentation and assessment; where the design of landscape occurs as an operation of digital terrain, printed onto paper and verbally presented for review. Artists' books, or books made as original works of art, offer an alternative method of working for both students and teachers. The paper is an inquiry into emerging methods of working for students, of teaching, and of collaborating, all of which centre on the role of artists' books as technique, process and object in the teaching of spatial practice. These ideas will be explored through a series of case studies that use artists' books in various ways to teach design, including the book as documenting site analysis, as a generator of design development, as a presentation tool, and the role of hybrid repres...
Time is integral to the design and perception of landscape architecture, yet it is often conceive... more Time is integral to the design and perception of landscape architecture, yet it is often conceived as a series of frozen presents, denying the importance of duration and flux within the discipline. Jeremy Till, an architectural critic and academic, cites times uncertainty, its lack of essence, as framing the difficulty of reconciling time within architecture (2009). This, he argues in Architecture Depends, is due to architectures preciousness admitting contingency within its processes. Landscape architecture has a different relationship with time which is claimed as inherently core to the discipline. However, its representation and documentation does not always demonstrate this; emphasis is given to producing drawings which show frozen moments. In landscape practice, time must be central, not peripheral to design thinking and making. Therefore, in students learning, time must become central rather than peripheral to their practice. This paper reflects on ongoing collaborative teachi...
Live projects engage with real communities and are an increasing mode of practice within universi... more Live projects engage with real communities and are an increasing mode of practice within university design studio teaching. Such projects reflect a growing social and ethical commitment to expand the role of design education beyond the academy. The Live Projects collection of essays represents a diverse group of case-studies of university-led live design projects, gathered into a critical mass of design research that sits between design, social science and building. The focus is on a range of live projects as the vehicle for describing the aspirations, rationale, outcomes, and ultimately speculating on the effectiveness, of this specific teaching model. The case-studies offer a range of local, national and international examples selected to act as benchmarks or critical inspirations for the further development of successful models of design action, and to provide discussion on live project models within the university setting.
International Journal of Art & Design Education, 2020
Journal of Australian Studies, 2003
... The map no longer played the role of orientation; it was an expression of personal experience... more ... The map no longer played the role of orientation; it was an expression of personal experience. This technique of mapping called 'psycogeography' critiqued the rational idea of the city by inserting the subject into the making of the maps. ...
She is also a gardener and design consultant on public projects and private gardens.
This paper presents a collaborative practice producing artists’ books in the teaching of landscap... more This paper presents a collaborative practice producing artists’ books in the teaching of landscape architectural design. The collaboration arose from a shared scepticism with conventional modes of representation, presentation and assessemnt; where the design of landscape occurs as an operation of digital terrain, printed onto paper and verbally presented for review. Artists’ books, or books made as original works of art, offer an alternative method of working for both students and teachers. The paper is an inquiry into emerging methods of working for students, of teaching, and of collaborating, all of which centre on the role of artists’ books as technique, process and object in the teaching of spatial practice. These ideas will be explored through a series of case studies that use artists’ books in various ways to teach design, including the book as documenting site analysis, as a generator of design development, as a presentation tool, and the role of hybrid representation. This paper proposes that artists’ books offer a lens through which architectural and landscape architectural representation may be examined and critiqued. Artists’ books offer a complementary representation to be explored as a new means of investigating spatial interpretations and propositions in three-dimensional form.
Representing Landscapes, 2019
A former red-brick housing commission house in the bay-side suburbs of Melbourne has been transfo... more A former red-brick housing commission house in the bay-side suburbs of Melbourne has been transformed by Mark Dymiotis to replicate traditional village Mediterranean practices of his heritage. For many years, people have come into the garden through the Council of Adult Education and the Open Garden scheme to learn wine making and bread baking and other traditional Greek—Mediterranean everyday food practices. Mark draws on his own heritage and the knowledge of older people, the migrants who brought these practices to this land, about which he has been researching, writing and teaching for over 20 years. The garden is a platform for teaching about healthy and aff ordable everyday dietary practices.
Decisions about design are invariably decisions about materials (Temple, 2011, p 50). Design educ... more Decisions about design are invariably decisions about materials (Temple, 2011, p 50). Design education seeks to mimic the design process in landscape architectural practice. Yet the educational process is fundamentally different because design ideas are rarely tested through building. Student learning, therefore, remains in the realm of abstraction: the representation of a design idea without translation into the actual material these ideas are intended to shape. Thinking through ideas at full scale off ers an alternative way to explore design learning so students understand the spatial, social and material consequences of their ideas. Working at the 1:1 scale gives them an insight into the implications of their design decisions and experience in working directly with the materials of their concern. It also off ers an opportunity to work one to one with each other and clients.
In this paper we draw on our experience of teaching in an undergraduate landscape architecture de... more In this paper we draw on our experience of teaching in an undergraduate landscape architecture design studio that aimed to test ways in which sustainability could be incorporated into design teaching. In the studio we pursued an approach to teaching that challenged students to think critically about many of the taken-for-granted assumptions about what sustainability could or should mean, and how this unfixed, critical thinking about sustainability might translate into design.
This paper presents a collaborative practice producing artists' books in the teaching of land... more This paper presents a collaborative practice producing artists' books in the teaching of landscape architectural design. The collaboration arose from a shared scepticism with conventional modes of representation, presentation and assessment; where the design of landscape occurs as an operation of digital terrain, printed onto paper and verbally presented for review. Artists' books, or books made as original works of art, offer an alternative method of working for both students and teachers. The paper is an inquiry into emerging methods of working for students, of teaching, and of collaborating, all of which centre on the role of artists' books as technique, process and object in the teaching of spatial practice. These ideas will be explored through a series of case studies that use artists' books in various ways to teach design, including the book as documenting site analysis, as a generator of design development, as a presentation tool, and the role of hybrid repres...
Time is integral to the design and perception of landscape architecture, yet it is often conceive... more Time is integral to the design and perception of landscape architecture, yet it is often conceived as a series of frozen presents, denying the importance of duration and flux within the discipline. Jeremy Till, an architectural critic and academic, cites times uncertainty, its lack of essence, as framing the difficulty of reconciling time within architecture (2009). This, he argues in Architecture Depends, is due to architectures preciousness admitting contingency within its processes. Landscape architecture has a different relationship with time which is claimed as inherently core to the discipline. However, its representation and documentation does not always demonstrate this; emphasis is given to producing drawings which show frozen moments. In landscape practice, time must be central, not peripheral to design thinking and making. Therefore, in students learning, time must become central rather than peripheral to their practice. This paper reflects on ongoing collaborative teachi...
Live projects engage with real communities and are an increasing mode of practice within universi... more Live projects engage with real communities and are an increasing mode of practice within university design studio teaching. Such projects reflect a growing social and ethical commitment to expand the role of design education beyond the academy. The Live Projects collection of essays represents a diverse group of case-studies of university-led live design projects, gathered into a critical mass of design research that sits between design, social science and building. The focus is on a range of live projects as the vehicle for describing the aspirations, rationale, outcomes, and ultimately speculating on the effectiveness, of this specific teaching model. The case-studies offer a range of local, national and international examples selected to act as benchmarks or critical inspirations for the further development of successful models of design action, and to provide discussion on live project models within the university setting.
International Journal of Art & Design Education, 2020
Journal of Australian Studies, 2003
... The map no longer played the role of orientation; it was an expression of personal experience... more ... The map no longer played the role of orientation; it was an expression of personal experience. This technique of mapping called 'psycogeography' critiqued the rational idea of the city by inserting the subject into the making of the maps. ...
She is also a gardener and design consultant on public projects and private gardens.
This paper presents a collaborative practice producing artists’ books in the teaching of landscap... more This paper presents a collaborative practice producing artists’ books in the teaching of landscape architectural design. The collaboration arose from a shared scepticism with conventional modes of representation, presentation and assessemnt; where the design of landscape occurs as an operation of digital terrain, printed onto paper and verbally presented for review. Artists’ books, or books made as original works of art, offer an alternative method of working for both students and teachers. The paper is an inquiry into emerging methods of working for students, of teaching, and of collaborating, all of which centre on the role of artists’ books as technique, process and object in the teaching of spatial practice. These ideas will be explored through a series of case studies that use artists’ books in various ways to teach design, including the book as documenting site analysis, as a generator of design development, as a presentation tool, and the role of hybrid representation. This paper proposes that artists’ books offer a lens through which architectural and landscape architectural representation may be examined and critiqued. Artists’ books offer a complementary representation to be explored as a new means of investigating spatial interpretations and propositions in three-dimensional form.