Public landscapes are pivotal in the way communities, towns and cities are stitched together. They form both the container of our shared lives, and the threads that bind us as we live. It is, however, very important that such landscapes are owned by the people who inhabit them. More often than not, designers try and satisfy everyone, thereby satisfying no-one. My approach is to find a 'hook' specific to the site and design around it, rather than develop a style that is replicated elsewhere.
Sugarmill Park, Riverstone Crossing, Upper Coomera
Sugarmill Park sits at and represents the confluence of the site’s history from the 1870s and its storm-water capture and treatment network. These two themes are made manifest in the concrete pipe artwork and the landform of the park which marks the major hidden component of the park: The one megalitre storm-water treatment and catchment facility which sits four and half metres below the surface. Each side of the structure is imprinted with pictures and stories cast into the surface using form liners. These are either from the site's historical links to an early Queensland mill that stood there, or that of the site's important role to the water use and conservation within the estate. The excavated and surveyed ruins of the mill are reconstructed to the south of the pipe.
2011 (Duncan Gibbs @ Cardno for Stockland)
2011 (Duncan Gibbs @ Cardno for Stockland)
Estate Wall Riverstone Crossing, Upper Coomera
The estate abbreviation "RSX" spelt out in Morse using timber and machinery from an old arrowroot mill that once stood on the estate. The same Morse is again spelt out in the colour sequence of the wall panels and in coloured masonry of a few blockwork sections.
2010 (Duncan Gibbs @ Cardno for Stockland)
2010 (Duncan Gibbs @ Cardno for Stockland)
Elizabeth Healey Rest Area, Pyrmont
Flyout steps in stone and steel from a very old colonial sandstone wall.
1998 (Duncan Gibbs @ Oculus for Sydney City Council)
1998 (Duncan Gibbs @ Oculus for Sydney City Council)
Soundwall, Liverpool
Stationary movement at the appex of the intersection.
2000 - 2001 (Duncan Gibbs @ Sturt Associates for Liverpool City Council)
2000 - 2001 (Duncan Gibbs @ Sturt Associates for Liverpool City Council)
Blue Hills Wetland, Penrith
Rectilinear and serpentine geometries wind their way around a detention basin one thousand by six hundred metres in size forming blocks of restored ecology, paths through them and outdoor rooms with views.
2000 - 2001 (Duncan Gibbs @ Sturt Associates for Lensworth)
2000 - 2001 (Duncan Gibbs @ Sturt Associates for Lensworth)
Interpretive Signage Richardson’s Lookout, Warren Park Redevelopment Cooks River, Marrickville
A figure waiting to be read.
1998 (Duncan Gibbs @ Oculus for Marrickville City Council)
1998 (Duncan Gibbs @ Oculus for Marrickville City Council)
Shire Hall Beach Bluff, Mornington
A rough beach access track is recast as a staircase in the local red oxide sandstone and steel, stone and concrete lookout and seats form an asymmetric compass rose. The gait of the steps and landings are planned for maximum user comfort.
1993 (Duncan Gibbs for Mornington Shire Council)
1993 (Duncan Gibbs for Mornington Shire Council)
Otmoor Green Riverstone Crossing, Upper Coomera
Equal parts drainage reserve, park, landform in plants. A rigid grid of planting (rows of trees, blocks of groundcover and grass), eroded in parts and strong in others divides and organises a long, thin, dished landscape.
2012 (Duncan Gibbs @ Cardno for Stockland)
2012 (Duncan Gibbs @ Cardno for Stockland)
Tempe Wetlands/Land Reclamation, Tempe
Detention ponds next to an old rubbish tip. A series of roughly hewn geometries created a circulation system and a series of pocket parks and gravel plazas with the space. Revegetation works had to take into account the site's remediation including a two metre thick sandstone capping. Irrigation systems were designed to utilise waste water from a leachate treatment plant constructed as part of the site remediation.
2003 -2004 (Duncan Gibbs @ Sturt Associates for Marrickville City Council)
2003 -2004 (Duncan Gibbs @ Sturt Associates for Marrickville City Council)
Laxton Reserve, Dulwich Hill
Patterns , connections and programme in an old park reworked, remade and re-sequenced.
2001 (Duncan Gibbs @ Sturt Associates for Marrickville City Council)
2001 (Duncan Gibbs @ Sturt Associates for Marrickville City Council)
Sportsfields Riverstone Crossing, Upper Coomera
Two AFL ovals on an excavated soil profile in a newly created flood detention basin.
2009 (Duncan Gibbs @ Cardno for Stockland)
2009 (Duncan Gibbs @ Cardno for Stockland)
Drainage Reserve Stanhope Gardens, Newbury
Parts of a series of maps mesh to each other, legible individually on the ground, together form a linear park with its ancestry going back to the Boston Fens drainage system by Olmstead in the Nineteenth Century, itself a hybrid of engineering, landscape design and natural systems.
1998 (Duncan Gibbs @ Oculus for Landcom)
1998 (Duncan Gibbs @ Oculus for Landcom)
'Boy' Charlton Pool Competition Entry
The site of the pool occupies ground and shoreline that has only ever had one use in the history of Australia (including pre-settlement): Swimming. This makes the site somewhat unique in the context of post 1788 land use in urban Australia. This entry attempted to ascribe three new conditions (physical and phenomonological) to the site:
1. Consolidate the building mass to a much smaller envelope.
2. Open up the shoreline and landscape allowing a diversity of environments and textures to be experienced by the visitor, in turn revealing many of the fragments from previous and existing pools.
3. Present these fragments as the historical material of the site, juxtaposed against, as well as framed by the new structure.
1998 (Duncan Gibbs)
1. Consolidate the building mass to a much smaller envelope.
2. Open up the shoreline and landscape allowing a diversity of environments and textures to be experienced by the visitor, in turn revealing many of the fragments from previous and existing pools.
3. Present these fragments as the historical material of the site, juxtaposed against, as well as framed by the new structure.
1998 (Duncan Gibbs)
Interstitial Space Yarra River, Richmond
A tilt slab terrazzo shared cycle corridor with big windows and raised views out onto the water is inserted in the thin strip of ground between the South Eastern Freeway and the river.
2002 (Duncan Gibbs)
2002 (Duncan Gibbs)