Hello!
As we’re reminded it is winter already and we finally receive some rain, I find myself remembering how important it is to ‘connect with nature’. Days are shorter, colder, and there’s perhaps less opportunity for leisurely strolls outside (unless you don’t mind getting a bit wet). It’s the season for brisk walks, foggy rides, and if you’re lucky, yarns around a warm fire.
We frequently use the expression ‘connecting with nature’ in practice, often as a design principle, objective, or strategy. Landscape architects understand deeply the powerful, restorative effects simply by spending time in nature. Our nervous system becomes regulated, and our physiological and psychological health is nourished. Our minds expand too, and we have more creative potential. Time in nature reminds us that we are interconnected with the living world around us, and the consequential benefits to communities, and the planet, are significant.
In Japan, the therapeutic practice of ‘Shinrin-yoku’, also known as ‘forest bathing’, is considered preventative healthcare in Japan. The digital detox and sensory experience fosters a deeper and more intentional connection with nature, and ourselves. Another complementary term, ‘Yukkuri’, is used to emphasize ‘enjoying the moment’, apparently translating as ‘take it slowly’.
This is a reminder (myself included) to listen to our own advice. Spend more time in nature, and go unhurried, relaxed, and mindful.
Green Adelaide’s draft Urban Greening Strategy for Metropolitan Adelaide is out for consultation and AILA encourages members to participate in helping craft this important policy. AILA SA recently hosted an online roundtable and the feedback received will inform a consolidated response back to Green Adelaide.
There’s lots of good content in it, including importantly, acknowledgment of how urban greening enhances our daily connection with nature, and, highlighting the public health and well-being benefits from increased biodiverse green infrastructure. We understand that improving access to biodiverse green spaces, which replicate the complex stimulus we’d receive if we were in a natural environment, is critical to addressing many public health epidemics in our urban centres.
Jack Robinson, microbial ecologist and researcher in restoration genomics at Flinders University, takes it a step further in his recent interview with Landscape Australia. Continuing from his UN/EARTH talk on the science of co-evolution and symbiosis with our ‘invisible friends’, he suggests we should be designing for increased diversity of environmental microbiota. Industrial urbanisation has reduced and changed our exposure to microbes, ultimately having a negative effect on our immune systems and overall health. Microbiome-inspired green infrastructure (MIGI) aims to improve human immunoregulation, while enhancing the functionality of urban ecosystems and ‘microbially mediated ecosystem services’. Join Jake at the Nature Festival in September to learn about the science of ‘forest bathing’.
We are nature.
Finally, the AILA SA + NT Landscape Architecture Awards Night, 2024 edition, is almost upon us! Happening this Friday 21st June from 6pm at The Sanctuary, Adelaide Zoo, our ‘night of nights’ is sure to delight.
AILA’s awards program is a celebration of achievements by landscape architects while being highly important for the promotion of the profession. The awards night is also a chance to catch up with friends and peers, perhaps share in the joys and challenges of our day-to-day work, socialise, and strengthen the bonds of our local landscape architecture community.
As always, this year’s award entrants demonstrate the high quality, and vitally important work members are undertaking across a diverse discipline. Happy recipients of Awards of Excellence, Landscape Architecture Awards and Regional Achievement Awards will progress to the National Awards, to be held on Thursday 24th October at The Glasshouse in Melbourne.
We should be proud of the tangible and non-tangible project outcomes, and take a minute to celebrate the collective successes. Sometimes though, work-life can feel so fast-paced, right? ("Can you believe it’s almost July?"). So, savour the moment.
Lyndon Slavin
AILA SA Executive