Nature is vital to our very being. And yet, our current system continues to neglect it. And we continue to discount it in our conception of cities and the buildings that make up our cities. Nature is out there. We are over here. We are disconnected. Why?

How do we change our perspectives on ‘nature’? How do we cede space to it in an urban setting? How do we change how things are done?

With this book, we begin with an understanding of the importance of landscape. In doing so we seek to uncover some of the reasons why plants and landscapes are seemingly undervalued in the development paradigm. We seek to highlight their value, far beyond beautification and came up with ways to disrupt the status quo.

Landscape as Protagonist presents findings, essays and interviews that imagine landscape as the place to begin a built project, not a way to finish it. The book’s content is informed by a diverse group of people including landscape architects, architects, gardeners, Indigenous knowledge-holders, horticulturalists, property developers, writers, researchers and artists; addressing the problematic realities of trying to deliver meaningful landscapes in an urban setting.

Landscape as Protagonist includes Interviews with Thomas Doxiadis of internationally recognised architect and landscape architecture studio, doxiadis+; artist and architect Marjetica Potrč whose work focuses on community-based projects that demonstrate a concern for sustainability and participatory design; and acclaimed landscape designer, gardener and journalist, Dan Pearson. The publication also features essays by Bruce Pasoe, historian, researcher and author of the pivotal Dark Emu; Cameron Allan McKean, journalist, editor and writer; Katherine Sundermann, associate director at Melbourne- based architecture and urban design practice MGS Architects; Andrew Reynolds, landscape architect and urbanist; and Tanya Patrick, editor and writer specialising in science communication.