University of Canberra Building 1 Courtyard
An Australian biophilic sanctuary for the University of Canberra community.
Place Logic’s landscape team created the winning entry for UC’s Our Forgotten Courtyards design competition.
The brief called for a landscape design response that would reinvigorate and give new life to the underused, underwhelming Building 1 Courtyard; a large, mostly hardscaped space adjacent to various internal functions including the medical centre, a cafe and Student services that currently houses some exceptional and highly valued tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica).
The existing features, circulation, interfaces, internal functions, and solar conditions all informed the design outcome, and the proposal includes a planting palette consisting of several plants with traditional uses in Ngunnawal culture.
The competition entry also included the opportunity for a layered/suspended artwork with light filtering properties reminiscent of the tree fern fronds, reinforcing the idea of a canopy and biophilia.
