45 Park will set the new standard for urban living in Adelaide. Located opposite parkland and backing onto Linear Park in sought-after Gilberton, 45 Park will deliver superior design, quality and lifestyle amenities in a premium location. Working in conjunction with Tectvs, WAX has recently undertaken the landscape design for the 45 Park Display Suite. This resort styled landscape has been designed to enhance and reflect the surrounding built form and appeal to the aspirational values of the residents. Drawing on the design influences of water and fluid motion, an organic landscape spreads out from the building and draws inspiration and reference to the surrounding architecture and the riverine setting of the River Torrens..

WAX TURNS FIVE!

WAX directors Warwick Keates and Amanda Balmer commemorated their five year anniversary milestone last night with clients, friends and family at the Flinders University Gallery. It was a chance for WAX team members new and old to say a big thank you to those that have influenced and helped along the way, whilst continuing to forge the successful relationships that have seen WAX develop as one of Adelaide’s leading Landscape Architect practices.

The venue supplied the perfect synergy for WAX’s desire to connect art and landscape, with an exhibition titled ‘Received Moments’ that shared the work of Adelaide born photographer, Robert McFarlane. The photographs throughout the gallery highlighted some of Australia’s most memorable photographic images allowing all present a chance to quietly reflect their past collaborations with WAX. As alluded to by Warwick during a short speech, WAX has enjoyed the past challenges set upon them and the night was not only about reflection and memories but also a reminder of WAX’s enthusiastic and whole hearted approach to its future and the challenges that lay ahead.

From the team at WAX a huge thank you goes to those people who have made the journey so far possible, memorable, challenging, exciting and fun.

Community Garden Bus Tour

Following WAX Design’s engagement with Orlando Wines for their productive garden at Jacobs creek as well as the City of Burnsides Community Garden at Chapel Street, they felt the need to further their awareness on the subject of productive gardens. Timing could not have been better with October being the inaugural Kitchen Garden month, celebrating edible gardening in South Australia and a community gardens bus tour organised by the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources).

Matt Baida visited five community gardens across Adelaide’s CDB, gaining a wealth of knowledge along the way. Gardens he visited included Lochiel Park, Wynn Vale, Walyo, Glandore and Fern Avenue all of which are at varying stages in their development and productivity. No matter what stage the gardens were in all shared an enthusiastic group of members whose passion and commitment to gardening helped to create special places offering something to people of all ages. Tour organiser, Jo Staniforth, summed things up perfectly in saying “there is so much enthusiasm and excitement around community gardens. It’s good for your health and wellbeing, and community gardens provide a space for everyone to share and learn.”

South Australia has more than 40 community gardens around the state, to learn more visit,
www.communitygarden.org.au

Knowing, Growing and Eating Edible Native Plants

WAX team members Matt Baida and Corey Brown recently participated in a three part workshop based on knowing, growing and eating edible native plants. With less the 2% of pre-European vegetation remaining across the Adelaide Plains, the workshop, run by the South Australian Native Food Association (SANFA), aimed to promote and educate on the importance and cultural significance of native plant species in our landscape. With talks from Neville Bonny (former president of SANFA) and numerous local growers, Matt and Corey began to realise that native foods are making a slow climb up the dietary ladder of many Australians.
With local growers harbouring a passion for the benefits of growing and eating native plants and helping us to reconsider our food choices. There is a battle to introduce these products into the mainstream with a slow and steady approach seeing the public opinion on edible wild foods begin to shift to one of acceptance as they discover their uses in tasty recipes. Our growers, however, are not only aware of their great flavours but are also privy to their nutritional value. Whilst there is still a lot of research to be done into species such as Lemon Myrtle, Muntrie, Wattle Seed and the Quandong, the aboriginal people have known for some time the superior vitamin and mineral content. With edible native plants being adapted to our growing conditions and providing important links to South Australia’s remaining fragmented remnant vegetation, the future for our growers looks positive. Matt and Corey both unanimously agreed the highlight for the workshops were the tasting sessions, where they got to dig into dishes that included wattle seed pavlova with quandong topping, muntries berry jelly slice and lemon myrtle sausages, giving them a glimpse into the culinary possibilities of native plants. For further information please visit, http://www.sanativefoods.org.au/.

NAG Design Festival 2011

The New Architects and Graduates Group (NAG) and the Adelaide City Council have partnered to help rethink the way public space is used in Adelaide, through a design competition to design a shade structure in Bonython Park. WAX and sculptor Rick Clise, approached the project as a chance to generate and share ideas, in a collaborative, explorational process.

WAX Design's concept, XYLEM, was a celebration of the natural and the constructed. It was also an exploration of how light can be crafted to create shade, prospect and shelter. A stainless steel support structure appears to emerge from the ground plane with an artifical root system, which creates sculpted earth mounds and forms congregation areas. Rising up from the support system is the canopy and a series of inclined laser cut leaves that partially open, creating dramatic contrast of light and shade, whilst ensuring shelter is maintained. During rainfall the water captured from the canopy is funnelled down the structure and cascades through the structure, over the earth mounds and into a wetlands system. XYLEM is allegorical, representing the resilience of nature in the wake of industrial intervention. It combines the poetic and the functional, through light and structural elegance, to create beauty whilst satisfying basic human necessity for shade, prospect and shelter.

Congratulations to the winning design 'Flock', which can be seen along with all the other entries on the NAG Design Festival website.

http://nagdesignfestival.tumblr.com/

Mellor Park pencil forest playspace complete

In Adelaide's eastern suburbs nestled amongst the existing Eucalyptus trees, an organic and winding series of connected spaces provide opportunities for dynamic, interactive, passive and reflective play. WAX Design in conjunction with the City of Burnside utilise the key principles, adventure and naturalistic play in the upgrade of Mellor Park.
Play opportunities are created from a feature raised mound of artificial turf with talking tubes allowing communication and sound to be a part of play. Kids can weave amongst the pencil forest set within a pebble mulch, encouraging natural exploration, or get tangled in the climbing net that provides opportunities for more adventurous interaction.

WAX Design Play Space Wins International Accolade

Leading landscape architecture and garden design firm, WAX Design, has won a coveted International Play Association (IPA) Right to play Award of Excellence at the recent IPA World Conference. The award, one of eight given internationally and the only one awarded to an Australian entrant, was presented for their Hazelwood Park play space project, known as 'Wombat Waterhole', which was completed in August 2011.

Sense of community created for medium density housing residents

May saw the completion of the landscaping for Melrose Park aged housing development. WAX Design in conjunction with Energy Architecture looked to provide a design solution that created a sense of community, engagement and pride for the residents of this medium density SA Housing development.
Open semi private courtyards, shaded seating alcoves and communal areas offer the individual an opportunity to pause, converse and interact.
A native, low maintenance garden with an organic materials palate provides a durable and enduring landscape which links through to the mixed use car park and pedestrian access, bounded by swales and rain water storage.

State Recognition of Hazelwood Park Play Space

WAX Design and Ric McConaghy were the recipients of a LASA Award of Excellence for the Hazelwood Park Play Space. LASA (Landscape Association of South Australia) presented Warwick Keates and Amanda Balmer (pictured below) with the award in the Design of a Commercial Landscape ($100,000 - $500,000 Category) for 2011.
LCS (Landscape Construction Services) also received an award for the construction of the Hazelwood Park Play Space at the same awards ceremony signifying the broad success of the project.

Marryatville Primary School kids get their hands dirty.

‘The best and cheapest food is that which you grow in your own patch of dirt’ - Lolo Houbein. With rising food prices, concerns about food security and a push towards a more sustainable future, there has never been a better time to start growing your own food. Who better to instil this belief in than the future custodians of this planet, our children. WAX Design has been working in a volunteer capacity with Marryatville Primary School for the past eighteen months to produce a landscape master plan. The master plan aims to enhance amenity, aesthetic pleasure, and play value and teach the concept of sustainability.

Works undertaken so far include, the construction of the productive garden in collaboration with GRUBS, the school’s volunteers committee and the creation of the butterfly garden surrounding several class rooms, which is currently being planted out by the children.

WAX would like to acknowledge and thank Yates and Heynes Nursery for their support and generous donations.

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Better than (re)new

Readers of the Adelaide Review will have seen an interview with Matt Baida of WAX Design this April, entitled 'Better than (re)new'. His Master's project 'Time's Arrow' dealt with a number of issues around the impact of mining projects and the potential for creative output. Matt noted:

“Land art should not cost more if it is planned for from the start. The time for mining companies to measure their success by profit alone is past. They need to answer their responsibility to the environment as well.”

http://www.adelaidereview.com.au/article/672

Stunning Wall Revealed

The recent completion of a Pine Street garden design in Stirling has yielded come stunning results. WAX Design, Summit Landscape and Prospect Contractors combined to achieve the successful design and installation of the project. Most notably, the implementation of a gabion wall of basket range sandstone along the fringe of an existing rock outcrop has seen some striking results.

Courtyard Collaborative

WAX Design has successfully collaborated with the University of South Australia Match Studios and the Women and Children's Hospital Foundation for the design resolution of a hospital courtyard. Orchestrated by Studio Director Jane Andrews and WCHF Art's Coordinator Jill Newman, students beckoned from a variety of courses to focus on the design of the courtyard space with inspiration from WAX.

Rodney Owen Beames Award Success

Matt Baida of WAX Design has received the Rodney Owen Beames Award for his ‘Times Arrow’ project whilst at the University of Adelaide.


In presenting the award the judges made the following citation:

‘Matt's design for the rehabilitation of a copper mine at Kanmantoo in the Adelaide Hills demonstrated a sound knowledge of the principles of landscape remediation of ex-mining sites whilst also emphasising the ‘social’ remediation of the area.

His design philosophy was focused on entropy and the tension between culture and nature, with the title of his project The Arrow of Time reflecting the processes of thermodynamics.

Matt’s design embraced the remediation process of the site by visually showing and referencing the mining processes in different elements, acknowledging that mining did occur rather than trying to disguise it. This then allowed for the creative re use of the tailings and the mine pits for community and educational uses – something he termed social remediation.

The integration of land art, natural systems and technical ability in his design reflected a true understanding of landscape architecture as being a process of science versus art.

He also displayed how his design could be staged and implemented over many years to align with the long term remediation process, and any financial budgets that may drive the remediation’.

The citation was referenced from the AILA website:
http://www.aila.org.au/sa/beames/default.htm

Welcome Matt!

WAX Design would like to welcome Matt Baida to the company.
Matt is an award winning graduate in Landscape Architecture from the University of Adelaide having recently completed his Masters.
Welcome aboard!

Walkerville Terrace Upgrade Completed

Works have been completed on the upgrade of the Walkerville Terrace streetscape.WAX Design successfully collaborated with a number of parties including JPE Architects, the Town of Walkerville, Tonkin, Watpac and Dig It to achieve the goal of improving the overall appearance of Walkerville Terrace.

Hindmarsh Island Auction Home

WAX Design recently donated their time and expertise in garden design for a Charity Auction Home having been invited by the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation. The Auction home is located on the Marina, Hindmarsh Island and the hammer is set to fall on the 26th of February 2011.
Further Details on the property can be found at:

http://www.toop.com.au/fulldetails.asp?refid=LOT206HIN0A