Turning up the Heat

Reflecting on a decade of teaching landscape climate design.

Authors

  • Wendy Walls Melbourne School of Design, Architecture Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Australia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6456-8186
  • Jillian Walliss Melbourne School of Design, Architecture Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Australia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9812-4383

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34900/lr.v21i2.1303

Keywords:

design pedagogy, landscape architecture, digital, AI, climate design

Abstract

When a landscape digital design practice emerged in the 2000s, it offered an unprecedented ability to engage with invisible atmospheric conditions. With big data and new software tools, dynamic systems could be integrated directly into design processes. Since 2015, the University of Melbourne landscape programme has explored these new design potentials in studio and electives focused on heat. The same decade has seen deeper acceptance of the climate crisis, more accessible and extensive data sets and more advanced software, yet student outcomes are no more sophisticated or innovative. Reflecting education and research practice, and drawing on student work and critical theory, this paper discusses conceptual difficulties in engaging with non‑linear digital design processes. Interest in atmospheric theoretical framings and technological applications has been replaced by passive solutionism and linear design thinking, or ‘problem-solving’. Centrally, conceptions of simulation as offering an understanding of atmospheric behaviours have shifted to a belief in control; an attitude mirrored in practice with problematic results. As the AI era begins, the implications for landscape architecture practice are critical. The increasing reliance on technology to accurately model ‘reality’ allows complex algorithms to decide the future of cities, diminishing, if not erasing, the role of creativity and design.

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Author Biography

Jillian Walliss, Melbourne School of Design, Architecture Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Australia

Jillian is interested in the relationship between theory, culture, and contemporary design practice. She works across multiple platforms including digital media, exhibition and festival curation, guest editing of books and journals, along with writing for a wide range of academic and professional journals. Her research is characterised by strong links to design practice. The research book Landscape Architecture and Digital Technologies: Reconceptualising Design and Making (Routledge:2016) involved eleven international design practices and academics from the GSD (Harvard), the University of Toronto, ETH Zurich, the University of Virginia, and the University of Pennsylvania. Co-authored with Heike Rahmann, the award-winning book has been critically acclaimed by practice and academia. In 2020 she co-edited The Big Asian Book of Landscape Architecture (Jovis) which is considered ground-breaking for its innovative theorising of Asian perspectives of nature, design, and urbanism. In 2023 she co-curated (with Heike Rahmann) the Landscape Architecture as Changemakers project which was exhibited as part of Melbourne Design Week and travelled to Tokyo's Kudan House. This exhibition works with audio-visual media and cross-cultural reflections to rethink the way that Australian and Japanese landscape architecture is understood and presented. Jillian was co-creative director of the International Festival of Landscape Architecture The Park and the Square' held in Melbourne in October 2019. As part of this role, she was instrumental in developing the Future Park Design Ideas competition which explored new open space futures for Melbourne 2050.

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Published

28-10-2025

How to Cite

Walls, W., & Walliss, J. (2025). Turning up the Heat: Reflecting on a decade of teaching landscape climate design . Landscape Review, 21(2), 46–57. https://doi.org/10.34900/lr.v21i2.1303

Issue

Vol. 21 No. 2 (2025): Heat!

Section

Research-Informed Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Wendy Walls, Jillian Walliss

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