Outlandish: 2025 Australian Landscape Conference- A Reflection
By Hayley Freestun 23.04.2025
In March, my colleague and I had the pleasure of attending Outlandish, the 2025 Australian Landscape Conference (ALC) at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The conference brought together a diverse mix of leading landscape designers, planting experts, ecologists, artists, and other specialists from Australia and abroad. It offered a refreshing alternative to our regular Institute Conferences—focusing on bold ideas, immersive travel experiences, and thought-provoking forums that challenged and re-energised our practice.
Words like grounding, passion, intervention, planting design, materiality, landscape canvas, pollination, biodiversity, reuse, and recycle come to mind as we reflect on the conference. We left feeling deeply inspired—reminded of why we entered this profession, encouraged to honour the value of our everyday work, and eager to explore how we can keep creativity alive in the face of routine.
The conference concluded with a few key takeaways:
Plan for variance, not the mean.
Understand where we live.
Honour resilience and sustainability.
Attune to the rhythms of place and season—with a long view.
Speaker Highlights
Terremoto – ‘Test Plots’ and Quiet Interventions
The small landscape architecture firm based in California, Los Angles Terremoto shared a project called Test Plot, where they designate areas of ecologically “dead” public open space and encourage new life through subtle, regenerative planting. These plots create habitats with logs, wild plants, and naturally evolving vegetation—inviting insect and wildlife interactions.
Rather than imposing a formal aesthetic, the beauty of these plots emerges organically. They resemble simple, circular patches on the ground—unobtrusive, yet rich in purpose. Community members often volunteer to create and maintain these spaces, which fosters connection and care. Terremoto's work challenges the perception that bushland has no value, defending the land as it is and highlighting its inherent worth.
Sarah Price – Alchemy in the Garden – Creating beauty from the discarded and overlooked.
Sarah Price captivated us with her fine art background and her poetic approach to landscape as a living canvas. Her presentation felt like a performance—full of emotion, rhythm, and connection. She weaves artistry into every element of her design, working with local artisans and creatively reusing materials found onsite.
Sarah sees nature as a lesson in composition. She immerses herself in the environment—studying patterns of water flow, plant communities, and the shape of rocks and branches—moving between macro and micro perspectives. Her work reflects the subtle and extravagant gestures of nature, creating journeys that mirror the landscape’s inherent narrative.
One of her signature design elements is the garden rug—a small patch of recycled brick laid like a familiar textile within decomposed granite, turf, or pebbles. This detail adds warmth, intimacy, and a sense of belonging to the space. She always integrates a seat, a view, and a frame—ensuring her gardens are designed to be experienced from within.
https://www.sarahpricelandscapes.com/
In a future post, I’ll share highlights from the Melbourne City Garden Tour, where we visited some extraordinary private gardens and public spaces and spoke with the designers about their processes, challenges, and inspirations. When we spend so much time immersed in commercial projects and council requirements, it's refreshing to reconnect with the beauty and creativity found in smaller, more intimate spaces.
Image from Sarah Price Website: https://www.sarahpricelandscapes.com/ Eva Nemeth Copyright