Adam Nitschke: new alignments

In his role at Parks Victoria, Adam Nitschke is leading a number of masterplanning projects that focus on augmenting our experiences in national parks. Ricky Ricardo caught up with Adam at Parks Victoria's Melbourne office.

Adam Nitschke is Parks Victoria's Manager of Master Planning.

Adam Nitschke is Parks Victoria’s Manager of Master Planning.

Ricky Ricardo: Could you tell me about your role with Parks Victoria?

Adam Nitschke: My role is Manager of the Master Planning Branch. We produce masterplans for whole-of-park projects and precinct plans for significant subregions within urban, regional and national parks.

RR: And how did you get into that; what’s your background?

AN: I’m a landscape architect. I studied at Melbourne University. After graduating I got a job in a small architectural practice and then worked at the City of Boroondara and the City of Port Phillip, initially on design and planning projects. As the projects became larger and more complex, I worked with other landscape practices, as a project manager. At the City of Port Phillip I managed the St Kilda Foreshore Promenade project with Site Office, a number of masterplans for heritage gardens and even a few architectural projects.

About five years ago I accepted a position at Parks Victoria to develop masterplans for three new urban parks on Melbourne’s growth boundary at Merri Creek, Toolern Creek and Werribee. When they were completed, we commenced a masterplan for Kinglake National Park following the Black Saturday bushfires and then one for Point Nepean National Park with Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL). By that stage a little team had grown, preparing plans for parks such as Yarra Bend, Plenty Gorge, Cardinia and Frankston and, this year, Albert Park with Hansen Partnership.

On the back of Point Nepean and Kinglake (which were the first national park plans that I’d been involved with) I started working in the Grampians National Park, on fire and flood recovery projects and on a plan for the Grampians Peaks Trail. Most recently, we’ve been working on the Shipwreck Coast in south-west Victoria and in the Victorian Alps.

RR: Looking through your projects, each comprises a team of landscape architects (sometimes architects) from outside Parks Victoria. How are these teams appointed and what do they bring to the masterplanning process?

AN: We have two models. One is to use the skills of in-house landscape architects to prepare plans for projects of moderate complexity or where there’s a tyranny of distance. We’ll deliver projects in-house if it’s efficient and we’ve got the capacity. But for some of the larger projects, where specific technical expertise is required, or if we just want diversity and depth of experience, we’ll bring on an external team. I like to place the landscape architect in the lead role if possible as I believe we’re generally good project managers and collaborators. In this case we’ll prepare a project brief and take it to tender. A successful project starts with a good brief.

Precinct plan, Loch Ard Gorge. McGregor Coxall was engaged by Parks Victoria to lead a multidisciplinary team on the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan.

Precinct plan, Loch Ard Gorge. McGregor Coxall was engaged by Parks Victoria to lead a multidisciplinary team on the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan.

Image: McGregor Coxall

RR: Are there national or international precedents from which you take inspiration?

AN: Yes, there is a great precedent called the Norwegian National Tourist Routes project, which is relevant to the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan that we are preparing in collaboration with McGregor Coxall. It’s a tourist route along which there are a number of natural features. It effectively utilizes different architectural/landscape interventions to help define and curate the visitor’s experience and provide opportunities to better engage with the environment. And that’s very similar to the way in which we are repositioning the Great Ocean Road within the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan, where, at the moment, there is a fairly standard series of lookout structures and walks and they’re not really cutting it.

Norway is a very interesting precedent because it brings together the planning of a highway with the design of tourist destinations. With Shipwreck, we have taken that a step further to challenge and expand on the core function of the Great Ocean Road. Another precedent we’ve used is the work that Denton Corker Marshall has done at Stonehenge in the UK.

However, I get as much inspiration from people as I do from projects. One of the great things about my role is working closely with so many significant figures in the landscape architecture profession. On Point Nepean I worked with Kevin Taylor and the team at TCL and Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, which was fantastic.

RR: What was the vision behind the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan?

AN: The project brief was interesting and complex. It is a partnership project including Moyne Shire and Corangamite Shire that looks at all public land along that section of coast. Given the tourism significance of the Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge, we also included Tourism Victoria and have worked closely with the Office of the Victorian Government Architect’s Victorian Design Review Panel.

I wrote the brief seeking a bold vision that would reposition this stretch of coastline as world-class. At the moment it is widely acknowledged that for one of Victoria’s most popular parks, there are limited options for visitors. Mark Haycox and the team at McGregor Coxall have taken that a step further, pushing the client group with some big ideas around access and movement.

There are also issues with the clifftop infrastructure. Many of the boardwalks and lookouts were located twenty years ago when we didn’t have a good understanding of the geotechnical issues along that section of coast. We now understand where there are large caverns, sinkholes and all sorts of interesting erosive effects that require relocation of car parks, trails and lookouts.

So there were two main drivers: those immediate needs, but also a broader strategic masterplan that asks how this whole section of coast hangs together. Where should we invest in new facilities? The statistics are compelling. About 2.6 million visitors travel through the study area, but the average day visitor only stops at the Twelve Apostles for about forty minutes and spends about eighteen cents. Visitors take photos and leave, contributing nothing to the park. We’re looking at ways to diversify the experiences on offer, so it’s not just about rock stacks and photo opportunities but a → richer engagement with the hinterland, such as through food and wine. And by encouraging people to stay longer, even overnight, all of a sudden you turn what is currently an eighteen-cent spend into several hundred dollars. And that has significant benefits for the local and regional economies.

Concepts for the Loch Ard Gorge region as put forward by the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan.

Concepts for the Loch Ard Gorge region as put forward by the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan.

Image: Denton Corker Marshall

RR: Is it a difficult line to tread in the sense of potentially going too far and overdeveloping these areas? Do you risk encouraging the privatization of publicly owned land?

AN: This is a challenging part of the planning we’re doing. The masterplan is trying to identify opportunities for appropriate development to support a rich and engaging national park experience, which also helps to protect the environment that attracts people in the first place.

Development ranges from simple things like walking tracks, lookouts and transport stops (where you would provide an interchange for people to move between walking, cycling or catching a shuttle bus) to buildings that may provide places to eat and drink, or sleep. In the context of a national park, this should be very discreet, small-scale accommodation that is sensitively integrated into the landscape.

In areas like the Shipwreck Coast, there are great opportunities for development adjacent to the park. Corangamite Shire has recently rezoned private land to allow for potential tourism development, so that is where opportunities for accommodation lie.

But yes, in creating a masterplan for a national park we have to be very careful and measured about how we provide the context for private development.

The Grampians Peaks Trail Master Plan is another good example. We’re planning a long-distance walking trail, about 144 kilometres long, from the north to the south of the Grampians National Park. At the moment the only places to stay in the Grampians are at basic camping facilities. The masterplan suggests that if we want to create a really high-quality walking experience that’s going to match the walks in Tasmania or New Zealand, then we need to place hiker camps in the best scenic locations.

RR: Could you talk a little about Walk Victoria’s Icons project?

AN: Sure. Walk Victoria’s Icons is a portfolio of four walks, which Parks Victoria’s tourism branch is leading, and we are undertaking the masterplanning. The first of these was the Great Ocean Walk, which is reasonably well established now. The second is Grampians Peaks Trail. Falls to Hotham is the third, and the Coastal Wilderness Walk in East Gippsland the fourth.

The idea for Falls to Hotham is to create an iconic walking experience between Falls Creek and Mount Hotham. There are a number of existing routes but again they are pretty basic tracks and the current alignment, the Australian Alpine Walking Track, does not take in the most iconic route. This masterplan’s objective is to look at route options between these two destinations and ask, what is the best alignment? At this stage we’re looking at an option that potentially takes in Diamantina Spur and the Razorback to Mount Feathertop, which is a knockout walk, but it’s physically challenging. So how do we then curate an achievable walking experience through steep, rugged terrain that also appeals to a high-yield market? Support services, guided tours and a range of different accommodation options need to be considered.

Walkers navigate rocky terrain in the Grampians National Park.

Walkers navigate rocky terrain in the Grampians National Park.

Image: Parks Victoria

RR: And how do you actually identify the route? Is that done on the ground; is it done through aerial photography?

AN: Both. It’s tricky because masterplans are done at a strategic level.

RR: So it’s an indicative kind of line?

AN: It is on some levels, but we also do a lot of ground “truthing,” so we’ll go out and walk it. We utilize existing spatial data, existing management plans and information about natural and cultural values as well.

Sites for accommodation development are proposed quite tentatively in the masterplan because there is a separate process to review any proposals.

RR: What do you see as the future for landscape architects working in this field in Australia?

AN: At the rate the population is growing, and with all the pressures on our urban and national parks, there’s an increasing need for parks to perform on various levels and to remain relevant to new generations. While most people probably think national parks are where you go walking to get off the beaten track, there is actually quite a lot of infrastructure and facilities required to support that experience. I think there is an important role for landscape architects, to ensure these facilities are well-planned and beautiful pieces of design.

One of the things that I grapple with is that there’s actually a relatively small pool of highly experienced landscape architects currently working in this area. There are very specific processes that apply to national park planning. I believe it’s a gap in the market, and from a business development perspective there’s a real opportunity for practices to build specialist knowledge in this area.

Source

People

Published online: 31 Aug 2015
Words: Ricky Ray Ricardo
Images: Denton Corker Marshall, McGregor Coxall, Parks Victoria

Issue

Landscape Architecture Australia, February 2015

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