Lost Lands Found (Indigenous Garden) Bachelor of Architectural Design Architecture MADA Now 2022

Michaela Lee

My name is Michaela Lee, and I am a graduate student of the Bachelor Architectural Design, Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA). My project is called Rainbow Garden and is located at the Monash Aboriginal Garden, Clayton Campus, as well as the Jock Marshall Reserve. The garden design presents a religiously bound concept, combining Christian symbolism of the rainbow and Aboriginal cultural heritage, to identify and reflect the feeling of country through a unique design. Rainbow coloured paving forms a footpath through the project, connecting separate nodes together. The nodes make use of Aboriginal plants and the concept of weaving, to settle the project into the site and form a connection to the land. Meanwhile, the garden was to be considered the future train station development beside the site.

Rainbow garden

The design for the nodes is informed by characteristics of a native plant, called Lomandra Longifolia, which was used to create woven baskets for aboriginal people. The project takes inspiration from this technique of weaving, and proposes a woven wall on the North and West sides of the garden. This wall is used as an acoustic barrier to minimise sound from the street entering into the nodes. It will also prevent large groups of people from crossing through the garden and harming the vegetation. The eucalyptus pavilion and aromatherapy pavilion use woven material to construct the form, and oil collected from the eucalyptus leaves will be offered as medicine to heal the body. The eucalyptus nut shape pavilion sits on the north side of the node, situated close to the new train station, and designed to use recycle spotted gum as its main construction material.

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Danusha Gamage

Cristin Cortez

Ericka Neira Vega

Michaela Lee

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