Patchwork Plains

Despite the Victorian Volcanic Plain being one of only 15 biodiversity hotspots in Australia, its natural temperate grasslands have been reduced to less than 1% of their pre-1788 area. This ecological decimation is due to the agricultural practices and short-sighted urbanization that followed European arrival. The result is Melbourne’s sprawl, which manifests little connection to its earlier landscape conditions.

Patchwork Plains aims to reintegrate native grasslands into the city by reconnecting surviving remnant patches using ecological corridors across a large-scale network in Melbourne’s western suburbs. By increasing the prevalence of the grasslands in the suburbs, a new suburban identity may be developed that increases human empathy for the ecology and generates a more ecologically and aesthetically diverse suburban fabric.

Patchwork Plains approaches grassland connection through three lenses: the emotional, the temporal and the spatial. Emotional connection connects the grasslands to and through their surrounding human community; explored through the creation of educational opportunities, increased human-grassland interactions, and new visual identities. Temporality embeds grassland genetic stock into the suburban environment. The transformation of anthropocentric suburban space to grassland-dominated space reconnects the remnants. Thus, the grassland corridors formed ntegrate the ecology holistically into our modern suburban framework, increasing the attachment between the city and its site.