VIC SCHOOLS GET MAKEOVER
12 Jun 2012
Innovative and contemporary award-winning landscape designer Richard Bellemo has worked his magic on two Victorian schools.
Richard Bellemo is an innovative and contemporary award-winning designer of strikingly beautiful gardens and landscapes. Richard predominantly draws his inspiration from the natural world to deliver gardens that complement the setting and offer practical outdoor spaces for clients to enjoy. Here, he has worked his magic on two Victorian schools.
St Macartan's Primary School, Mornington
For stage one at St Macartan’s Primary School, RB Landscapes transformed a 12x9-metre vacant parcel of land next to St Macartan’s veggie patch into a new interactive outdoor kitchen classroom space, aimed at giving students the opportunity to cultivate, cook and create into the future.
This project allows students to increase their involvement and understanding of self-sufficiency and sustainable practices. A wood-fired pizza oven grants students the experience of generating hot water in the rustic tradition of slow-combustion stove heaters.
Stage two involved a series of passive play spaces, garden-themed play areas, boardwalks made from saved and reclaimed timbers and a network of seasonal and permanent wetlands.
RB designed the softscape elements utilising native and indigenous plants that will attract native fauna species and link the school’s extensive stormwater catchment system through a series of seasonal and permanent wetlands. These wetlands will be integrated into the students’ science classes. Students will have the opportunity to nurture these habitats; to test and monitor water qualities and the animals and plants that will grow and thrive in them.
“It has been very satisfying to see the excitement in the children's faces when playing in these new outdoor spaces,” says Richard.
“In a recent meeting at St Macartan's students were asked: "What is your favourite area within the school?" One hundred per cent of students responded that it was the outdoor kitchen and passive play areas. Both elements were designed and installed by RB Landscapes.”
Project Particulars
Completion date: Stage 1 and 2 completed in January 2012
Location: Mornington, Victoria
Landscape designer and firm: Richard Bellemo of RB Landscapes Pty Ltd
Landscape contractor/builder: RB Landscapes Pty Ltd
List of products:
Stage 1 - Outdoor kitchen produce garden and greywater garden
Reclaimed steel tubes, local granite rock and sand, Castlemaine slate, second-hand red bricks, reclaimed floorboards and deckboards, steel I beams, RB Landscapes custom-built wood-fired oven, indigenous and exotic food plants.
Stage 2 - Wetlands and passive play areas
Site-specific rammed earth, local granetic sand, local granite rock, tree stumps from neighbouring property, plantation yellow stringybark and blackbutt decking, reclaimed picnic tables, indigenous and native plantings.
St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Crib Point
Richard Bellemo and the RB Landscapes team were excited at the opportunity to design an outdoor kitchen classroom, indigenous produce garden and wetland complex with an international mangrove research centre to complement the future landscape of St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School. Here, students can compare the results of the propagation mangrove growing, among the most southern-growing mangroves in the world, to those of students in a school in Indonesia.
RB Landscapes has created an interactive outdoor space where children can cultivate and grow their own produce and then cook a pizza in the RB Landscapes custom-built oven.
“This area provides students with an exciting outdoor space to appreciate sustainable living practices and interact in a natural outdoor space,” says Richard.
“New construction techniques using car tyres and suspended-earth benchtops have made this project very exciting and challenging.
“Our vision is for schools to have a hands-on sustainability precinct where ecological practices can be taught to students. Through the construction of these outdoor areas, students have the opportunity to collect and manage their own water, grow, cook and eat their own produce and get a clear, hands-on understanding of how the environment and nature works.
“We aim to assist schools to create a place where students can learn about the importance of biodiversity, energy, food, waste and water. By implementing a systematic approach through the curriculum to expose children to all elements of sustainability, we are teaching students to accept responsibility for their actions, helping to change attitudes to sustainability as these practices are transferred to home and the community. We believe one way to do this is through the implementation of a sustainability precinct.”
Project Particulars
Completion date: March 2012
Location: Crib Point, Victoria
Landscape designer and firm: Richard Bellemo of RB Landscapes Pty Ltd
Landscape contractor/builder: RB Landscapes Pty Ltd
List of products: Car tyres, suspended-earth benchtops, plantation yellow stringybark decking, local granite rocks, local granetic sand, saved structural timbers, steel I beams, indigenous and exotic food plants, mangrove research wetland area and hot house.
Richard Bellemo Landscapes
1209 Mt Dandenong Tourist Road, Kalorama Vic 3766
Ph: 03 8741 0301
Mobile: 0408 032 947
Fax: 03 9728 8957
Visit: www.rblandscapes.com.au