Landscape Architecture Australia — February 2018

four design lecturers from China for three months the
following year. This program facilitated some meaningful
intercultural exchanges and operated successfully until the
dean retired. Similar student exchanges occurred with the
University of Western Australia and RMIT University.
Interestingly, the following dean at QUT had a strong interest
in Lesotho, Africa, and funded biannual workshops on
infrastructure projects in the field in Lesotho. As the wider
faculty included engineers and construction managers,
only a few landscape architects participated in this
international venture.

At QUT, a growing connection with the landscape students at
the Universität für Bodenkultur Wien (BOKU) led to a Global
Studio in 2003. Twelve Viennese students came to QUT for a
month. The first stage, which saw the Viennese students go to
Brisbane, was a highly successful part of the Global Studio, but
the second stage did not occur. No QUT student took up the
reciprocal offer of a month in Vienna. The Australian students,
unlike the European students, were not able to get financial
assistance, nor could they leave their jobs for a month, being
highly dependent on the income to fund their studies.
European students do not have to pay for their education.
In 2006 Tom Rivard, a lecturer in architecture at the University
of Sydney, initiated his Urban Islands studio on Cockatoo
Isla nd in Sydney Ha rbour. T his is a n independent st udio a nd
students worldwide are invited to apply. Local and overseas
students, including a high percentage of Chinese and South-
East Asian students, apply to the relatively inexpensive studio

run over two weeks. The competition is fierce, so only those

with well-developed design and communication skills and a

reasonable knowledge of cultural and design theory are

successful. I was invited to the final presentations in 2013,

when about three-quarters of the students were Asian. I was

amazed by the strong verbal presentations and discussions by

all of the students. The interactive discussions around the

various works drew from complex design theory, while the

work itself was dense and challenging. This was international

design education at its best.

Rivard continues to run the Urban Islands studio with its

international students and practitioner/tutors. He reflects:

Our international visitors didn’t hesitate to be provocative,

despite being outsiders. In fact, I suspect that they WERE

provocateurs precisely because they were OUTSIDERS ... I also

suspect that the affinity of many of our foreign students with the

program stemmed from their ability to identify with their

visiting tutors as fellow outsiders. Both the visiting studio leaders

and their students learned together. The intensity of the

program, with a minimum of ten hours of work in the studio

expected each day, successfully eliminated the tendency for

many students (not just foreign students) to retreat to work at

home alone. This forced collegiality produced a genuine

conviviality and collaborative spirit, that we find nearly

impossible to replicate in a standard design studio, in which most

students work remotely.^1

01

01

Tom Rivard’s Urban Islands studio

• sited on Sydney’s Cockatoo
  Island – is run independently and
  high numbers of international
  students, particularly from Asia,
  are common. Photo: Tom Rivard

LANDSCAPE ISSUE 157 018 — 019

ASIA IN AUSTRALIA