INTERVIEW
Ricky Ray Ricardo: How did you start your prac-
tice and come to work on residential projects?
Dan Young: I’d had a few false starts with projects –
really not knowing how to go about starting and
getting caught up in details. I was talking with Paul
socially about how to go about getting set up and ...
how you would approach getting projects. Paul basi-
cally said, “Oh, just do it.”
Paul Owen: You were working on your PhD [currently
on hold] and trying to figure out what to do next ... I
was saying to Dan that when I first started practising it
wasn’t so much that I particularly wanted to design
houses, it was more that they were the most abundant
[type of project]. And I knew that someone like Dan
could do the same thing, but as a landscape architect,
and it would actually be relevant on a wider scale.
When I first started practising, I had deliberately
aimed for private house commissions. For me, this
was more about the commission type than the build-
ing type – private house commissions follow the
traditional architectural process involving an archi-
tect and a “patron.” Dan and I had been chatting and I
wondered if this would also apply to his work.
DY: Brisbane is really a landscape city, a garden city.
And that’s a challenge for landscape architects here,
especially because architects coming out of the
schools here already have a really good understanding
of landscape. So what is your leverage as a landscape
architect? Because you’re not that unique, in that
sense. You really have to bring a horticultural aspect
with you and realize, “Okay, this is how I can
contribute.”
RRR: On that horticultural aspect, Dan, do you feel
that that’s something your landscape architecture
education prepared you for, or did you have to go
and learn it for yourself?
DY: I have always had an interest in horticulture, so it
was easy to build on that. It’s something certainly that
I’ve looked into further, not in any formalized study,
but purely through necessity.
RRR: Could you tell us about the Rosalie House
garden and how it was conceived?
DY: The diagram for that house, in a landscape sense,
took care of itself. Spatially it’s a series of wonderful
spaces and the clients were open to the idea of a light
intervention; they wanted something that fit with
their family dynamic and lifestyle, and that was
appropriate to the scale of the site and its suburban
context.
DAN YOUNG
AND PAUL OWEN
RE THINKING THE
SUBURBAN LANDSCAPE
Dan Young began his landscape architecture practice
in 2014 with the help of friend and collaborator Paul
Owen (Owen Architecture), working on a number of
residential projects in Brisbane. Ricky Ray Ricardo
caught up with the duo to talk collaboration, private
practice and planting design.
INTERVIEW RICKY RAY RICARDO
1
60 MAY 2017 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA