I have always been passionately interested in how our built surroundings shape the lives of the people who share them. Throughout my career in planning and urban design, I’ve become increasingly certain of the power that landscape architecture has to create the conditions in which people can meet their needs, thrive and fulfil their potential.

This course gave me the opportunity to explore this more deeply – to examine how landscape can make it easier, or even possible, for people to connect with others and with their environment; to learn, be active, play and feel safe, comfortable, enchanted and nurtured.

I applied this thinking to one of the major challenges we face in Tasmania, the island where I live. For more than a generation, we have been a very car‑dominated and car‑dependent society. This has excluded many people and has scarred our beautiful coastline and characterful town centres with traffic and large areas of car parking. It also leaves us vulnerable to resource depletion and disruptions in fossil fuel supply, to say nothing of hastening climate change.

Fortunately, in my region (the North West, also known as the Cradle Coast) we have a rail line that winds its way along the coast and through all our major town centres. At present it is used only for freight, which means only shipping containers – and the train driver – get to enjoy the world‑class views it offers.

My major project explored how we could reopen this line to passenger services, and in particular how landscape and urban design could be used to create beautiful station precincts capable of catalysing urban renewal. With encouragement from the teaching staff, I developed a design agenda and tested the ideas with key local stakeholders. In this way, I hope is that the work is grounded in reality while still reaching towards the best possible outcome.

To weave landscape architecture into my urban design practice, Inclusive Design.