Continuous Ground

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A park is not an isolated place. Instead, it is a connection to a continuous ground, an unbroken series of planes linked through space and time. This continuous ground runs everywhere under the city: below buildings, under asphalt, and beneath concrete. A park is not an added amenity. Rather, it is the absence of construction. In the urban extents of Melbourne, building a park in the future begins with unbuilding the city, reconciling with the past, and opening new directions forward.
This proposal calls for the creation of two reciprocal landscapes. The Queen Victoria Market is to be disassembled and moved to create a new open space in the city. The market is to be  relocated to the Moonee Creek Community, comprised of E-Gate and the lands to its west.
The market is currently built over the graves of Melbourne’s first residents. This proposal asks that the entire market be moved, releasing the ground and respectfully acknowledging both those who were and those who remain buried on site. A burial mound will be lifted to remind busy locals of their debt to the past and responsibility to future generations. Once the market is removed, this proposal seeks to combine the newly opened site and the adjacent Flagstaff Gardens into a continuous landscape that draws aesthetic inspiration from local aboriginal art. Circuitous  meanderings envelope the park goers into contemplative recesses, only to open out into larger gathering spaces. From Burial Hill, the highest point in Flagstaff Gardens, you could at one point see distant views of the bay.
The market is currently built over the graves of Melbourne’s first residents. This proposal asks that the entire market be moved, releasing the ground and respectfully acknowledging both those who were and those who remain buried on site. AAs the city grew, however, views were turned inward. This proposal completes the cycle and calls for the construction of a massive rubble Memorial Boulder as a site of collective introspection.
Finally, the new Port Market Wetland Park and Moonee Creek Community are designed to preserve a connection to the ground while accommodating a growing population. The wetland park  references Batman’s Swamp and is designed to support a salt marsh habitat, accepting both rising floodwaters and stormwater. The restored marsh is encircled by the newly relocated market,  and beyond, a new model of development proposes that housing is interspersed with ample green space. Here urban agriculture, an opportunity to touch and work the soil, is the first strategy to connect local citizens with the ground, linking their future to the past and growing a healthy community. burial mound will be lifted to remind busy locals of their debt to the past and responsibility to future generations. Once the market is removed, this proposal seeks to combine the newly opened site and the adjacent Flagstaff Gardens into a continuous landscape that draws aesthetic  inspiration from local aboriginal art. Circuitous  meanderings envelope the park goers into contemplative recesses, only to open out into larger gathering spaces. From Burial Hill, the highest  point in Flagstaff Gardens, you could at one point see distant views of the bay.

Jacky Bowring, the lead competition jury member, published a piece in the February issue of Landscape Architecture Australia which was later posted online on March 1st. She had this to say
about this design project: “Attention to the ecology and Indigenous relationships with the land are complemented by an understanding of history. Very few entries focused specifically on history, but Continuous Ground (Honourable Mention) poetically re-organizes elements of the city to bring the Indigenous ground beneath the city into sharp focus and simultaneously activate another
part of the city through the relocation of the Queen Victoria Market. The controversial displacement of one piece of history – the Market – to honour another, the Aboriginal burial ground, provokes some deep thinking into how parks can be political statements”.

Project details

Design: Fionn Byrne
Project Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Competition: Future Park International Design Competition
Design Year: 2019

Fionn Byrne

Fionn Byrne is an assistant professor at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Byrne’s research focuses on the relationships between nature, aesthetics, and ethics, using speculative design to recast dominant environmental narratives and envision alternative futures. The persistent interest in Byrne’s work is to examine the ethical obligations of the design fields. He contends that all design decisions involve value judgements, that any acts of building in the world are political, and we must continually raise questions of justice when we modify our physical environment.