Designing for Life: From Verge Gardens to National Landscapes

How can design nurture biodiversity in every corner of our neighbourhoods?

Landscape architect Chris Johnstone and community educator Dave Broun share two very different yet connected perspectives – from large-scale landscapes like the National Arboretum Canberra and the Delprat Phytoremediation Garden, to the street verges of White Gum Valley.

Through projects spanning ecology, education and community action, they explore how Biodiversity Sensitive Urban Design can create thriving, interconnected habitats – proving that landscape-led interventions can have big ecological impact.

To complement the conversation, the walls of UDLA’s Walyalup studio will showcase biodiversity-enhancing projects from a few different Western Australian bioregions.

About the event:

Wednesday November 5, 2025 UDLA's Walyalup Studio
(Level 2 Atwell Building, 3 Cantonment Street, Fremantle, WA, 6160)

Doors open 5.30pm
Conversation begins 6pm
Pizza, drinks and chats until 8.30pm

Free event. RSVP essential. Let us know if you’re joining by 31 October

About the speakers:

Dave Broun
With over two decades of experience in education, community development and intercultural facilitation across Western Australia, Dave Broun brings a rare blend of strategic insight and grounded field experience. A founder of Valley Verges, he knows first-hand about the transformative potential of community-rooted, regenerative approaches to learning and change. In his day job, Dave has led the development of Two-way Science through roles with the CSIRO and the WA Department of Education – an action learning programme that connects Elders, educators and communities to co-create culturally responsive STEM education that honours Indigenous knowledge systems and delivers meaningful outcomes for students.

Chris Johnstone
As a landscape architect, Chris Johnstone’s practice is grounded in five interconnected modes of working that shape his design thinking and engagement with place. He believes our relationships with physical and cultural landscapes define how we connect to and care for site, understanding landscape as something experienced through movement and across time. For Chris, landscapes are always in a state of becoming, reflecting the evolving interplay between people and environment. His design process celebrates this dynamism, privileging the living, ever-changing presence of plants and their role in shaping the micro-climates and ecologies that support human experience.

About the host:

UDLA is a multidisciplinary design practice with studios in Walyalup and Naarm. With combined expertise in design, strategy and engagement, we delivery landscape-led proejcts that are grounded in real places and people. Whatever the project, we respond to each site's context with cultural inclusivity and respect.