Sarah Hunter
Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Design Research
Biography
Sarah Hunter is a landscape architect with 17 years of professional and academic experience. Sarah was awarded a postgraduate Masters of Landscape Architecture by the University of Melbourne in 2006 including study in France through the “Bangkok Melbourne Bordeaux” Program and in Scotland on exchange at Edinburgh College of Art.
Sarah has worked in practices in the UK and Australia undertaking work including schoolground, public park design, transport projects and strategic urban design work as well as landscape and visual assessment. In recent years she have focused on the design and development of her family farm in addition to academic research and teaching. Sarah has sought to build connections between her design background and her expanding knowledge of productive horticulture and animal agriculture.
Sarah contributes to the community by participation as a design and environment expert in local groups, and community panels. She has been President of Arthurs Creek District Landcare Group since 2018, and served as an expert on the Nillumbik Shire Environment Advisory Committee from 2013-2016.
Thesis
The Landscape in motion at Buxom Hills Farm: An experiential perspective on change in the landscape as a result of design, construction, and non-human activity
My PhD is based around the change which occurs on site at Buxom Hills Farm as a result of processes of design, construction, and non-human activity. The project is based on a phenomenological methodology using an expanded design journal and associated records (email, social media activity, photography, drawings and more) to document the process of transforming 32 hectares of ‘vacant’ grazing land just beyond the urban growth boundary of Melbourne to an occupied, environmentally and economically sustainable farm with conservation components and off grid home.
The original expectation was that natural processes (animals, plants and climatic phenomena) would dominate the experience and focus of the research. The emerging findings show that a series of major unforeseen events, driven by economic and societal practices of our era, have played a highly significant part in shaping the experience and outcome of farm development on this site.
The most significant contribution of the project was expected to be the novel research design which contributes to a limited field of constructive design research, particularly within landscape architecture. In addition to this expected outcome, the PhD research will provide a narrative on the impacts of societal trends on the constructed environment (situated within a highly specific milieu, location, and moment in time before and during the Covid-19 pandemic).
Contact
Principal supervisor
- Gregory Missingham