What is Authorship? By Kirsten Bauer
Date: Mar 06, 2023
Category: Insights
National Emergency Services Memorial, Canberra
Perspectives from a practicing Landscape Architect
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And that is where things can get ugly: when the respect and recognition that is due is directed (either unthinkingly or deliberately) towards certain contributors to the project, while others remain unacknowledged.
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(Lack of) acknowledgement
The most common form of authorship gripe: your collaborator, most often the lead firm, promotes the project, but does not even mention your practice. Once a common occurrence, the situation is slowly improving, yet it continues to remain a constant friction between the professions, irrespective of who the lead consultant of the project is. Design practices’ websites tend to be the worst in this respect, with omission of other practices’ contributions to featured projects justified by the claim that “our practice’s website is about us.”
Non-lead authors are rarely mentioned in media releases. Here, the client is often the guilty party, honouring (usually) the architect. This culturally entrenched behaviour is tied to the idea of singular authorship, often associated with the notion of a genius who has offered god-like guidance over the project. But this doesn’t need to be the case. Aspect Studios has had a very positive experience of co-authorship in relation to the design of Yagan Square. From the outset of that project, it was agreed that Lyons Architecture, Iredale Pedersen Hook and Aspect Studios would always be named as co-collaborators. Lyons has championed this position emphatically.
My advice is to always recognize others’ contributions, even if they do not recognize yours.
Non-lead authors are rarely mentioned in media releases. Here, the client is often the guilty party, honouring (usually) the architect. This culturally entrenched behaviour is tied to the idea of singular authorship, often associated with the notion of a genius who has offered god-like guidance over the project. But this doesn’t need to be the case. Aspect Studios has had a very positive experience of co-authorship in relation to the design of Yagan Square. From the outset of that project, it was agreed that Lyons Architecture, Iredale Pedersen Hook and Aspect Studios would always be named as co-collaborators. Lyons has championed this position emphatically.
My advice is to always recognize others’ contributions, even if they do not recognize yours.
National Emergency Services Memorial, Canberra
Edits and additions
Having projects that you have designed altered happens when you work on projects sited in public space. The National Emergency Services Memorial (NESM) in Canberra is an interesting example. Aspect Studios won the competition for the design of the memorial back in the early 2000s and it was a formative project for our practice. In 2021, in a short break between Melbourne’s lockdowns, I visited Canberra and discovered the memorial had been extended, presumably to list more names. At no point had Aspect Studios been informed of the intention for there to be changes to the project, let alone been given the opportunity to review the proposed changes and offer advice.
Fortunately, the addition to the memorial was sympathetically designed and well-built, and a visitor might not even notice it was by other designers. While I wanted to scream in anger, I knew the memorial was not mine and Aspect Studios had at no stage been the project’s sole author. Was the committee responsible for the memorial required to ask us, as designers, for permission to make the changes? No. Did they need to seek our advice on the proposed form of the changes? No. But, should they have sought our review? I would say yes. While context – including the project working history, personalities involved and the extent of the alterations – will be of influence in each case, I would suggest that in the majority of cases, the respectful way to proceed is to consult.
Additions have also popped up on the Caulfield to Dandenong Level Crossing Removal Project (CD9) in south-east Melbourne. CD9 involved a complex co-authorship situation between multiple designers and entities, as the project’s three linear parks under the elevated railway cross three suburban locations. It was always understood by these parties that over time government entities would add more facilities, places and planting to the parks. These additions have indeed begun to occur, with one government agency already having added play and recreation facilities to one of the parks that Aspect Studios originally designed.
Just like the NESM, Aspect Studios were not consulted or given any courtesy call. Unlike the NESM, the additions in this case could have been more sympathetic, the choice of colours and play equipment more thoughtful. The newly inserted playground has a magical climbing tower, a nostalgic view of play that clashes with Aspect Studio’s design, which focuses on nature play and preferences more contemporary forms.
Fortunately, the addition to the memorial was sympathetically designed and well-built, and a visitor might not even notice it was by other designers. While I wanted to scream in anger, I knew the memorial was not mine and Aspect Studios had at no stage been the project’s sole author. Was the committee responsible for the memorial required to ask us, as designers, for permission to make the changes? No. Did they need to seek our advice on the proposed form of the changes? No. But, should they have sought our review? I would say yes. While context – including the project working history, personalities involved and the extent of the alterations – will be of influence in each case, I would suggest that in the majority of cases, the respectful way to proceed is to consult.
Additions have also popped up on the Caulfield to Dandenong Level Crossing Removal Project (CD9) in south-east Melbourne. CD9 involved a complex co-authorship situation between multiple designers and entities, as the project’s three linear parks under the elevated railway cross three suburban locations. It was always understood by these parties that over time government entities would add more facilities, places and planting to the parks. These additions have indeed begun to occur, with one government agency already having added play and recreation facilities to one of the parks that Aspect Studios originally designed.
Just like the NESM, Aspect Studios were not consulted or given any courtesy call. Unlike the NESM, the additions in this case could have been more sympathetic, the choice of colours and play equipment more thoughtful. The newly inserted playground has a magical climbing tower, a nostalgic view of play that clashes with Aspect Studio’s design, which focuses on nature play and preferences more contemporary forms.
New recreation and fitness space at Carnegie Station, Melbourne
New playground at Carnegie Station, Melbourne
It's a minefield out there
Full digital models of built public space designs, including a few by Aspect Studios, are out there on the international market. Design is now a product, and we aren’t even in control of the sale of it. The Darling Quarter water play design, one of our signature projects, appears to have been copied by another international firm for a site in China. This is lazy, disrespectful, and suggests good design is simply repeatable: it is not.
Darling Quarter, Sydney
Hyperlane, Urban Gallery in China
