Built
Wetland
Lakes Savanna Wetland
We turn channelised drains into a treatment train. Pandanus and paperbark islands. Public places around the water.
Townsville · wetlands · coast · landscape
Tropical ecological design for wetlands, coasts and living edges. We design so they can be built and kept alive.
Townsville from Castle Hill,
October 2006.
What we do
Drawings, specifications, and the operations that keep a wetland or foreshore alive through a wet season and a dry one. We design. Construction stays with the contractor.
Work
Townsville places that show the work we take on: wetlands, coasts and living edges.
We turn channelised drains into a treatment train. Pandanus and paperbark islands. Public places around the water.
We design constructed wetlands as operations: nutrient pathways, biomass, maintenance access. Landscape that has to work after opening day, not only look finished.
A public garden that teaches dry-tropics water. Greywater, swales, shade, plants that belong here.
We plan the foreshore: erosion, revegetation, stormwater and beach access along a living coastal edge.
Natural areas and turtle-nesting on a high-use civic beach. We manage an edge the city already uses.
Research
Planting design starts with knowing what is actually there, what belongs there, and what the evidence supports.
Botanical records, provenance questions, regional occurrence, and related evidence are investigated through Botanists.
Research record 001
A question of plant provenance, native status, historical records, and what the available evidence actually supports.
View the evidence record →Research record 002
A question of native status, marine dispersal, historical records, and what the available evidence actually supports.
View the evidence record →Capability
Living edges that have to keep working after opening day. We can sign off CPESC and RPEQ where necessary.
Constructed and retrofitted wetlands. Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD). Treatment, planting, public use, and the operations that keep them working in a dry-tropics climate.
Urban beaches, estuaries and the intertidal: erosion, access, habitat, tidal processes and ecological function. Where the site asks for it, that work continues onto the water. See Marine Hybrid Urbanism.
Landscapes that also drain, shade, demonstrate, provide habitat and last a wet season and a dry one.
Second opinions on tropical water, living edges and ecological infrastructure. Bring us the site.
For
The people who have a wet edge inside a larger job.
Wetlands, foreshores and public landscapes that have to sit inside a building project and still live. We take the water, the planting and the edge. You keep the building.
See Lakes, Watersmart, The Strand.
Start a conversationPublic wetlands, demonstration gardens and civic edges in the dry tropics. Living civic work that has to last a wet season and a dry one.
See selected public work.
Start a conversationWe design. We do not construct. You get drawings, specifications and an operations brief that works through a wet season. You hold the earthworks.
See Fairfield Waters, Lakes, Rowes Bay.
Start a conversationDrains, rehabilitation planting, corridors, ports and industrial wet edges. Water that has to live in this climate. Tell us the site.
See Lakes, Fairfield, Rowes Bay, The Strand.
Start a conversationTropical wetland, foreshore and water-smart work, and the diagrams we use to think it through. Useful for teaching, field method and live sites.
See Watersmart Garden.
Start a conversationProof
Specialist offer
People look after places they can read.
Signage, talks and training.
InterpretationSpecialist offer
The wet edge from the water side.
Living surfaces on platforms. Land, mangrove and pontoon as one city.
Marine HybridFor Townsville homes
We prepare a biodiversity-rich, water-smart garden plan for your property: Townsville plants, your water and shade, a lot you can plant yourself.
Explore Water Smart GardensStudio
How we think
Ecology, stormwater engineering and landscape architecture have to work together. The edge fails when one is treated without the others.
Alumni
The people who designed, drew, planted and ran the Townsville studio.
Principal
Founder 2004. nigelgrier.com
Design Leader
Water-sensitive design, revegetation, habitat, remediation. Townsville, 2007–2012.
Draftsperson
Drawings and the in-house machines, from 2010.
Words
Joined October 2010 to write the website. Museums and heritage, then the living edge.
Website
Website. Freeman Ryan Design, Surry Hills.
Webmaster
Webmaster. Cyberfactory, Townsville.
Horticultural botanist
Ecologist. Recurring consultant on planting and the field.
Sustainability consultant · SEA O2
Principal of SEA O2. Carbon, energy, climate-appropriate design. Green roofs workshop at the meeting space.
Landscape · Air & Earth
Landscape contractor. Lakes Savanna, Anderson Gardens, Rowes Bay, Watersmart Garden, the Strand, Carlyle Gardens.
Project manager
Project manager, civil engineer. Honeycombes, then Revere Projects. IBM Smarter Cities, 2010.
General Manager
Townsville studio, March 2011–June 2012.
Cairns
Partner in the Far North Queensland office.
Education
Montessori. Greentree Ants trial with Townsville City Council, 2006–2008.
Consultant
Consultant to the studio. Carlyle Gardens superintendent work.
Landscape architect
Landscape architect. Townsville, 2008–2010.
Professional support
Graphic design support, administration, meeting space, minutes. Also Catrina Lowien. Grier & Associates from 2006.
Professional support
Accounts and studio support. 181 Flinders Street from 2007.
Professional support
Professional support. 412 Flinders Street, 2008.
Business traffic controller
Meeting space, workshops and business centre at 181 Flinders Street East.
Multimedia, communication and design
Maddy. Graphic designer and thematic interpreter. 412 Flinders Street from 2007.
Marketing
2008–09 website. Director, The Marketing Factory.
Project supervisor
Lakes site works. Strand foreshore vegetation and turtle-nesting. From 2007. Not Jason van Paassen.
Project supervisor
Project supervisor, 2008–2009.
Studio
Townsville, 2010–2012.
Studio
IBM Smarter Cities Challenge Townsville, with Nigel Grier.
Planning · work experience
Planning work experience, 105 Denham Street, from 25 May 2011. JCU urban and regional planning.
Planning · work experience
Planning work experience, 105 Denham Street, from 14 June 2011.
Cairns
Far North Queensland.
Project support
Green Tree Ants. Grier & Associates.
Green Tree Ants · translations
Dr Pakamas Thinphanga. Green Tree Ants translations.
Studio
Studio support.
Senior environmental scientist
Senior environmental scientist. Farewell on the Zingspace back deck, 5 March 2009.
Indigenous engagement
Indigenous engagement. George Fenton Consulting, 181 Flinders Street.
Contact
Worked with George Fenton Consulting.
Anthropologist · George Fenton
Indigenous NRM and engagement. George Fenton Consulting, 181 Flinders Street.
Contact
Worked with the studio.
Consulting art director
Design charettes, 3D modelling and Palm Island renders. Lectures graphic design at TAFE and Sydney University.
Contact · Cultural Centre
General manager, The Cultural Centre, Flinders Street East.
Project manager
Land use, development assessment, environmental design. Grier & Associates from 2007. Previously Townsville City Council.
Studio
Bombay Rock, saltpans, Townsville 2008. Jan Gehl workshop, 28 May 2008.
Consultant
Facilitation and change management. 412 Flinders Street. Later 25 Alexandra Street.
Environmental planner · consultant
Earth Environmental. Fairfield Waters constructed wetlands, 2008. Legislation training, 2010.
Consultant
Consultant to the studio.
Principal · Bali
Principal of the Bali office. Management accounting and computerised systems. Overseas team, with Wilma.
Assistant graphic designer
Edison Street Reserve and the Palm Island civic precinct — posters, materials palettes, planting sheets.
Graphic designer
Mel. Water Smart Garden maps, Louisa Creek cover, Magnetic Island and the Cyclone Yasi assessment guide.
Stormwater modelling · subconsultant
MUSIC stormwater modelling. Creek to Coral and the Reef water-quality workshop, 2009.
Water quality · subconsultant
Ongoing water-quality work. Aquatic ecology and monitoring.
Project principal · Floating Pavilion
Led the 2022 Sentosa Floating Wedding Pavilion concept for FlexBase.
Practice manager
Practice manager from February 2010.
Collaborators
Architects and allied practices on civic work.
Architect · MPA
MPA Design. Flinders Mall and other civic work.
Contact
A drain, a foreshore, an estuary, a wetland, a garden in this climate. Tell us the site and the constraint. We can sign off CPESC and RPEQ where necessary.
Thank you. We will reply from Townsville.