Martin O’Dea, one of the landscape architects leading the climate action commitment charge for the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects., is also one of the in-person presenters at next week’s NZILA Firth Conference.

Martin is a principal landscape architect for CLOUSTON associates in their Sydney office which following a merger this year is now a division of Beveridge Williams. He’s an award-winning LA. an accomplished artist and designer with more than 30 years’ experience.

Martin was the author of AILA’s 2020 Climate Positive Design Position Statement, and is the chairman of AILA’s Climate Positive Design Taskforce. He was one of the lead authors for the International Federation of Landscape Architects “Climate Action Commitment” that was presented at COP 26 in November last year.

He believes that good design is not just about how good it looks, it’s about how well it works. “At a strategic level it is about making the right decisions. At the detailed level it is how landscape architects can contribute to a positive environment for all.”

The title of Martin’s presentation to next month’s conference is; “All I wanted to do was good design, but now I find my funky concrete seat walls are cooking the planet.”

Says Martin, “as designers we are all looking to create places that people love, are beautiful, functional, works of art and instilled with meaning. This is at the heart of landscape architecture.”

But, he points out, we need to understand what the Paris climate agreement means for the landscape architecture profession.

“How do we make every park, streetscape, plaza and playground climate positive by 2050? The challenge is that up to 75% of the heat trapping greenhouse gases emitted by our projects are embodied in construction materials by the day it opens.”

His conference presentation will explore how the profession will become part of the solution, not the problem. Martin says he will explore how landscape architects now “need to weave in technical competence relating to climate as well as the other lofty ambitions.”

Martin will explain the recent work of the Australian Institute of landscape architects and their climate positive design strategies and guidelines for landscape architects.