DESIGNING WITH ECOLOGICAL SUCCESSION

Ecological succession can be defined as any landscape’s evolution from disturbance. These disturbances can range from extreme events, such as fire or deforestation, to more subtle activities like grazing or mowing. Many Australian bush landscapes are successional ecologies in different stages. The use of firestick farming by Indigenous peoples for more than sixty thousand years had privileged open canopy plant communities with monocot- dominated understoreys in many parts of Australia. Historic accounts of the landscapes around Melbourne, western Sydney and Tasmania show how quickly succession from grassland to forest occurred without the regular disturbance of fire.

Australia has many colonizing species – these are the first to germinate after a (native coastal tea-tree). Firebugs lit a fire and the result was astounding; the vegetation changed from one to three species per square metre ( has a closed canopy and very few species can grow on the ground plane) to fifteen to twenty species, some of which had been locally extinct since the 1930s. This case study is particularly interesting because it demonstrates how many Australian ecosystems have evolved from regular extreme disturbances. These are incredibly dynamic landscapes from which we can draw inspiration as designers.