STRATEGIC SUBVERSIONS: OPENWORK

Openwork is a landscape architecture practice that has evolved by moving beyond convention. Founding member Mark Jacques frames the studio’s approach as a conscious destabilization of a project’s agreed or orthodox scope. “By deploying an oppositional argument early on in the design process, we try to put a project outside of an expected condition,” he says. It is these acts of subversion that are hinted at in the practice’s name; by pushing the limits of a project’s scope, the studio opens up new and unexpected possibilities.

Founded in Melbourne in 2016, Openwork is fast becoming known for its portfolio of small-footprint public projects that generate effects not through imposition but