BIOPHILIC CITIES JOURNAL / PROJECT PROFILE wonderful, cooling, biophilic element to the city’s downtown. Resources: There are stepping platforms Biophilic Cities. Urban Wetland, , Josh Byrne & Associates. Perth Cultur- that allow kids to walk into [video]. https:// al Centre. http://joshbyrne.com.au/ the wetland. The wetland also www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGJhc- project/perth-cultural-centre-2. MdQyY8. has an important stormwater The . The Wet- management function, collecting Byrne, Josh (2006). The Green Gar- land. https://www.mra.wa.gov.au/ and filtering stormwater from dener: Sustainable Gardening in Your projects-and-places/perth-cultur- surrounding buildings before it Own Backyard. Viking. al-centre/organise-an-event/wetland. makes its way into the Swan River. According to Byrne: “It’s a great example of where a bit of inner urban biophilia and civic space can go hand in hand.”

The Perth Cultural Perth Urban Wetland, Western Austrialia Centre Wetland Photo Credits: Tim Beatley

By Tim Beatley

Completed in 2010, the Wetland opportunity for reintroducing the amphitheater, with the stage in at the Perth Cultural Centre types of plants and animals that the background, and helps to demonstrates that it is possible were once common through this soften and draw people to these to convert a standard sterile part of Perth before it was drained public spaces. The wetland itself urban water feature (energy- and became the city.” sits on top of a museum storage intensive, heavily chlorinated) facility. into something that can support From a biodiversity point of native flora and fauna in the heart view, the wetland has been quite The project addresses several of the downtown of the city. The successful, with flora and fauna goals at once. There are now redesign is the work of Josh Byrne thriving on the site. A lot of a variety of events that take and his firm. Byrne is well known care went into plant and faunal place at the wetland, including as the presenter for the national selection. There are Pygmy Perch concerts, and sometimes a light television show “Gardening chosen to control mosquitos. show is projected on the adjacent Australia” and is the author of The Plants are thriving here, with museum wall. The wetland The Wetland Green Gardener. Byrne speaks varieties chosen in part to ensure adds an unusual dimension and Photo Credits: Perth Cultural Centre about and shows us the wetland they don’t obscure views of Josh describes the setting of in a recent documentary film: an amphitheater stage. The these performances as “quite “The idea really was to provide an wetland lies in the center of the magical.” The wetland also adds a

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