An Interview With The Landscape Architect Behind Kings Park’s New Sensory Garden
At Kings Park, landscape is already inseparable from memory. The granite outcrops, eucalyptus canopies, sweeping views across Perth and seasonal displays of native flowers create a place that feels both monumental and intimate. A new sensory garden adds another layer to that experience, asking visitors to slow down and notice what is often passed over: scent in the air, texture beneath the hand, changes in temperature, the rhythm of birdsong and the quiet movement of grasses.
The project is conceived as an inclusive garden rather than a collection of isolated features. Its paths, planting beds and resting places are arranged to support different ways of moving through the landscape. Visitors may come for an active encounter with plants and materials, or simply find a shaded seat from which to observe the garden at their own pace.
In conversation with the landscape architect leading the project, the focus quickly moves beyond the familiar language of accessibility. The garden is designed around curiosity, comfort and choice, with sensory engagement treated as a central design principle rather than an additional layer applied at the end.
A Garden Designed Through Attention
“The starting point was not a list of objects that stimulate the senses,” the landscape architect explains. “It was the question of how a person feels when they enter the garden. Do they feel oriented? Can they understand where they are going? Can they pause without being in the way? Can they encounter something unexpected?”
That approach has shaped the garden’s overall structure. Rather than creating one highly concentrated zone, the design distributes sensory experiences through a sequence of spaces. A broad entry path gives way to denser planting, then opens into a quieter clearing. Changes in surface and enclosure help visitors recognise each transition without relying on signs alone.
The intention is to make the garden legible through atmosphere. A shift from open light to filtered shade signals a new moment. A low wall offers both a tactile edge and a place to sit. Fragrant planting is positioned where air movement can carry scent across the path, allowing the experience to unfold gradually instead of arriving as a single, overwhelming burst.
Reading Kings Park Through Its Landscape
The garden does not attempt to recreate every aspect of Kings Park. Instead, it draws on the park’s existing language of resilient plants, exposed geology and seasonal change. The landscape architect describes the project as “a small piece of Kings Park that listens carefully to the larger place around it.”
Plant selection reflects the conditions of Perth’s climate, with an emphasis on species that can withstand heat, dry periods and strong sunlight once established. Native shrubs, grasses, groundcovers and flowering plants are combined with a smaller number of carefully selected exotics where they contribute a distinctive scent, texture or colour.
This balance is important. A sensory garden can easily become overly theatrical, filled with novelty plants and decorative interventions that feel disconnected from their setting. Here, the planting is intended to feel recognisable as part of Western Australia while still offering moments of surprise. Leaves may be soft, waxy, ridged or finely divided. Seed heads shift in the breeze. Flowering periods overlap so that the garden changes character across the year.
The regional connection also extends to material choices. Local stone, timber and robust metalwork are being considered for their ability to age in the climate and develop a visible patina. That interest in material memory links the project to the wider Australian design conversation, including the renewed use of salvaged timber in interiors and architecture. A recent look at reclaimed jarrah feature walls similarly shows how Western Australian materiality can carry both environmental and cultural meaning.
Designing For More Than One Kind Of Visitor
The phrase “sensory garden” can suggest a specialised destination, but the project is intended for a broad public. Children may be drawn to movement and sound, older visitors may value seating and shade, and people with low vision may engage more strongly with planting fragrance, tactile surfaces or changes in enclosure.
“Accessibility is often discussed as if it means making a standard space available to more people,” says the landscape architect. “We wanted to begin somewhere else. What if the space was designed from the start around different bodies, different levels of attention and different sensory thresholds?”
That means avoiding a single prescribed route. The garden includes opportunities for close contact, but it does not require touching every plant or entering every narrow passage. Clear sightlines sit alongside more sheltered areas. Rest points are distributed through the garden rather than placed only at the edges, and paths are designed to accommodate wheelchairs, prams and visitors who prefer a slower pace.
Sound is treated with similar care. Water is not used as a constant theatrical effect; instead, subtle sound markers help distinguish areas and soften the surrounding city noise. Planting can absorb, filter and redirect sound, while textured materials produce quiet changes underfoot. The result is intended to be layered rather than loud.
Elements That Invite Discovery
| Sensory focus | Landscape response | Visitor experience |
|---|---|---|
| Scent | Fragrant native and adapted planting placed along breezeways | Seasonal discovery and orientation through smell |
| Touch | Varied bark, foliage, stone and timber edges | Close observation without a fixed route |
| Sound | Grasses, leaves, subtle water and bird habitat | A changing acoustic atmosphere |
| Sight | Contrasting foliage, filtered shade and open clearings | Visual rhythm across the garden |
| Movement | Accessible paths, pauses and gentle transitions | Freedom to explore at different speeds |
The table describes the design logic, but the garden’s character will come from how these elements overlap. A visitor might hear dry grasses before seeing them, brush against a textured handrail while following a scent, or notice the temperature drop beneath a canopy. The project is less about identifying separate sensory stations than building relationships between them.
Material detail will be crucial. Edges need to be durable enough for heavy public use but inviting enough to encourage attention. A stone wall may provide thermal contrast between sun and shade. Timber can offer warmth and a familiar handrail profile. Metal screens may cast changing shadows across the path as the day progresses.
The landscape architect is careful to avoid turning every material into an interactive device. “People don’t need instructions to be curious,” they say. “Sometimes the most successful detail is one that allows a person to notice something for themselves.”
That principle can be seen in the project’s relationship with making and craft. Custom elements are intended to be simple, robust and locally legible rather than excessively bespoke. The same appreciation for hands-on production appears in a Booragoon potter’s custom tiles, where surface, touch and small variations give a practical material a stronger sense of place.
Planting For Time And Change
A sensory garden is never finished in the same way as a building. Plants grow, retreat, flower, shed leaves and respond to weather. The designer sees this change as central to the project rather than a maintenance problem to be controlled.
“We are designing for a garden that becomes more articulate as it matures,” they explain. “The first year will be about establishment. Later, the structure will come from the relationship between plants, shade and movement.”
This requires a considered planting palette and a clear maintenance strategy. Species need to be selected for long-term performance, not simply their appearance at installation. Pruning regimes must preserve habitat and seasonal character while keeping paths safe and sightlines clear. Irrigation can support establishment without creating a landscape that depends on excessive water once plants are established.
The garden also offers an opportunity to communicate ecological processes without becoming an educational display in the conventional sense. Seed heads, fallen leaves, pollinator activity and changing soil conditions can remain visible. Small signs may provide context, but the landscape itself is expected to do much of the teaching.
For Kings Park, that seasonal dimension is especially appropriate. The park’s identity is tied to cycles of flowering, heat, rain and renewal. A garden that feels identical in every month would miss the opportunity to connect visitors with the living conditions of the region.
A Public Space With A Softer Pace
The most compelling aspect of the project may be its invitation to linger. Public landscapes are often evaluated through circulation: how efficiently people move from one destination to another. This garden gives equal importance to stopping, repeating a route and spending time without a clear task.
That quality matters in a place as heavily visited as Kings Park. A sensory garden can provide a smaller-scale experience within a large public reserve, offering a setting for quiet reflection, family visits, therapeutic programs and informal learning. It can also act as a meeting point between design disciplines, bringing landscape architecture into conversation with horticulture, access planning, material practice and community care.
The landscape architect describes the garden as “a place where attention becomes a form of participation.” Visitors are not asked to admire a finished composition from a distance. They complete the design through their own pace, memory and perception.
That idea gives the project relevance beyond its immediate site. Across Australia, public-space designers are reconsidering how gardens support wellbeing, sensory diversity and everyday social connection. The Kings Park project contributes to that shift through a distinctly Western Australian lens: climate-aware, materially grounded and attentive to the character of place.
Principles Worth Carrying Into Future Gardens
- Begin with comfort, orientation and choice before adding interactive features.
- Use local climate, geology and plant communities as design generators.
- Create several levels of sensory intensity so visitors can choose how deeply to engage.
- Treat seating, shade, path width and maintenance as part of the sensory experience.
- Allow seasonal change, ageing materials and natural processes to remain visible.
The new garden demonstrates how landscape architecture can work through subtlety. Its success will not depend on a single spectacular installation, but on the accumulation of small encounters: the scent of a flowering shrub, the roughness of bark, the coolness of stone, the sound of wind moving through grass and the relief of finding a place to rest.
As the planting establishes and the materials begin to weather, Kings Park’s sensory garden will gain its own rhythm. Visit Contemporary for further coverage of Australian landscape architecture, public-space design and the makers shaping the country’s built environment.
