Straub Thurmayr

HUMBLE PROJECT THINKING Our work reflects the reality that projects do not need to have millions of dollars or use vast amount of resources. Low budgets are normally a challenge for the composition and selection of materials, but our projects provide a pioneering approach with regard to budget, execution and outcome proving exemplary value. Reclaiming […]

Science Courtyard finds an outstanding way to introduce a small-scale layer to a previously unexceptional campus landscape. It introduces a masterfully articulated gradient in the material palette and plant species. It contributes to biodiversity and invites processes of growth and spontaneous change, all spiced with creatively designed elements, such as a seating area made of logs and play of mineral pavement, topography, planting, etc. The project reveals and brings into focus the processual nature of the landscape and favours a more relaxed and experimental approach to design. The garden is also a landscape laboratory for the designers as they intend to monitor and learn from it.

If we can say that a private garden is an experimental place for domestic life, Rooted in Clay is just that. As the name suggests, the project is about taming a very dynamic topological context and at the same time keeping the feeling of the place wild. Considering the ordinary Canadian suburb, this garden is a surprise. Furthermore, the project reuses city’s leftovers, mainly wooden slabs. Rooted in Clay is about engineering, recycling, and, above all, experience. It accomplishes its goals effectively and gracefully through a sequence of shifting situations. Nature is an ambiguous term, but in a context of suburban residential gardens full of order, Rooted in Clay introduces a relaxed, more natural atmosphere. As such it is a poetic statement and a convivial critique.

How can non-natives supplement the biodiversity and beauty of a native grassland? Horticulture ecologies inevitably address the relationship between the native or ‘authentic’ and the ‘foreign’. The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) program at the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Architecture, turned fifty in 2022. Some people say giving a bouquet to say happy birthday […]

This driveway garden is situated in an access-only street in a residential area in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Sealed driveways and manicured lawns are the typical welcome. The young family has just moved into their new house. It was already spring. Almost too late to start a garden project. And the new house devoured most of the […]

We live in a time of thrilling but also challenging tumultuous change in which a return to social solidarity, tolerance and participation increasingly gains in importance. We see landscape architecture as having the potential power to manage social conflicts and migration, establish debates, and live democracy. The implementation of this proposition includes establishing new local […]

Strathcona School is located in one of Winnipeg’s most impoverished districts providing a schoolyard which typically consists of asphalt, lawn and a play structure. Fostering a vision of holistic community “health and learning”, Folly Forest hopes to induce multi-layered transformations that would ultimately culminate in a stimulating outdoor environment for children and a vital public […]

SUMAC GARDEN _ Small Urban Natures, Winnipeg Our era of screens heightens the importance of physical spaces and activities where we can re-establish contact with ‘nature’. As the coronavirus lockdowns shutter public spaces, gardens hold open the possibility of immersing our bodies in the physical world. The unpretentious Sumac Garden reflects that ‘cultiver son jardin’ […]

A PLACE FOR WELCOME AND LIVED INTEGRATION We live in a time of thrilling but also challenging tumultuous change in which a return to social solidarity, tolerance and participation increasingly gains in importance. We see landscape architecture as having the potential power to manage social conflicts and migration, and establish debates and live democracy. The […]