I just couldn't settle on a topic for Port Places this week. Ideas arose only to be dismissed like tennis balls at the Australian Open. None would do. Then I realised what was most on my mind - and might be on your mind too - is the climate emergency in which we are now living. We're familiar …
Port & South Melbourne
Trees in the median
Each year begins with the profuse flowering of Corymbia ficifolia trees in the broad Danks St median that connects Middle Park and Port Melbourne. The flowering gum is originally a native of open forest in a very restricted area on the far south coast of Western Australia. The trees intensely …
Pavilions in an urban forest
The fences came down at the exhausted end of the year when attention and time were scarce. Martin Foley, recently re-elected as the state member for Albert Park, opened the newly completed Pickles St campus of Albert Park College on 18 December before dashing off to Albert Park Primary School's end …
Year of the Dog
Bay Street is often said to be the heart of Port Melbourne. It can be hard finding that elusive heart on such a long street that runs all the way from the Bay until it curves towards the City. With Port's great transition over the last thirty years essentially complete, at least in the built form …
Remembrance Garden
It was the day after Hassan Khalif Shire Ali killed Sisto Malaspina and injured two other people in Bourke St and the eve of Remembrance Day. Sadness was close to the surface when people gathered to open a Remembrance Garden in Port Melbourne. The Garden is a community initiated, Council …
From Nature 2018
The heart and soul of this year’s From Nature exhibition at Gasworks Arts Park is Albert Park Pre-School’s exhibit The Butterfly Effect. It's in the foyer. The children have created an exhibit both disarmingly simple and deeply wise. In language of enviable simplicity, their project …