Tarn
TARN is an award winning landscape practice based in Sydney founded by Robert Champion.
We believe that landscape design ought to be more than exterior decoration. Yes, beauty is important. But so is meaning, intention, history, use, productivity, biodiversity and environmental responsibility.
Our work is driven by a desire to evoke the transcendent qualities of nature. We attempt this through research: studying the form, pattern and dynamics of natural plant communities, geology and ecology.
Only a small fraction of Sydney’s native flora is widely cultivated. We are working to broaden the range of local plants that are being used, and to promote the increased use of naturally-occurring forms, endangered plants and rare exotic species. To achieve this we must accept some risk, embrace the failure of a fraction of plants, and then document and disperse any learnings publicly.
The environmental implications of our projects are seriously considered as part of our design process. Unfortunately, landscape works can come with a significant environmental cost. We are exploring how to genuinely minimise this in ways that still lead to beautiful outcomes... Strategies include: timeless designs that are built for the long-term use (as opposed to short-term trend); easily salvageable or dismantle-able built structure; re-use of existing materials; using only locally-sourced new materials, and – most importantly – doing less.
We are exploring how to make good design less expensive. Often this aligns with the above environmental values.
We believe designers should somehow be both considerate to the existing context of a place and yet indifferent to their profession’s norms.
We believe in gardening, not maintenance.
We are somewhat uncomfortable with certain unspoken assumptions of our industry, namely that designers must always dictate a significant intervention – That is it better to change rather than to leave intact… and that the environmental costs of any work outweighs gains of any kind from it. Instead of deciding to quit landscape for a different profession to absolve our uncomfortable feelings, we decided to stay and explore how these challenges might be worked through, over the course of a body of work.
In working through the values above, we have realised that the landscape design industry as a whole would benefit from reform. We are doing our little bit to attempt to demonstrate how this might occur in our corner of the world.
TARN is a member of the Australian Institute of Landscape Designers and Managers.
Robert Champion
In addition to his design practice, Rob is a lecturer within the landscape architecture program at the University of Technology Sydney where he teaches ecology, botany and planting design, and undertakes research. He also contributes writing to various publications on similar topics.
Prior founding TARN in 2019, Rob worked at renowned New Zealand design firm O2 Landscapes (whose idiosyncratic, research-based practice informed his own process) among other practices. He has also worked and studied in the sciences.