Property Development and Commercial

How can Urban Farming help save our Environment

administratorEnvironment, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial

Feature Image courtesy of https://www.futurewild.com.au/ Urban farming is defined as “an industry located… within a town, a city or a metropolis, which grows or raises, processes and distributes a diversity of food and non-food products”. It has been suggested that urban farming may be a solution to some of our problems. The environmental impacts of urbanisation have become a growing concern across Australia and the world. It is predicted that by 2050 the functional capacity of cities will need to support over 70% of the world’s population  increasing the environmental impacts of urbanised centres. In Australia, the spread of urbanisation […]

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The Role of Environmental Design in Preventing Crime

administratorEducation, Environment, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Tech

Did you know that the design of outdoor spaces plays a significant role in the occurrence of crime? It’s actually a concept we’ve long employed in our work with local government and developers in creating new urban landscapes. It is guided by a set of principles based on extensive research from across the globe. It even has its own acronym – CPTED What is CPTED? Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, or CPTED, is exactly that: creating a space that feels safe, so that people can make use of it. Sometimes referred to as Designing Out Crime, it’s multidisciplinary and integrates […]

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The Role of Green Infrastructure in Biodiversity

administratorEnvironment, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial
Wetland adjacent to houses

Biodiversity is essential to thriving communities, yet, we are losing biodiversity at alarming rates. Green infrastructure is a way to protect, maintain and increase the biodiversity in our urban landscapes and is one which requires a considered planning and design approach.  We wrote about green infrastructure here, but as we shared, there’s no real clear definition. The description most aligned to the Orterra philosophy is this one created by the European Commission: “Green infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services such as water […]

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The Best Way to Not to Kill Plants….

debbieGarden Design, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Tech

Did you know that there’s an Instagram hashtag used over 45,000 times? It’s #plantkiller and while some of the captions are hilarious, we think it’s time to dispel some myths about how ‘hard’ it is to keep plants alive and thriving. Let’s put that hashtag to bed with a little secret that’s not really much of a secret at all:  improve your soil, and your plants will thrive. Plants aren’t necessarily fickle or precocious. They put up a good fight and can thrive only to the extent to which their soil is healthy. Not unlike baking a gorgeous cake that’s […]

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Easement 101 I have one. Now what?

debbieGarden Design, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Uncategorized

Easements are one of those features that are often misunderstood. They sometimes cause undue stress about their potential impact on a landscape design, of what can and can’t be included. Here at Orterra, it’s not usual for a client to say in the design brief process themes along the line of ‘we’d love a row of trees on that back boundary but there’s an easement,’ or ‘that easement along the side means we can’t xyz’.  There’s that undeniable sigh of relief when we tell them that their ideas for their space may not actually be limited by the presence of […]

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Weeds and How To Tell If You Have One?

debbieEnvironment, Garden Design, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Tech

For many gardeners and non-gardeners, the notion of weeds is that they are this very bad thing that grows too fast and makes the place look ugly. However, the issue of weeds is more complicated. They cause a lot of damage to our natural environment. They cost billions of dollars a year and have a large impact on our biodiversity. What is a weed? The definition of a weed is “a plant that grows very quickly where it is not wanted and covers or kills more desirable plants” Basically, it is a plant growing where you don’t want it to […]

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What do the Terms Cut and Fill Mean?

debbieGarden Design, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Tech

When talking to our clients we often use the terms cut and fill. These often come up when discussing how you might change the ground to create different types of spaces in a garden. Often they are terms that clients are unfamiliar with. So wanted to go into more detail today about what this meant. If you have a development or build on a slope, it is extremally helpful if you understand these two terms. And, how it affects your site. Today, we are going to break it down for you. So you can have a better understanding of what […]

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To Answer your Question here is our Design Philosophy

debbieAbout Orterra, Education, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential

We often get asked by our clients what is your design philosophy? So, today I wanted to dive a bit deeper into this question of design philosophy and what it means to us here at Orterra. Places People Love That is our philosophy. It is that simple. But what I will do is break it down for you a little more to get to the core of this statement.  A philosophy is “a particular system of beliefs, values, and principles.”   We here at Orterra have very clear values here that we work from that underpin our design philosophy. Equality Inclusion Empathy Diversity Biodiversity Transparency We use […]

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What is Deep Planting and Why do we need it?

debbieProperty Development and Commercial, Tech

Deep planting is a common term used by councils in their planning schemes. They are areas that are required to be allocated in the design of the development. Their purpose is the planting areas of trees and shrubs amongst the buildings. In particular, they are meant to be positioned and sized so that you can plant large shade trees. Why do we need this? Deep planting areas specifically plan for large trees in an urban environment. The areas are to be designed to provide the tress with the space to grow into their mature form. Trees in urban areas are […]

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Why is Biodiversity so Important to Orterra?

debbieAbout Orterra, Environment, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential

If you have been following us for a while you might have seen us harp on a bit about biodiversity. It is one of our core company values. Our value states that “We promote, campaign and defend our environment and improve, rehabilitate and regenerate the biodiversity and the environment of our projects.” The 22nd of May is Biodiversity Day we love this time of year as it is a great way for us to really celebrate our environment. It is a time for us in the office to really think about what biodiversity means to us and our work. How […]

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