Remembering Ian Oelrichs

Ian Oelrichs was pivotal in the development of the Australian profession, nurturing advocacy, organizational development and community. Reflection by Catherin Bull.

Ian Oelrichs OAM FAILA ASLA (1929–2019) was pivotal to the regional and international development of Australian landscape architectural practice and worked tirelessly to expand the profession’s frontiers. Ian Oelrichs died two days short of his seventieth birthday in a car accident near Bangalow in northern New South Wales, where he lived and where he and his wife Claire Vaux had, from 1991, restored large areas of previously cleared pastureland to viable habitat.

After initially working as a draftsman, in 1974, Ian was among the second intake into the multidisciplinary design program at the Queensland Institute of Technology (QIT – later QUT), studying under George Williams who Ian credited as having provoked his lifelong commitment to landscape architecture. He saw planning and design capability as vital to environmental and social health generally, and specifically, to retaining a sense of place for his beloved Northern Rivers region.

Ian graduated with a postgraduate diploma in landscape architecture from QIT in 1978 and worked at Wyong Shire on the central New South Wales coast, advancing new thinking and community engagement. In Sydney in 1984, he then established with John Van Pelt and Ken Maher, the multi-disciplinary firm Forsite Landscape Architects and Planners, focussing on problem definition and project conceptualization as well as project design and delivery. At Forsite, and throughout his life, Ian was interested in harnessing human energy in new ways, for environmental and social good.

Unlike those who measure their contribution by constructed projects, Ian concentrated on professional and organizational development. He saw that landscape architecture, a profession in its infancy when he started out, could make a real difference if it understood how to be effective.

With others, including Bruce Mackenzie, Michael Ewings and Ken Digby, Ian was instrumental in the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) hosting its first International Federation of Landscape Architects Conference in 1982. The conference attracted 600 delegates, including 100 from overseas, and provided Ian with his first opportunity to navigate the national and international stage. Nationally, Ian served as an executive member of AILA between 1985 and 1991, including as vice president and then in 1987 to 1988, president, helping to launch both the AILA National Awards and the Registered Landscape Architect scheme.

Through Ian’s drive, in 1988 Forsite morphed into the Australian arm of the iconic American landscape architectural firm EDAW, which was the world’s largest landscape architecture firm when purchased by AECOM in 2005. As EDAW’s first Australian managing director and in contrast with the previous generation who had focused on the United Kingdom and Europe, Ian consolidated his links with the profession in North America. Internationalization was just beginning and Ian was a driving force, establishing and maintaining a vast network of colleagues and friends locally, nationally and internationally throughout his life.

He chaired the inaugural state-based awards program for the Queensland chapter of the AILA and organized the symposia that led to the establishment of the Design Advisory Panel for the Northern Rivers Region, where he also mentored younger professionals, helping them establish the networks essential to future success. Linking the region’s councils with universities from Brisbane and Melbourne, he brought student studios to explore alternative futures and increase local awareness of how the professions could contribute to a better future. These had community wellbeing at their heart and students loved them.

At his instigation, a group of senior professionals set up the Landscape Leaders Think Tank in 2001 with the goal of establishing, after the USA model, an Australian Landscape Foundation to support students and research in landscape architecture. While the time was not yet ripe, the group did fund and produce a promotional DVD on the profession for use by the AILA (A Passionate Profession). Typically, this brought together like-minded people to work and generate change.

Most recently, given his interest in the future of landscape architecture, particularly at QUT, where in 1994, he was made Alumnus of the Year by the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering, Ian recently pledged a contribution to the university’s new student scholarship fund. Ian was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2011 for his voluntary contribution, over twenty years, to the Northern Rivers region. Global in his outlook and reach but also a loyal local, Ian not only worked for landscape architecture but for many a global cause.

With his passing, Australian landscape architecture farewells one of its pioneering spirits – challenging, thoughtful, generous, creative, funny and, in the broadest sense, welleducated. We need more like him.