Pollen Studio

Dear future Pollinator, We’ve been waiting for you to join our team. We are a medium-sized, carbon-neutral studio of landscape architects on a mission to keep making the world a greener place. We have a library of exciting projects on the go — local parks, large nature reserves, schools, rural and urban adventures alike… and we’re after a passionate someone to grow them with us. We work as a team across all phases of our projects. Our process involves using a mix of hand drawing, Vectorworks, the Adobe suite, and sometimes exploring emerging technologies. Our team is passionate about listening to and learning from Country, our clients, working on projects that we believe in, and helping people to fall in love with their environment. We’re looking for someone who’s thoughtful, kind, curious, creative, and interested in working with a wide range of tools. Someone who wants to listen to and help communities and ecologies. We hope to nourish your love for plants, people, documentation, and environmental design of all sorts. We’re looking for a full-time, qualified Landscape Architect based in Melbourne/Vic and able to come into our beautiful office at Balam Balam Place a few days a week. Preferably, you will have around 4 years of experience; more recent graduates may also be considered. Please send us your CV and portfolio of work that you’d like to walk us through. We’d love to see work that you’re proud of, that has challenged you, maybe even something that failed, and to hear all about your superpowers. Reach out at [email protected] by May 16th, 5pm if you feel like this could be you.

Moubray Street Community Park has been shortlisted in this year’s City of Port Phillip Design and Development Awards. It’s always great to revisit our projects and see how they track as time goes on. On a recent site visit with the Awards Jury, we spotted thriving community garden beds, soft moments of children’s play and creations in the outdoor classroom, and even a tiny site user building a new house for themselves!

Dear future Pollinator, We’ve been waiting for you to join our team. We are a medium-sized, carbon-neutral studio of landscape architects on a mission to keep making the world a greener place. We have a library of exciting projects on the go — local parks, large nature reserves, rural and urban adventures alike… and we’re after a passionate someone to grow them alongside us. We work as a team across all phases of our projects. Our process involves using a mix of hand drawing, Vectorworks, the Adobe suite, and sometimes exploring emerging technologies. Our team is passionate about listening to and learning from Country, our clients, working on projects that we believe in, and helping people to fall in love with their environment. We’re looking for someone who’s thoughtful, kind, curious, creative, and happy to work with the wide range of tools on offer. Someone who wants to listen to and help communities and ecologies. We hope to nourish your love for plants, people, documentation, and environmental design of all sorts. We’re looking for a full-time, qualified Landscape Architect based in Melbourne and able to come into our beautiful office at Balam Balam Place a few days a week. Preferably, you will have up to 4 years of experience, although fresh graduates are also welcome! Please send us your CV and portfolio of work that you’d like to walk us through. We’d love to see work that you’re proud of, that has challenged you, and to hear all about your superpowers. Reach out at [email protected] by May 16th, 5pm if you feel like this could be you.

The Cascade is cascading! Wetland 2 at Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve is now full and functioning - we can’t wait to see how this will look when it’s overflowing with plants. Thanks to Robin at DesignFlow for the video.

We’ve been working with the team at Hobson’s Bay on an exciting new project at the mouth of the Birrarung / Yarra river. There’s so much to love about this fascinating site. Pictured are people fishing at the ‘warmies’ - where the warm water from the power station makes for an easy catch, relics of an old coal-fired power station, a DIY dog agility course, big views to the West Gate and the bay, and bikes on the Bay Trail. It’s a community-driven space people clearly care about, and we’re so excited to be part of the project as it evolves….

Plans, sections and details are the tools of our trade, but sometimes they don’t fully communicate the intent, feeling and sense of place as well as a hand drawn sketch. We find sometimes a sketch can be so connecting that it’s worth including it in our formal construction documentation. Pictured here are a series of sketches developed throughout the design process for several DJAARA projects we loved working on. Sketches allowed for iterative design conversations and maximum connection to the eventual outcome, bringing the wider project team into the conversation around design, materiality and form. @djadjawurrung

Wishing everyone a safe and merry Christmas over the holiday break. Thank you to all the excellent humans we worked with this year! We celebrated a wonderful 2025 last week at Abbotsford Convent (back where Pollen had its first office fifteen years ago!), and even got to celebrate a late-year office birthday as well with some delicious, spiced carrot cake. We’ll be back on Monday, January 5 to jump into an exciting 2026.

We would highly recommend checking out the @laak.boorndap Test Garden at Federation Square by @hassell_studio , @superbloomau , @nigel.dunnett and @jameshitchmough . This was another stop on the team’s ‘Landscapes of Interest’ October tour, and it’s not often we get to appreciate planting with such beauty, care, and rich diversity thriving within the exposed hardscapes of the city. We loved geeking-out and spotting plants such as Eremophila nivea and Tulbaghia violacea, and learning about the ever-striking Ixia ‘Amethystina’ – a new favourite! We can’t wait to see how things shape up at the Melbourne Arts Precinct.

The Frankston Arts Centre Precinct @the_fac is officially open just in time for the @frankstoncity Festival of Lights! We love these recent photos of the construction process and night lighting (photos by Steve Brown @steveb3199 ). This project converted a car-centric forecourt into a brand new civic space at the heart of Frankston’s arts precinct. The space retains and enhances FAC’s reputation for a high level of accessibility for all users - including a dedicated off-road arrival zone for mobility-impaired patrons. It was a pleasure to further develop and deliver the initial concept by @ffla_ .

A little studio treat to share. Our article “Under the pavement, the cake” has been published in KERB 33. The piece recounts our cake competition entry as part of Melbourne Design Week 2024 - a layered, slightly feral dessert inspired by the Queen Vic Market and all the invisible energies tucked under its pavement, including sneaky fungal networks, rogue tomato seeds, eggshells, composting greens, market fairies and microbial gossip. Thanks @kerbjournal team for getting us involved and all the support along the way. Also special thanks to @secondplace_collective for facilitating the Landscape Design Cake Competition and giving us the perfect excuse to play. KERB is always a treat to read, and you can pick up a copy from @bookshop_by_uro .

We’re so excited to see the Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve Wetlands project well underway. As the landscape takes form in the background, we’ve been appreciating all the spring blooms emerging within the project’s Stage One wildflower meadow (lead by by @mcgregorcoxall ) – we can’t wait to see more of this planted soon around the Southern Wetlands we’ve been working on with DesignFlow and the excellent team at @baysidecitycouncil ! More to come...

A few weeks ago, some of our team got to tour @weef_lighting ’s new factory and Lightbox. Here are a few snaps of us learning about the production and manufacturing intricacies, the environmental and sustainability impacts of light selection - and of course, a fancy light show in the middle of the day! Thanks to WE-EF and @buckfordillumination for arranging the tour and making it a fun day of learning.