Vale Michael Ewings FAILA

Vale Michael Ewings (1945 to 2026)

Vale Michael Ewings (1945 to 2026)

Michael Robert Ewings grew up in Katoomba, New South Wales, a town set in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. This early experience shaped his lifelong connection to the environment, and in particular, his connection to the Australian bush and to water.

Inspired by this connection to nature, Michael chose to study horticulture and landscape design after high school, enrolling at Ryde School of Horticulture and attending two nights a week, at a time when tertiary courses in landscape architecture were yet to be established in Sydney. During his studies, Michael joined John Temple and Associates, a practice combining landscape design and construction. As the firm's principal designer and drawing upon his background in bushland preservation, Michael helped expand the business. Shortly after the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) was formed, Michael applied for membership.

With his TAFE studies completed and with a wealth of practical experience, Michael successfully completed the institute's national entrance examination. He quickly became involved with the burgeoning group of professional landscape architects in the Sydney region, including Bruce Mackenzie and Catherin Bull, who were working to strengthen the institute and form its New South Wales division. These early pioneers of the Australian landscape architecture profession had come from a range of professional backgrounds, including architecture and engineering, but chose to change direction and pursue what was a new profession in Australia – landscape architecture. They brought a diversity of perspectives, shaping the profession in New South Wales, and laying the foundations for generations to follow.

Michael established his own practice Environmental Landscapes in the Sydney CBD and assembled a staff of graduate landscape architects and horticulturalists that grew to number close to 20 people. Under his leadership, the office moved from Angel Place to Woolloomooloo, and finally to purpose-built premises on the Sydney Harbour waterfront at Birchgrove, under a new name, Environmental Partnership.

The many projects undertaken by these two practices under Michael's leadership are a testament to his creativity, skills, determination and passion for landscape architecture as a profession. Michael's many years in practice influenced approaches to and thinking around public landscapes across urban Australia, as evidenced in his receipt of multiple professional awards. His notable pioneering commissions included the landmark Yulara Township at Uluru, Northern Territory on Aṉangu country, a project he recalled as being one of his most challenging. It involved the planning and design of an entire "eco-tourism" township and required collaboration across a complex team of architects, engineers and experts in desert ecology. The project created a contained "island" township within the broader desert environment, with the protection of the natural habitat taking priority in all phases of design, construction and management. The outcome remains unique.

Other influential projects include some of the earliest planned and designed large-scale urban tree canopy and water management projects in Western Sydney, including Deepwater Park, Mirambeena Regional Park on the Georges River and major woodland projects along infrastructure corridors, such as the Hume Highway. Michael pioneered new approaches to the restoration of urban waterways, including the award-winning Salt Pan Creek corridor in Canterbury-Bankstown. This work laid a foundation for contemporary thinking in open space planning by re-imagining creek corridors previously dismissed as polluted drains and dumps as places of environmental and recreational opportunity.

Enhancing the public domain remained a passionate focus for Michael. He recognised the challenges to local government attempting to reverse the decline of main street precincts. He developed methods for councils to manage major works using in-house skills and labour alongside specialist subcontractors. His projects in Bankstown, Fairfield and Cabramatta in Greater Sydney won back pedestrian green space and provided a catalyst to revitalise local communities and economies. Similarly successful regional projects were located in Dubbo, Tamworth, Wagga and Ballina. Environmental Landscapes also developed key planned residential precincts for HMAS Creswell (a training facility of the Royal Australian Navy in Jervis Bay) and, notably, in Woolloomooloo in central Sydney.

Michael's focus on making large scale projects achievable can be seen in his development of some of the earliest examples of specialist contracts for plant pre-ordering, which enabled cost effective and reliable plant supply on large-scale projects.

Generations of landscape architects had their start in his firms, learning their craft, experiencing a wide diversity of projects and often going on to run their own practices. Michael deeply valued his role as a custodian of the profession, recently stating: "I will never retire as a landscape architect because my passion for the Australian bushland and its connection with our communities will be with me, always."

Michael's desire to nurture the next generation of landscape architects led to his support as donor for a scholarship run by the Landscape Foundation of Australia. Michael believed that the transformative power of the landscape architecture profession relied on a combination of vision, skill, motivation and persistence, and that the scholarship would support those who will, "as practitioners, have the passion, motivation and drive that can make a positive difference to Australia's urban landscapes."

Michael spent his retirement in Northern New South Wales on a rural property above Mullumbimby and by the coast, although never losing his love for Sydney Harbour and, of course, sailing.