TCL was founded some 35 years ago as Taylor Cullity Lethlean, with Kate Cullity a founding partner, bringing horticultural expertise and a background in artistic practice. The company has consistently followed an experimental and conceptual path, gaining a strong international reputation in the process. Probably its most celebrated project is the Australian Garden at Cranborne, Victoria: a bold re-imagining of what a botanic garden can be.
‘We want to ask ourselves, what are the ways we can create sustainable environments that are also culturally, socially, and aesthetically significant,’ Kate says. The answer to this question can be found in many of TCL’s projects, which range from deeply spiritual, ecologically and culturally specific projects such as the landscape around the Uluru Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre, to the chic modernist aesthetic of the Twig House in Melbourne, where ‘light and shadow create an ever-changing phenomenological experience, where trellises, trees of tall bamboo, screens and water create a chiaroscuro’.
In 2013 Kate completed a PhD that reflected on 25 years of TCL’s practice, as well as her interest in beauty, aesthetics and care, and how these qualities can be aligned with the creation and appreciation of resilient landscapes. More recently, Kate has been compiling a book on TCL’s gardens and, as part of this endeavour, she has been pondering the multi-layered question: ‘What is a Garden?’
