Inside East Melbourne’s newly opened ‘purple’ public garden

While architect Amy Muir, director of Muir Architecture, says she and Jacques wanted to keep the garden as free as possible “of our or others’ perceptions of what it might be”, she says they also needed to “communicate the issue at hand in order that there be an evolution”.

“It’s a fairly onerous brief to design a family violence memorial and we felt incredibly responsible for delivering a sensitive but robust design.”

Muir and Jacques say that extensive input from the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council, including by its chair Jennifer Jackson and member Russ Vickery, was central to the garden’s success. “They were there from day one and they remained in the room, so to speak, until the end,” Muir says. “Design is about having a conversation with those involved.”

Vickery estimates that between 2018 and 2022 he was involved in no less than 57 meetings to discuss the project – not all with Muir and Jacques – and says the final garden is “perfect, simply perfect”.

“We wanted a place where people could come and reflect or get some solace or feel whatever they needed to feel and that’s exactly what’s been delivered,” Vickery says. “We also want this to be a place of prevention so that people who have never experienced domestic violence become aware of it.”

Muir and Jacques also wanted the garden – created on what was previously a sloping triangle of grass pierced by an English elm – “to lean on existing conditions”. In what is a lesson to all of us rejuvenating existing gardens, Jacques says they were always mindful of not trying to entirely “rewrite” the site. The mature elm set the tone from the outset.

Not only did it provide an instant canopy and sense of shelter, it also dictated where everything else was positioned. As the rest of the garden matures and the new shrubs, herbaceous perennials and groundcovers spill over the sides of the walls, the aim is that people walking through the space will brush up against them and smell them. Muir says they want the whole place to embrace visitors with its “fantastic purple vibe”.

For this is not a garden to experience only with your eyes. This 3D response to an ongoing and immeasurable societal issue engages both the mind and the body.

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Victoria’s Family Violence Memorial is on the corner of St Andrews Place and Lansdowne Street, East Melbourne. The Open House Melbourne tour and panel discussion begin at the memorial at 10am on Saturday 30 July, and run for one hour. Bookings are not required. Visit openhousemelbourne.org for more information.

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