Founding Director Rodney Wulff attributes Tract’s success to the team’s progressive thinking about future directions over the years, design excellence and, above all, teamwork. “We were pioneers when we started, and the evolution that followed has helped to grow the profession. The fundamentals have stayed the same, but the tools have changed and are more sophisticated,” he says.

Seminal projects of the 1970s and 1980s navigated issues that are relevant today. Vermont Park in 1977 saw the integration of green community spaces in a new housing development, the Design and Siting Guidelines for Port Phillip Bay in 1983 sought to protect the natural environment and the Newcastle Harbour Foreshore transformation in the 1980s connected the city to the water and stimulated a reversal of fortunes for the declining industrial city.

The last decade has seen us integrate First Nations knowledge into our work by collaborating with traditional owners and artists, to create spaces that connect to culture and Country. Our workplace initiatives include a Reconciliation Action Plan, annual International Women’s Day events, national forums and presentations at our offices to discuss issues relevant to today’s practitioners.

It’s been a half-century of immense change: demographic, cultural, environmental and technological, but the effect of policy and design to improve tangible outcomes remains.