What Would a Simpler National Construction Code Mean for Landscape Architects?
Australia is having a surprisingly big conversation about the size of its building code.
The Coalition has proposed replacing Australia's current National Construction Code (NCC) framework with a much shorter mandatory core — reportedly around 80–90 pages — with a range of additional requirements becoming optional or sitting outside the basic standard.
The proposal has been framed primarily as a housing and construction issue.
But there is another question worth asking:
What would a dramatically simpler building code mean for landscape architects?
At first glance, perhaps not much.
The NCC primarily regulates buildings, while landscape architecture sits across planning, public domain, stormwater, open space, ecology and site design.
But the implications could be much broader.
Because when governments change the minimum standards for buildings, they also change the environment in which architects, landscape architects, developers and planners make decisions about the spaces between buildings.
And that could make landscape architecture more — not less — important.
What is actually changing?
The Coalition's proposal is based around the idea that Australia's building regulations have become too complex and costly.
The current NCC contains thousands of pages of requirements and supporting material. Proponents of reform argue that excessive regulation increases construction costs, slows innovation and makes it harder for builders and designers to deliver housing efficiently.
The proposed alternative would establish a much smaller mandatory baseline, focused on fundamental requirements such as structural safety, fire safety, health and amenity.
Other standards — including higher levels of energy efficiency — could become optional.
The proposal has generated significant debate across the building industry, with supporters arguing that simpler regulation could reduce costs and encourage innovation, while critics have raised concerns about energy performance, accessibility and long-term building quality.
Whatever ultimately happens, the broader direction is worth watching.
Because minimum standards shape design.
And that includes landscape design.
Landscape architecture isn't just decoration
One of the persistent problems in the development industry is that landscape is often treated as something that happens after the building has been designed.
The building comes first.
The parking comes second.
The servicing comes third.
And then someone asks:
“How much landscaping do we need?”
Landscape architects know that this is backwards.
Trees affect microclimate.
Soils affect stormwater.
Topography affects accessibility.
Vegetation affects biodiversity.
Open space affects amenity.
Shade affects how people use a place.
And the arrangement of buildings, streets, parking and landscape determines how people actually experience a development.
Many of these things are not simply aesthetic considerations.
They are infrastructure.
And if the regulatory system becomes more permissive, the question becomes:
Who is responsible for making sure these outcomes still happen?
A simpler NCC could shift responsibility toward planning and landscape
This is where the NCC debate becomes particularly interesting for landscape architects.
The NCC is only one part of Australia's built-environment regulatory system.
Planning schemes, development controls, environmental legislation, infrastructure requirements and local government policies continue to influence what can be built and how sites are developed.
If some building requirements are removed from the national mandatory baseline, other parts of the planning system could become relatively more important.
For landscape architects, that could mean greater emphasis on:
landscape plans
deep soil
tree retention
canopy targets
stormwater management
WSUD
biodiversity
open-space provision
heat mitigation
pedestrian connections
accessibility
communal open space
public domain design
landscape maintenance
ecological corridors.
In other words, the fewer requirements that are embedded in the building itself, the more important the site and public realm can become.
The green infrastructure question
Consider energy efficiency.
If a future regulatory framework allows more flexibility around building energy performance, developers may have greater freedom to determine where environmental performance is achieved.
Some of that investment could move outside the building.
Landscape can play a role in reducing heat exposure, providing shade and improving outdoor comfort.
Trees and vegetation can contribute to cooling.
Permeable surfaces and integrated stormwater systems can reduce runoff.
Green infrastructure can create ecological and recreational benefits that conventional hard infrastructure cannot.
None of this replaces good building design.
But it reinforces a broader idea:
Environmental performance doesn't stop at the building envelope.
A development can be understood as a system consisting of buildings, landscape, infrastructure and public space.
That is precisely where landscape architecture operates.
What about accessibility?
Accessibility presents a different challenge.
The NCC contains requirements relating to access and accessibility, alongside other Australian standards and legislation.
If some requirements become less prescriptive, designers could have greater flexibility.
But flexibility isn't automatically the same thing as better outcomes.
Accessible movement through a development isn't determined solely by the building entrance.
It depends on paths, gradients, crossings, levels, kerbs, surfaces, seating, shade and connections to the surrounding street.
A building can technically provide an accessible entrance while the journey to get there remains uncomfortable, confusing or poorly integrated.
Landscape architects therefore have a role in thinking about accessibility at the scale of the whole site.
That role doesn't disappear because a regulation changes.
If anything, it becomes more important.
The car-centric development problem
There is another issue that the NCC debate doesn't directly address: the enormous amount of Australian development that is still organised around cars.
This is particularly visible across the outer suburbs of Australian cities.
Large sites are frequently divided into buildings, driveways, parking areas, retaining walls and leftover landscape.
The landscape architect is then asked to make the remaining space work.
But this isn't fundamentally a planting problem.
It is a spatial planning problem.
Where do people walk?
Where do children move?
Where does water go?
Where can a tree actually grow?
Where can people sit?
Where is there shade?
How does someone get from their front door to the street without crossing a sea of asphalt?
And what happens when the development is 20, 30 or 50 years old?
These questions sit outside the narrow definition of construction compliance.
They are questions of place.
Less regulation could mean more opportunity for good design
There is an important positive interpretation of the proposed reforms.
A simpler regulatory environment could give designers greater freedom.
Instead of relying on highly prescriptive requirements, projects could potentially be judged more heavily on outcomes.
That could create opportunities for landscape architects to demonstrate that landscape isn't simply an approval requirement.
A well-designed landscape can solve multiple problems simultaneously.
One tree can provide shade, habitat, visual amenity and carbon storage.
A planted drainage corridor can manage stormwater while creating biodiversity and pedestrian amenity.
A connected green space can provide recreation, improve walkability and form part of an ecological network.
A properly designed streetscape can make a development feel less car-dependent without necessarily requiring enormous amounts of additional infrastructure.
This is one of the great strengths of landscape architecture:
it can make one intervention perform several jobs at once.
But there is a risk
The opposite outcome is also possible.
If regulations are reduced without a corresponding increase in design ambition, the easiest solution may simply win.
More asphalt.
More parking.
Smaller landscape areas.
Fewer trees.
Simpler drainage.
Cheaper materials.
Less maintenance.
And fewer long-term considerations.
From a developer's perspective, these decisions can make perfect short-term financial sense.
The problem is that the costs don't necessarily disappear.
They can simply move elsewhere.
Into higher summer temperatures.
Into stormwater infrastructure.
Into household energy bills.
Into public health.
Into maintenance budgets.
Into poorer streets.
Into less usable open space.
Into future retrofit costs.
This is why the NCC debate shouldn't be reduced to regulation versus deregulation.
The more useful question is:
Which standards create genuine public value, and which simply create unnecessary complexity?
The landscape architect's role could become more strategic
If Australia moves toward a simpler regulatory environment, landscape architects may need to become better at explaining the value of what they do.
Not just:
“This area needs 30% landscape.”
But:
“This landscape strategy reduces heat exposure, manages stormwater, improves pedestrian movement, creates biodiversity habitat and increases the usability of the development.”
That is a much stronger proposition.
It also moves landscape architecture further away from being seen as a finishing trade.
Landscape becomes part of the performance of the development.
And that is potentially a very good thing for the profession.
The future isn't necessarily more regulation or less regulation
The Australian construction industry clearly has a case for simplifying regulation.
The NCC is complicated, and unnecessary complexity has real costs.
But a shorter code doesn't automatically produce better housing.
Nor does a longer code automatically produce better places.
The challenge is determining what should remain mandatory, what can become performance-based, and where professional judgement should replace prescriptive regulation.
For landscape architects, the NCC debate is therefore worth paying attention to.
Because if Australia's regulatory framework changes, the spaces between buildings will still need to work.
They will still need to manage water.
They will still need to provide shade.
People will still need to walk through them.
Trees will still need somewhere to grow.
Communities will still need somewhere to meet.
And increasingly, Australian cities will need to deal with heat, flooding, biodiversity loss and climate adaptation.
Those problems don't disappear when a regulation does.
They simply become design problems.
And that may ultimately be the most interesting consequence of a simpler NCC:
the opportunity — and responsibility — for creating better places could shift further towards designers.
For landscape architects, that isn't necessarily something to fear.
It could be an opportunity to demonstrate that landscape is not the thing added after the building is finished.
Landscape is part of how the development works.
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