You can't keep a good swamp down

Bordered by toll roads, railway lines, rivers and rebranded canals, and barely hanging on to the Hoddle grid, is the cadastral curiosity known as West Melbourne 3003.

West Melbourne used to be a swamp.

We are not the first to choose to notice this. You can read all about its postcolonial history, and people who made it their home, in David Sornig's excellent book Blue Lake. (Go on, it's really very good. They stock it at the Paperback.)

West Melbourne is still a swamp.

Can you simply delete a swamp? We would say not. Underneath and intermingled with all manner of dirt, transport and logistics infrastructure persists the swamp. So how does it exist? When and where? Can we coax it back?