OPPORTUNISTIC URBAN DESIGN - The Conference, Melbourne 2012

The 5th International Urban Design Conference will be held at the Hilton on the Park in Melbourne from Monday the 10th to Wednesday 12th of September 2012

If the act of planning is to legitimise 'what should be done', opportunistic design thinking seeks to action 'what can be done'.

Indeed, the focus of planning may enable it to be read as one form of catalyst for thinking opportunistically. That is, a process of creative thinking leading to more flexible, more inventive and more contextually responsive strategies of intervention into the urban environment.

City leaders in Australia and internationally are , to varying degrees, endeavouring to respond to the aftermath of the GFC, effects of climate change, dramatic population movements, peak oil speculation, emerging social media and the influences on how we socialise and connect with each other, and a search for meaning (to name a few !).

Growth, flux, and decay are inherent aspects of urban systems. As changing financial, political, environmental, technical and social conditions influence urban life,  it is apparent that urban design will have to become increasingly opportunistic and creative in approach, formulation and delivery.

This trend is manifesting itself across a broad range of disciplines, scales and intents. It is most popularly evident in innovative place making projects and strategies such as the High Line in NYC, tactical urbanism, a multiplicity of fluid uses of public spaces (eg pop ups). 

The conference will focus on ideas and projects that are visionary despite, or maybe because of, the current context.

David Baker: Champion of Green Urban Density

David Baker: Champion of Green Urban Density is one of a series of eight "pocket documentaries" commissioned by Dwell magazine to showcase design leaders from the world of architecture and related fields. In it David speaks about matters close to his heart: urban infill, public art, vibrant cities, and how we're all going to have to work together to solve our planet's problems.

5th International Urban Design Conference heads to Melbourne in 2012

The Department of Planning and Community Development - Victorian Government confirmed as Platinum sponsor for the 5th International Urban Design Conference to be held in Melbourne at the Hilton on the Park, 10th to 12th of September 2012.  www.urbandesignaustralia.com.au

The 2012 committee includes:

• VIC, Sue Wood, Co-Chair, Assistant Director Urban Design, Department of Planning and Community Development
• VIC, Kelvin Walsh, Director City Sustainability, Hume City Council
• ACT, Gay Williamson, Manager, Design Policy, Planning Services Branch , ACT Government
• SA, Darren Bilsborough, Managing Director, Cminus Sustainable Spaces
• WA/NT, Geoff Barker, Managing Director, PM+D ARCHITECTS P/L
• NSW, Michael Neustein, Director, Neustein Urban
• NZ, Alistair Ray, Associate Principal - Head of Urban Design, Jasmax, New Zealand
• QLD, Peter Sugg, Urban Design Australia Conference

Where will we live in the future?

Terry Kirby - The Guardian

Will innovation in urban development change the face of our cities?

The return of high-rise living, homes built as part of working film sets, new public open spaces in reclaimed retail malls and a dramatic re-evaluation of the relative merits of slums and suburbia. These are just some of the challenging concepts now being canvassed among those developing new ideas about the future of our urban landscape.

It is a landscape where designers and planners take the advantages of modern technology as a given, where a city's "smartness" is expected and where sustainability is built into the system, leaving only one big question: what will our future look like?

And it is not, according to most thinkers, a science fiction fantasy where everyone behaves like robots in eco-friendly but featureless buildings, despite the move towards these developments.

For some, it is a world where the latest technology, such as energy monitoring "smart meters", is introduced in venerable urban buildings, sustainably reused, thus combining the best of old and new. "People want good quality of space – high ceilings, big windows, interesting architecture. I'm not a great fan of building over-insulated homes on eco-suburbs on greenfield sites, miles from anywhere,'' said Tom Bloxham, of developers Urban Splash, who specialise in elegant urban conversions and regeneration projects in cities such as Manchester and Birmingham. "Sustainability is as much about re-using old buildings and working on brownfield sites."

Read the full article here

Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster - Lessons from Hurricane Katrina

"No elected official or planning professional should miss this book. Birch and Wachter have collected essays spanning every dimension of rebuilding. From historical lessons to cutting-edge practices, there is so much to learn."—Brent Warr, Mayor, City of Gulfport, Mississippi
 
"A remarkable collection of essays."—Journal of the American Planning Association

"Disasters—natural ones, such as hurricanes, floods, or earthquakes, and unnatural ones such as terrorist attacks—are part of the American experience in the twenty-first century. The challenges of preparing for these events, withstanding their impact, and rebuilding communities afterward require strategic responses from different levels of government in partnership with the private sector and in accordance with the public will.

Disasters have a disproportionate effect on urban places. Dense by definition, cities and their environs suffer great damage to their complex, interdependent social, environmental, and economic systems. Social and medical services collapse. Long-standing problems in educational access and quality become especially acute. Local economies cease to function. Cultural resources disappear. The plight of New Orleans and several smaller Gulf Coast cities exemplifies this phenomenon.

This volume examines the rebuilding of cities and their environs after a disaster and focuses on four major issues: making cities less vulnerable to disaster, re-establishing economic viability, responding to the permanent needs of the displaced, and recreating a sense of place.

Success in these areas requires that priorities be set cooperatively, and this goal poses significant challenges for rebuilding efforts in a democratic, market-based society. Who sets priorities and how? Can participatory decision-making be organized under conditions requiring focused, strategic choices? How do issues of race and class intersect with these priorities? Should the purpose of rebuilding be restoration or reformation?

Contributors address these and other questions related to environmental conditions, economic imperatives, social welfare concerns, and issues of planning and design in light of the lessons to be drawn from Hurricane Katrina.

Eugenie L. Birch is Professor and Chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. Susan Wachter is Richard B. Worley Professor of Financial Management and Professor of Real Estate and Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Together, they direct the Penn Institute for Urban Research.

Take a greenfield, add a dash of infill and there'll be room for everyone

RECENTLY, self-appointed planning "experts" have criticised the performance of planning systems that have shaped suburbs and cities, denigrating governments that delivered the homes of millions of Australians.     

The critics say such communities and suburban development are unsustainable and have called for government, in the name of sustainability, to choose high-density development over greenfield development, often labelled "sprawl".  To them, density is good and suburban development is bad.

But the simple fact is we need to meet dwelling demand, achieve housing affordability and provide much-needed community services and infrastructure.

Across the country, notwithstanding the growing trend to inner-city living and more infill development, demand continues to be for detached houses in greenfield locations, and the strongest population growth continues to be in outer suburbs.

Bear in mind those suburbs will become tomorrow's middle or inner-ring suburbs of emerging cities - Logan, Ipswich and the new cities of Ripley, Yarrabilba and Caloundra South.

While dwellings produced through options such as infill and redevelopment do meet a need for housing in particular urban locations, such consolidation will not, in reality, preclude the need for continuing greenfield development to meet the overwhelming bulk of dwelling demand.

"Brian Stewart is the chief executive of the Urban Development Institute of Australia"
Source: The Courier Mail Brisbane... full story here