A drain carries water but does little else, but imagine how different the neighbourhood would be if the drain could be transformed into a living stream.
Zoe Myers
Drains take up precious but inaccessible open space in our cities. Converting these to living streams running through the suburbs could make for healthier places in multiple ways.
Cities and their residents’ needs in public space have changed, but the type and function of the furniture are stuck in the past.
Carlos Neto/shutterstock.com
With cities becoming more dense and housing more crowded, people rely more than ever on well-designed public spaces, so why hasn’t the furniture changed with the times?
The Paul Klee Centre in Bern, Switzerland, looks great, but where are the people?
Richard Gomez Angel/Unsplash
By putting the users of buildings – people – at the centre of the process of designing buildings and infrastructure, we can create healthier, more human-centred spaces.
Cities are responding to the targeting of crowds by terrorists in vehicles.
Dan Peled/AAP
Melbourne is a product of British colonial planning policies to control public access and movement in Australian cities. This legacy still influences the use of public spaces today.
A host of spaces that were once immune to commercial intrusion – from parks to our friendships – are now being infiltrated by advertisers. Are we being enslaved by a ‘merciless master’?
People have camped in the long grass since colonisation. From this perspective, bans on the practice are a denial of Indigenous agency, culture and rights to country.
Photo: K. Pollard
In contrast to perceptions of other homeless people sleeping rough, Darwin’s “long-grassers” are applying a long cultural tradition to deal with the situation in which they find themselves.
Redesigning spaces of conflict starts with creating life on the edges. Geelong offers contrasting examples of city centre spaces: one with problems inherent in its design and a nearby one that works.
Simple features, like a thoughtfully sited bench, can make a big difference to older people’s ability to enjoy public spaces in the city.
alexkich from www.shutterstock.com
Desley Vine, Queensland University of Technology e Laurie Buys, Queensland University of Technology
Several key aspects of public open space can encourage older people to get out and about. And badly designed and maintained facilities have the opposite effect and can harm their wellbeing.
People go to the beach in large numbers and for many different reasons, and sometimes that’s a recipe for conflict.
tazzymoto from www.shutterstock.com
In many ways, the conflict we see on our beaches may be a small price to pay for the free and open access to our beaches, which Australians have long fought to preserve.
Hot-desking tends to affect different employees differently – it tends to produce winners and losers.
Protesters gather on the National Mall for the Women’s March on Washington during the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency.
John Minchillo/AP Photo
The increasing global focus on essential services and public space as a key combination for successful city-making is relevant to fast-growing Australian cities too.
Place-making: a seasonal beach in Campus Martius Park, Detroit 2014.
Laura Crommelin
Big ideas and big dollars have been invested in making ‘memorable’ places. Paradoxically, as similar solutions are adapted in diverse settings worldwide, this can lead to an uneasy new placelessness.
This Friday is the 11th PARKing Day, when people pay a parking meter, then turn the space into a pop-up parklet. It’s a day that invites citizens to rethink the city and their place in it.