There are very few approaches that examine all aspects of the complexity of urban design and development. Ergonomics, human factors and sociotechnical systems methods offer a way forward.
Ambience is a result of a whole range of processes and physical objects. We can use a systems approach to examine and describe what needs to be done to achieve such a subjective quality in a street.
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.
Construction should have stopped once the roofs were erected. Any citizen could then have walked up to the terraced amphitheatre, sat down and gazed back at the country from this shrine to the nation.
The Melbourne suburb of Richmond is prime inner-city real estate, but the community is paying a price for redevelopment that jars with the existing neighbourhood.
From high chairs in public bathrooms to handbag baskets in cafes, Japan is a considerate place. Australia can learn from a society where material culture acts as a reminder to be aware of the needs of others.
Exceptional projects can emerge when regulations are sensibly relaxed due to context. A Fremantle project is a model of progressive higher-density possibilities resulting from flexible planning rules.
Kim Dovey, The University of Melbourne y Elek Pafka, The University of Melbourne
We’re still in the early days of understanding how cities work. But we do know that creative, healthy and productive cities have certain things in common – and it’s all to do with their ‘urban DMA’.
Design will make the difference between smart city projects offering great promise or actually reinforcing or even widening the existing gaps in unequal ways their cities serve residents.
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.
The rise in temporary use of urban space requires a looser planning vision that can draw on this new type of city-making to inform longer-term developments.