Posted by Sustainability Editor

Three way communication creates place making results

Two years ago, the town of Nambour on the Sunshine Coast was a little lost. It had great ‘bones’ but the surface was looking a little tired. The place was a bit … well, directionless. Fast forward one year, and the local council adopted the Nambour Activation Plan. Unlike many plans, the Activation Plan does not prescribe what must happen, when and at what cost. Rather, it is an ‘enabler’ – providing the webbing and stimulation for locals to define the types of projects and place Nambour wants to be.

Fast forward another year to the present, and the catchphrase ‘a thriving and extraordinary place to live, work and play’ is beginning to ring true, as many of the actions proposed are either completed or underway. The key is the three way partnership between the community, council, and the Nambour Alliance (which represents the businesses of the area) that has existed since the first proposal to ‘do something about Nambour’. This collaboration has allowed open discussions on how best to re-invigorate the town through both short term and long term place making activities.

With all three groups working together, the town has progressed four ‘big’ key strategic projects that were identified through consultation. Council will soon finalise design plans to re-invent the local aquatic facilities, and provide better access to the local creek and surrounding open space.

Over $600,000 has been raised through grants and donations to restore and re-introduce the heritage cane train to the centre of town. When operational, it will be one of the few heritage trams in Australia regularly transporting people.

Council funding allocations have been brought forward to complete a detailed design to expand the facilities of the iconic showgrounds. Blank walls are sporting funky artworks instead of graffiti, buskers and food trucks are popping up, and local music is being supported thanks to a small number of venues. With common support from the community, council and the Nambour Alliance, Nambour is rediscovering its soul.

For further information on the place making activities in Nambour, go to the Nambour Activation Plan site.

Paul McKinlay | Social Policy Officer
Open Space and Social Policy Team | Environment & Sustainability Policy
Planning and Environment Department | Sunshine Coast Council
Website: www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au

 

Our Region Our Future: Securing an Economic Future for Gippsland and Latrobe Valley

Anticipating that a power station closure in the Latrobe Valley was highly likely, the Committee for Gippsland undertook a six-month body of work that included the input of hundreds of Gippslanders contained in a final 100 page report. Our Region Our Future: Securing an Economic Future for Gippsland and Latrobe Valley was launched in July 2016 and adopted by the Victorian and Federal Governments as a blue-print for a future transition.

Mary Aldred

Only four months later Hazelwood power station announced it would close. Our Region Our Future includes economic and employment modelling on a closure scenario by GHD, the input of 200 small to medium businesses in the Latrobe Valley about their economic relationship with the four Gippsland power stations, and 20 business case studies. It also sets out key recommendations on a path through transition, from a staged closure, to higher education and re-skilling opportunities, investment attracting, and a low emissions future for coal.

Gippsland has a broad based economy, and the report focusses on developing its already strong base in agribusiness, manufacturing and exports. The report acknowledges highlights the link between the region’s large quantum of heavy industry and employment with the power stations, paper mill and others, and the economy of small businesses that are sustained from it. Those large industries also create and maintain a demand for highly skilled workers, and education providers in the region. The report clearly articulates a future for Gippsland’s 500 years’ worth of brown coal reserves.

While coal fired electricity generation may diminish, new technology including carbon capture and storage is necessary to help achieve deep emissions cuts necessary to help address carbon reduction targets. There is also a strong commercial and employment future for coal derivatives, including coal to hydrogen, coal to fertiliser, coal to magnesium and more.

Our Region Our Future remains the only up-to-date, locally informed, fact-based and comprehensive analysis of a power station closure in the Latrobe Valley, and a strategy to address it.

Mary Aldred
Chief Executive Officer
Committee for Gippsland Inc
See our website at: www.committeeforgippsland.com.au

What is Synaptic Urbanism?

Urbanisation is not a new phenomenon. As our species transitioned from migrant hunter-gatherers to farming societies with permanent settlements, we started to build cities as centres of trade. Cities are a product of our natural human state.

“The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind”    Lewis Mumford (from ‘The Culture of Cities’ 1938).

The challenge for our species is that we are increasingly dependent on accelerating city growth to safeguard basic necessities such as farmland and water supplies; we can no longer sustain a dispersed society. The UN projects that 85% of the world’s population will live in major cities by the year 2050.  The implications of the rapid acceleration in urban living are multivalent and demand a reassessment of our understanding, from practical considerations of infrastructure, transport, water, housing and public places to the broader socio-political and economic contexts in which the framework of physical infrastructure is set.

I use the term Synaptic Urbanism to describe an analytical approach and associated set of tools we may use as we begin to navigate this complex urban future in a manner that is specific to the local conditions, culture and climate of each place. Each city has competing priorities for investment, infrastructure, urban repair and social provision. The decision makers heretofore have prioritised investment based on a combination of fiscal objectives, political drivers and in many case as a response to unforeseen events.

Therefore many past investments in our cities are ineffective and incomplete. If we begin to add the overlay of spatial data that is currently available to cities then policy makers can make more informed decisions on investment priorities. We can identify the small investments that can complete previously disjointed strategies. The key component is that these Synaptic Urbanism interventions do not need to be large investments, they just need to be in the right place and they must do the right things.

Michael Hegarty RAIA RIBA AoU
National Practice Leader │ Australia + New Zealand
GHDWOODHEAD

Henderson Town Centre Project, Auckland, New Zealand.

The reduction of vandalism and graffiti through arts based place making and youth engagement.

This project responded to a request from stakeholders within the Henderson Town Centre for vibrant and positive public art that could cover multiple sites, and create visible change within selected public spaces. Public spaces blighted by graffiti and vandalism.

Our project methodology utilised the power of Public Art to engage with youth to reduce vandalism and graffiti sustainably in the short and long term. It did this by linking a series of public art making events to entry portfolio requirements to higher education in art and design.

Image: Kakano Youth Arts Collective member Nate Cole with Community Constable Marty Speers. Henderson Pop-Up Space, 2016.

The project’s success relied on facilitating partnerships between Local Government, Unitec Institute of Technology, and a local Henderson community outreach organisation the Kakano Youth Arts Collective. This combination of institutional resourcing and stewardship, government funding, and essential local knowledge and social connections was a vital set of management tools.

The project involved engaging local 16 to 20 year old youth who have a Police record of vandalism and graffiti, but have been identified through the outreach program as being creative. These young people are the peer group to the 12 to 15 year olds, also engaged in tagging and vandalism but deemed too young for the project.

The methodology involved a series of public artwork strategies and mentoring workshops by well-known street artists. Permanent and temporary public artworks were supported by skills based workshops such subjects as screen-printing and hand-lettering. This work program produced a series of high profile permission based public art initiatives, authentic, and capable of constant renewal. They were structured to create a visible and achievable staircase into an Art and Design education pathway. A path previously seen by the youth to be unattainable. Our program of creative practice and mentoring ensured a connection was made by the youth between their tagging designs and the skills and approaches inherent and required in a commercial design.

To date, the program has measured a 60% reduction in vandalism and graffiti within the town centre.

Paul Woodruffe MLA
Unitec Institute of Technology.
[email protected]