Green Cities 2011, Melbourne

The Green Cities conference, has for me mostly focused on green buildings due to the emphasis on the built form, however this year it evolved. Whilst the last couple of years has seen the focus growing toward city design, this year saw it promoting green communities alongside the development of the green communities rating tool.

Green Cities 2011 is the annual conference run by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) and the Property Council to promote sustainable built environment best practice for and from industry. There were a number of notable key speakers, representing best practice case studies, research and notions around communities however local speakers were again limited to sponsors and GBCA personnel.

Attendance was, as always, a good representation of the stalwarts and industry experts, and therefore the participation and networking opportunities were plentiful. Notable presentations included London Olympics 2012 by Dan Epstein, ideas on Mumbai by Jeb Brugmann, health and productivity by Esther Sternberg and notions of sustainable communities by Michael Greene.

Green Cities 2011 is all about the community and how we live in it, in the developed cities / world (planned /democratic?) and the unplanned or third world cities/countries, which not surprisingly can also be extremely well planned from the community’s perspective. Ultimately the conference was however about the people within communities, their culture and climatic context, the resources available and the economy past present and future. This was complimented by discussions around the Green Communities Tool development.

My take home bytes were:
_It takes seven years to affect cultural change (really?); and

_Our future focus must be design for communities rather than individuals.

Sustainable Urbansim: A Resilient Future Part Three

Day three brought us back to the local context with a presentation by Rob Adams on the approach to city planning taken by the city of Melbourne. This was followed by tours of the local diverse urban context including: Docklands (Brownfield); Footscray (Central Activity District); Brunswick (Greyfields) and Carlton (People and Place).

I toured the ‘Greyfields’ area of Brunswick where the conversion from clay pits, brick factories and light industrial buildings into medium density housing has been a main feature of the last 10-20 years. In addition the strip shopping in Sydney Road has seen an emergence in new and trendy shopping, followed by the development of residential apartments of 3-10 storeys high on the main tramline as per the approach outlined by the City of Melbourne. However ten storeys directly onto Sydney Road is very intrusive. The highlight was Westwyk ecovillage, a small community around an old school site containing adaptive reuse of the heritage building with new townhouses. A hidden gem.

I found the conference imbued a mixed emotive response from hope to depression, excitement to dismay. There is much to be done by not only  professionals who understand our communities potential to evolve and improve, but by all of the community.

I am left with the quotation used by Chris Brown in the TEDTalk, attributed to Edmund Burke 1729-1797.

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing’...

Our thoughts are with you Japan

We live in such a global community, that it is difficult not to be directly affected by the environmental  and human catastrophes occurring in Japan over the last week.
Whilst it is unfolding and in the future our thoughts are with the people in Japan and also those who have been caught out of the country and still deeply affected with loved ones missing and homes and regions devasted.

For participants wishing to support relief and humanitarian efforts, the UN Global Compact and the UN Global Compact Network Japan recommend making a financial contribution to the Japan Platform – an established emergency humanitarian aid organization comprised of Japanese NGOs, businesses and Government entities which was created to support refugees and disasters worldwide.

Sustainable Urbansim: A Resilient Future Part Two

The following morning had us reviewing research on city approaches commencing with Peter Doherty, Jane-Francis Kelly, and Peter Newton (Peter Newton also presented on behalf of Peter Newman). Then without much ado Gilbert had us on our feet and clumsily bumping into each other in a game of networking. The workshops followed with the participants forming four workshop groups focussing on the how to create resilient cities based on pathways for economics led by John Wiseman; cultural health and wellbeing led by Gilbert Rochecouste; green infrastructure led by Allen Kearns; and built infrastructure and design led by Janis Birkeland.

I participated in the built environment and design workshop looking at the pathways required to evolve our communities into entities delivering positive resource and other benefits as opposed to negative drain on resources from the rural sector. There was much debate which came back to political will and community belief in the change; however the overwhelming theme was the need to clearly express the pathway and benefits of this to the general community to bring the community along. As with all change the community must be engaged and participate in the journey.

The outcomes of the workshop were summated by Dorte Ekelund of the Major Cities Unit, Infrastructure Australia. Sustainable Urbanisation: a resilient future is organising two publication outputs (i) special issue of journal and (ii) edited book. Details can be found on the Sustainable Urbanisation website

Sustainable Urbansim: A Resilient Future Part One

The Sustainable Urbanism Conference held in Melbourne last month was an ambitious bringing together of both international and Australian experts in presentation and workshop formats, including a TEDxCarlton for YouTube. The outcomes from the conference plenary sessions and workshops will form the basis of a new publication edited by Dr Leonie Pearson, Prof Peter Newton and Prof Peter Roberts, titled Sustainable Urbanism: A Resilient Future.

The Conference purpose was to bring together multidisciplinary researchers and practitioners to advance the theory and implementation of resilient sustainable urban development.

The conference kicked off with an open public TEDxCarlton held at Zinc Federation Square in Melbourne. The line up of speakers included Gil Penalosa 8-80 Cities Canada, Cathy Wilkinson Stockholm Resilience Centre Sweden, Chris Brown Igloo Regeneration UK, Peter Roberts Homes and Communities Agency UK, Gilbert Rochecouste Village Well Australia, Pru Sanderson VicUrban Australia and Sein-Way Tan Green World City Australia.

The various case studies, research and ideas were broad however the common theme of designing for local community, community interaction and benefits was expressed in all presentations. Personally my favourites were Chris Brown talking about retrofitting existing buildings for communities and Cathy Wilkinson of the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie

David Suzuki's long awaited movie is now at independant cinemas in Australia. David was in Melbourne recently to open the moonlight cinemas showing of the movie.

I missed it but has any one seen this  and if so what did you think?