Archive for the ‘Visions’ Category
Visions refer to ideas for a sustainable future in Melbourne. Visions links in strongly with the overall Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL) project, which designs visions to change our current direction towards a more sustainable future. Posts here on Sustainable Melbourne relate to visions produced by people and organisations based in Melbourne, while more information can be found about the VEIL visions on the VEIL website. If you are involved with a local environmental visioning project you are welcome to post information about your work on Sustainable Melbourne. To do so visit the “How to use this site” page and follow the prompts.
Blog of the Year Competition: Renew
Posted in Seeking, Visions by sashashtargot on December 19th, 2011
Calling all keen sustainability e-scribes! Enter your blog in ReNew Magazine’s Blog of the Year Competition for your chance to win a pair of 110-watt solar panels! We’re looking for blogs about sustainable homes on a budget, energy efficiency, DIY projects or wider issues to do with climate change or environmental policy. The blog should provide new details or insights for those seeking information on sustainability and should have been regularly updated in 2011.
To enter, simply email renew@ata.org.au with your blog’s URL, your contact details, your goals when you started blogging on this topic and a little about your audience, such as their age bracket, skill levels and level of engagement with you and your blog.
Email entries (under 200 words) to renew@ata.org.a
Entries close Friday, February 3, 2012. For more details: www.renew.org.au
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Vision Sunshine 2032: VEIL Exhibition
Posted in Events, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on December 2nd, 2011
| 6 December , 2011 10:00 am | to | 11 December , 2011 5:00 pm |
This exhibition is being hosted by the Victorian Eco Innovation Lab (VEIL). It includes work from University of Melbourne Architecture and Landscape Architecture studios envisioning a sustainable future for Sunshine, as well as a selection of student works from previous studios as part of VEIL’s Eco-Acupuncture studio program 2009-2011.
The exhibition will be launched by Professor Thomas Kvan, Dean, Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, University of Melbourne.
6 – 11 December
Shop 51, Sunshine Plaza Shopping Centre
324-328 Hampshire Rd
Sunshine
The exhibition is easy to get to via public transport. Download a map.
Open Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm.
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Sustainable Melbourne is a VEIL project.
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Queen of the Sun: Film Screening
Posted in Events, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on September 20th, 2011
| 4 October , 2011 | ||
| 6:00 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
http://www.rosshouse.org.au/node/162
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Green Your Laneway: City of Melbourne Guide
Posted in Models, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on September 14th, 2011
Source: City of Melbourne
Photo by Tokyo Green Space
Green Your Laneway
Do you live or work off a laneway? Are you interested in laneway greening? Anyone can improve their laneway for the benefit of everyone. Many people in the central city don’t have traditional gardens but that doesn’t mean you can’t have any plants. There are many opportunities to green your home or business; you just need to know where to start. Green Your Laneway is a guide to inform laneway communities on greening using planter boxes, wall creepers and green roofs and walls within their properties.
The article includes links and further information:
- What can I green?
- What can I plant in my laneway garden?
- includes a link to the CoM suggested list of species for use in Melbourne’s laneways
- Have you considered maintenance?
- Do I need permission for greening?
- Have you considered access and safety?
- Are you seeking funding? (!!!)
Check out the page on the CoM website for more information, and check out Tokyo Green Space for more inspiration.
Photo by Tokyo Green Space
Photo by Tokyo Green Space
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Melbourne’s Urban Forest: Art & Design Competition
Posted in Seeking, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on September 13th, 2011
Photo: “Bees & Mushrooms” by Dale Gillard via flickr CC
Melbourne’s Urban Forest Art and Design Competition
The City of Melbourne is holding an Art and Design Competition to celebrate the UN International Year of Forests and to raise awareness in the community about the importance of our Urban Forest. Winning entries will receive a prize and will be displayed at various high profile public locations across the City of Melbourne in the months of November and December. Learn more about our Urban Forest in the fact sheet.
We are seeking powerful visual statements about Melbourne’s Urban Forest. We’d like you to visually explore either of the following themes:
- why trees are important to you
- your vision for Melbourne’s future urban forest
We encourage everyone to think about our trees as they will not only benefit us, but the next generations of Melburnians to come. Trees play a key role in every person’s daily life, whether they know it or not. That’s why everyone should have a say in how our future Urban Forest should evolve. The competition is open to several age categories, including Open (over 18), Secondary School, Primary School, and Under 5s.
The competition closes at 5.00 pm on Friday 14 October 2011.
http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/ParksandActivities/Parks/Pages/UrbanForestCompetition.aspx
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Earth Matters: Weekly on 3CR
Posted in Movements, Research, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on August 5th, 2011
Image: Tom Civil via flickr CC
Earth Matters – www.earthmatters.org.au
A weekly radio program covering local, national and international environmental issues with a strong social justice bent. Bringing fresh environmental news to the people, Earth Matters reports on environmental campaigns and critical ecological issues. Interviewees range from environmental activists, commentators and scientists. Produced at Radio 3CR in Melbourne and distributed around Australia on the Community Radio Network.
Recent shows on Earth Matters (available for download / podcast):
- 30th July – Urban forestry – towers through the trees Urban Forestry identifies trees as a critical element of urban infrastructure and is a method for creating sustainable urban ecosystems.
- 24th July – Lurujarri Songline; Protecting Land & Sea The incredible story of the James Price Point Blockade in the Kimberley where 25 people were arrested for protesting this month & Joseph Roe is inspiring a divided community to reunite & save the ancient Songline of the Goolaraboloo People.
- 17th July – Solar hot water and people power A vision to set up a workers’ cooperative building solar hot water units in the Latrobe Valley, which ultimately wants to involve people across the country and change our economy.
Tune in on 3CR: Sunday 11 – 11.30am
Repeats: Monday 10.30 – 11am, Wednesday 6.30 – 7am
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Changing Places: Responsive housing, mobility systems, and networked intelligence for future cities
Posted in Events, Research, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on July 7th, 2011
| 22 July , 2011 | ||
| 6:15 pm | to | 7:15 pm |
CityHome Image, © Daekwon Park for MIT Media Lab
Changing Places: Responsive housing, mobility systems, and networked intelligence for future cities
Professor Kent Larson, Director of the Changing Places Research Group, MIT Media Lab
To meet the profound sustainability, demographic, and health challenges of the future, new strategies must be found for creating responsive places where people live and work, and the mobility systems that connect them.
Professor Kent Larson will present the work of his MIT Media Lab research group to explore the intersection of high-performance housing with urban mobility-on-demand systems, including persuasive electric bike-lane vehicles to encourage exercise, the transformable live-work “CityHome” that functions as if it were much larger, and autonomous parking/charging technology. He will also review the group’s “Living Lab” experiments to better understand and respond to human activity in natural environments including sensing, algorithms, and interfaces for proactive health and energy conservation.
Friday 22 July 2011
6.15pm-7.15pm
Prince Philip Theatre
Ground Floor, Architecture Building
The University of Melbourne
To RSVP or to find out more about the lecture, go to the Melbourne School of Design site.
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Fair Share: Country & City in Australia
Posted in Opinion, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on June 15th, 2011
Image: MargaretNapier via flickr CC
For many decades Australia was the country that rode on the sheep’s back. No more – now we are a country of mining and services. In the new Wheeler Centre Quarterly Essay, one of Australia’s most original and respected political thinkers, Judith Brett, looks at what this has meant for the country and the city in our politics and culture. What will be the fate of rural and regional Australia in an era of economic rationalisation, water cutbacks, climate change, droughts and flooding rain? Does urban Australia care for or understand the country anymore?
The Wheeler Centre, 6:15PM – 7:15PM, Thursday 16 June 2011
Free event; recommended to make a booking.
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Design for an Active City: Competition
Posted in Seeking, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on June 6th, 2011
Source: Australian Design Review
Victoria’s State of Design Festival has launched an urban design competition inviting Victorian designers to transform a major thoroughfare in central Melbourne. The Design for an Active City competition seeks “implementable, site-specific proposals to improve the pedestrian experience on the northern footpath side of Collins Street Bridge as it spans Wurundjeri Way, and thereby increase pedestrian activity.”
Proposals for the temporary installation should address a 50-metre stretch of the 350-metre bridge, which runs from Spencer Street to Batman’s Hill Drive. Shortlisted submissions, selected by a panel of experts, will be on show during the State of Design Festival, with the winner announced at a public panel discussion held on 25 July. The winning entry will then be constructed and installed as a temporary project from October to December 2011, serving as a short-term installation while the development of the bridge linking the CBD with Spencer Street Station and Docklands is still under construction.
Event partner VicUrban will provide $25,000 towards the development and construction of the project. The competition spotlights the role of design in stimulating increased physical activity through interventions in the built environment, and supports the 2011 Festival’s theme, Design That Moves.
Entries to the competition are now open.
Site visit 3.00pm June 8 2011
Submission deadline July 6 2011
Winner announced, exhibition opening and public panel discussion July 25 2011
Design for an Active City is run by State of Design in partnership with VicUrban and GHD. For full submission requirements and resources go to www.stateofdesign.com.au/dfac/
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Vertical Gardens Made From Pallets
Posted in Models, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on May 16th, 2011
Source: Life On The Balcony
From How to Turn a Pallet into a Garden from Life on The Balcony:
[...]
Find A Pallet
The first thing you need to do is–obviously–find a pallet. I’ve had good luck finding them in dumpsters behind supermarkets. No need to be squeamish. It doesn’t smell. At least, it doesn’t smell that bad. 
Don’t just take the first pallet you find. You’re looking for one with all the boards in good condition, no nails sticking out, no rotting, etc. If you intend to put edibles in your pallet, be sure to find one that was heat treated as opposed to fumigated with pesticides.
Collect Your Supplies
For this project, you’ll need the pallet you found, 2 large bags of potting soil, 16 six packs of annual flowers (one six pack per opening on the face of the pallet, and two six packs per opening on the top of the completed pallet garden), a small roll of landscape fabric, a staple gun, staples, and sand paper.
[...]
Read the full post by Fern for step-by-step instructions and more photos.
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