Posts Tagged ‘urban design’
Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress
Posted in Events by lridley on March 2nd, 2010
Image: Introducing Healthy Parks Healthy People Part 1
The Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress is a world-first event coordinated by Parks Victoria to explore how nature significantly contributes to our wellbeing and broader societal benefits. It is expected to attract over 1000 delegates from Australia and over 28 countries represented from around the world. Participants will come from many different sectors including urban planning, community development, physical and mental health, tourism, education, recreation, ecology and park management (urban and protected area) industrial and technological. This diversity of perspectives will allow delegates to understand the benefits of nature through the eyes of many.
Over the course of the Congress delegates will engage in a memorable way with different models of engagement including; inspirational speakers in plenary sessions, field tours to key locations across Melbourne, outdoor sessions and practical workshops and discussions.
Keynote Speakers include:
- Professor Tim Flannery (Aus) Environmental activist and author of ‘Weather Makers’.
- Richard Louv (USA) author of ‘Saving our children from nature deficit disorder’,
- Guillermo Penalosa (Canada) Executive Director Walk and Bike for Life Canada
- Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka (Uganda) CEO Conservation Through Public Health
and many more…………….
Why attend the Congress?
- If you work in physical or mental health, planning, tourism, community development, education, conservation, climate change, government, policy development or park management you can’t afford not to be a part of this innovative event.
- Learn more about emerging research demonstrating the integral ties between nature and human health and well being.
- Gain practical insight from evidence based case studies.
- Be inspired by innovative and non-pharmaceutical tactics to improve health outcomes for individuals and communities.
- Gain a truly international perspective, with presenters from 27 countries.
- Gather intelligence and build networks within and across your sector.
- Participate in setting the agenda for this important movement.
Melbourne Convention Centre, Melbourne Victoria
11 – 16 April 2010
For more information, a full program and registration details please visit the website.
Tags: conference, healthy cities, parks, urban design
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Kingston Raingarden Tour: design, construction & maintenance challenges
Posted in Models by Clearwater on September 21st, 2009
Image: Kingston City Council
Join Clearwater and the City of Kingston on a half day tour of raingardens and biofilters in Kingston. Raingardens play an important role in reducing stormwater flows and pollutant loads which drain into our creeks, rivers and bay.
The City of Kingston is recognised as an industry leader in retrofitting water sensitive urban design (WSUD) into council projects. This half day tour is lead by Alan West, Kingston Council’s Engineering Design Team Leader. You will be taken to WSUD sites developed over the past ten years to discuss successes and lessons learnt from each of the projects.
Thursday 22nd October 2009
Tags: education, urban design, water
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Water at WestWyck – An integration of small and large scale water systems
Posted in RDAG by CBiggs on July 13th, 2009
This ‘eco-village’ project is the brainchild of the WestWyck developers and originated from a community effort to preserve a historic local school building in Brunswick. Resource efficiency has played a major role in shaping the site’s design and construction. The village consists of 5 townhouses and seven apartments with a second stage planned. VEIL has been particularly interested in how water is managed there.
Water is handled on the site using a series of different methods to harvest, minimise use, treat, recycle and manage discharge from the site. Drinking water is supplied via the mains distribution system but unlike most residences in Melbourne, demand for mains water is substantially reduced through the integration of multiple on-site water technologies.
Tags: community, distributed systems, urban design, water
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Grid, Corridor & Field: Exhibition of proposals for a sustainable Melbourne
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on June 22nd, 2009
Ninety percent of the infrastructure that will exist in 2020 is already built. As measures to combat global warming are debated in parliaments around the world, three Masters of Architecture design studios from the University of Melbourne have interrogated what roles our existing cities and buildings may play in a low-carbon future.
Opening Night – Tuesday 23 June 2009 @ 6pm
Two leaders in the fields of Architecture and Urban Design will open the exhibition; Prof. Rob Adams, Director of Design and Urban Environment at the City of Melbourne and Prof. Tom Kvan, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning at the University of Melbourne.
RSVP
Tags: city of short distances, mobility, urban design
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Call for Proposals: Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress
Posted in Seeking by Kate Archdeacon on June 19th, 2009
Sourced from Healthy Parks Healthy People, the website for the inaugural 2010 HPHP Congress.
The Call for Proposals for the first International Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress is NOW OPEN and will remain open until June 22nd 2009.
With the increasing recognition of the value of nature to human health and wellbeing worldwide, Parks Victoria will host the inaugural International Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress at the new Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 11-16 April 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: healthy cities, parks, urban design
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Origin Balcony Garden
Posted in Models by Devin Maeztri on June 16th, 2009
The Outdoor Room at Origin National Customer Contact Centre in Collins Street, Melbourne.
It is located on the balcony of level 7 at 271 Collins Street and was designed for Origin employees by celebrity gardener and Origin green ambassador Jamie Durie.
For more information about Origin Balcony garden please contact:
Undertow Media
Kate Aurel-Smith or Lucy Don
Ph: 03 9421 1566
Mobile: 0409 528 024 or 0402 418 434
Origin
Amelia Collins, PR and Communications Manager
Ph: 03 8665 7475
Mobile: 0413 616 435
Tags: gardening, green building, green space, urban design
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Solar Panel Purchase Program
Posted in Policies by Devin Maeztri on April 7th, 2009
To ensure a clear, consistent and appropriate response to growing community expectations, the City of Port Phillip has produced the following guide: SOLAR PANELS | A General Guide and Planning Checklist for Residents and Industry
Produced in collaboration with stakeholders, this document presents the key considerations that the City of Port Phillip considers to be important regarding photovoltaic and solar hot water systems within the municipality, and provides a checklist for those who are required to obtain a planning permit under the Port Phillip Planning Scheme. Where a permit is required, as with other sustainable design initiatives (i.e. rainwater tanks), Council now waives the application fee associated with obtaining a planning permit, with these typically processed through our Fast Track service and completed in less than 3 weeks.
For more information contact our Planning Department on 9209 6424. This information will also soon be included on Port Phillip Online under Sustainable Urban Design.
In collaboration with a number of municipalities, over the next few months the City of Port Phillip is facilitating a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel bulk purchase program to assist residents in reducing household greenhouse gas emissions. For more information please contact our Sustainable Environment Team on 9209 6777 or visit: Solar Panel Purchase Program
Tags: industry, local council, renewable energy, residents, solar panel, sustainability, urban design
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Research on Designs for a child-friendly city
Posted in Research by Ferne Edwards on March 2nd, 2009
This abstract about “Designs for a child-friendly city” by Karen Malone was published on Australian Policy Online. It discusses important issues of a child’s need to be able to explore a city – to meet their neighbours and see nature in the streets – for their own development. For this to occur, cities must be created to allow children the space and safety to explore. To view the full text published in Curriculum Leadership click here.
Ideally, towns and cities should be the site where children socialise, observe and learn how society functions. They should also be places where children can find refuge, discover nature and find tolerant and caring adults who will encourage them to explore and wonder about their world.A generation ago, children were far more likely to play independently in their own neighbourhood than they are today. The child’s right to free play in a city is something we may be giving away too lightly.
To view the complete article click here.
Tags: child-friendly, healthy cities, urban design
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Drive Slowly and Prosper
Posted in Models, Uncategorized by Ferne Edwards on February 20th, 2009
Please find below a partial transcript of an interview between John Whitelegg (a recent guest of SustainableMelbourne.com’s at the Sustainable Cities Round Table) interviewed by Peter Mares on ABC Radio National (more details below). This article was also republished in a Going Solar Transport Newsletter, compiled by Stephen Ingrouille. Going Solar newsletter provides an excellent commentary on local sustainable transport issues in Melbourne.
Drive Slowly and Prosper - partial transcript
John Whitelegg: “…. 80 per cent of the motorists say, when they look at the evidence, that they are very happy to go with lower speed limits when they see the impact that the higher speed limits have on child fatality, child serious injury. Motorists are not evil monsters. In the main, they’re very reasonable people and they’re very happy to drive at a lower speed when they are presented with the information of the severely damaging consequences of higher speed. And by the way, there’s detailed research on the loss of time when you’re making a journey to lower speed. If you’re doing a journey by car of, say, six, seven, eight kilometres and you’re driving at, say, 40 kilometres an hour rather than 50 kilometres an hour, you lose two minutes. You know, the time impact – put it that way – is trivial. And people can try it for themselves. Traffic moves more smoothly at lower speeds; traffic makes better use of the highway capacity. People don’t drive in a way where they accelerate aggressively and decelerate rapidly. You know, there are many advantages. I actually trust drivers to look at the evidence and arrive at a view. And the problem we’ve got is that politicians behave like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a passing car. They really don’t know what to do and they’re frightened of upsetting the electorate…. All it is saying is ‘Look, do we want a society where we’re likely to squash children over the roadside because they have the temerity to try and cross the road between parked cars and are hit by a car going at 55 kilometres per hour? Do we want the kind of society that creates children-unfriendly cities and elderly unfriendly cities (and we’re running into so called demographic time bombs with more of us, including me, going to be over the age of 55, than ever before)? Do we want a friendly city for those kind of people or not? And really, really, what are the consequences of lower speed limits – and they are trivially insignificant, apart from reducing the number of dead children? And what’s wrong with that?”
Peter Mares: “I don’t think anyone would argue with reducing the number of dead children and I guess people would say ‘No, it doesn’t necessarily have to be anti-motorist. But it is anti-car. I mean, it is saying the car having everyone getting about in their own individual car, that’s not going to make for an ideal city.”
John Whitelegg: “It’s not anti-car at all. The car is a wonderful thing for many kinds of journeys, many kinds of situations; it should be used responsibly and intelligently. But Australian cities, for example, very often have (what’s the percentage?) around 30 per cent, 35 per cent of all the car trips are less than two kilometres – two kilometres in length. That’s generally recognised around the world as not an intelligent use of cars. You know, we have to go for smart use, intelligent use of vehicles, appropriate use of vehicles and, again, I find in my work, whether it’s in Germany or Denmark or Sweden or the UK, or wherever, the people say, ‘Yes, yes, we agree. And then we have to look for ways of implementing the changes in things like road design, speed limits, enforcement of speed limits and other things that reward the responsible user of the vehicle and punish the irresponsible user of the vehicle.”
Peter Mares: “Let’s now turn to perhaps the other benefit that there is to be had from this, and that’s the broader environmental benefit, particularly as we try to deal with climate change.”
John Whitelegg: “The climate change connections with a discussion of speed and health and child friendly cities are very strong, limiting speed of vehicles in cities. What it actually does is create a very attractive environment where people are more likely to reduce the use of the car from their own choice, from their own thinking. They work through it themselves and they switch to walking and cycling and public transport – they change their behaviour. If they do change their behaviour that way, there’s an immediate, very significant reduction in greenhouse gases in carbon dioxide. So, we actually have one of those classic win-win situations: we create healthy cities, safe cities more walking or cycling, more child-friendly cities, carbon-reduced cities, we deliver carbon dioxide reduction targets to sort out climate change.â€
Ref: The National Interest, ABC Radio National, 12/12/08
See the full transcript at: www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2008/2445020.htm#transcript
Tags: alternative transport, child friendly cities, John Whitelegg, transport, urban design, urban planning
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Sustainable Design Scorecard v6
Posted in Models by Ferne Edwards on February 11th, 2009
Established in 1999, and focusing on the planning approvals process, the Sustainable Design Scorecard (SDS) is intended to assess and quantify the environmental performance of non-residential developments throughout Victoria. Sustainable Design Scorecard v6 represents a new milestone for this valuable resource with a new, cleaner look and higher required scores, albeit with a greater number of options to achieve the target in each Environmental Category.
As part of the Sustainable Design Assessment in the Planning Process (SDAPP) programme the Scorecard is complemented by its online sister tool, STEPS (www.morelandsteps.com.au) that assesses the environmental performance of residential developments. The Scorecard and STEPS have been developed by the Cities of Port Phillip and Moreland to enable designers and Council officers to assess all building types with the view of reducing their environmental impacts. These easy to use self-assessment tools are free and available for anyone anywhere to use.
This version of the Scorecard supersedes all previous electronic and paper-based variations, and while individual organisations can set their own thresholds, it is recommended that no older versions be accepted beyond April 2009.
For more information please contact your Council, the City of Port Phillip, or visit www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/sds .
Sustainable Design Scorecard v6
news-release-reaching-for-the-stars
Tags: built form, green buildings, Sustainable design, urban design
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