Like all public buildings, police stations belong in existing or new centres. They play a critical role in patronage of place. Trends also show increasing dependence on centres and walk-ability by customers. Now and in the future.

Image: new Education QLD Senior School in the town centre which relates to the street. A good example of urban design leadership - by Council, State Government and the consultant team.

Posted by: Andrew Hammonds

Thanks to: "Re-inventing the police station: police–public relations, reassurance and the future of the Police Estate" (pdf 224 kb).

There is increasing consumer demand to live, work and shop in mixed use centres. In the USA 77% of Millenniums/Gen Y wanting to live in urban core and 75% of retiring baby boomers want mixed use and mixed age. For a look into the future watch Ellen Dunham-Jones firing the starting shot for the next 50 years' big sustainable design project: retrofitting suburbia. To come: Dying malls rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited, parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands.

Locating government buildings in centres (on streets) also supports walkability which has quantifiable benefits. According to Atlantic Cities:

"Living car-free in walkable areas fits younger lifestyles. Fewer young people want cars. In 1995 people age 21 to 30 drove 21 percent of all miles driven in the U.S.; in 2009 it was 14 percent, despite consistent growth of the age group."  [Advertising Age, 2010]

"If one in ten Massachusetts adults started a regular walking program, the state would save $121 million in heart disease expenditures annually" [MA Dept. of Public Health, 2008]

"Exercise affects learning, memory and cognition. College students showed improved performance on recognition memory tasks after exercise." [NYU current research]

Posted by: Andrew Hammonds

Tuesday 6 March, 2012

Thanks to  http://callanparkyourplan.com.au/index.php

Gayle Dunnet who recently participated in our urban design and placemaking training course in Adelaide sent me the link to this innovative community consultation. Good use of the Internet to engage with the community?

Leichhardt Council's brief to McGregor Coxall called for robust and ongoing community participation in the Master Planning process. Callan Park 'your plan' gives you a direct and significant role in decision making during this project. This site will remain open until Council approves the community's preferred Master Plan.

The extraordinary community participation in this website and the community workshops is a direct result of designing a multi-faceted engagement process in response to Council's brief. Since the Master Plan process began on June 10, this website has received almost 40,000 page views from 3,600 unique visitors and close to 1,000 visitors have become registered users. Hundreds of people have contributed to community workshops and online surveys. The Mental Health Workshop was attended by interested professionals and individuals, by mental health consumers, and by the key mental health consumer groups including the MHCC, ARAFMI and NSW CAG. In total so far, the community as generated more than 2,000 individual contributions to the team's understanding of Callan Park and community aspirations for its future.

Pacefocus links: Place tools

Image: interview with Clive Alcock with the perspective of Todi in the background and nolli plans of different cities from around the world. 

Posted by: Andrew Hammonds

Wednesday 30 May, 2012

Watch a full version of my interview with Clive Alcock in 2010 when he was a Director of Annand Alcock Urban Design. He know works for developer CIC Australia. You can download a copy of the transcript.

Todi in Italy one of his favourite urban places

It's a confined urban place, a highly urban feeling. We sat there for the whole morning into early afternoon. We saw the morning cafe, the chairs come out for lunch, we saw the path of the sun across the square, the life unfolding in what's a very simple urban place with a lot of density, life, and activity around it. But the view out to the hills, the glimpse of nature being incorporated, and that was a very normal but very thrilling place to be in. 

The key elements we should experience in our urban places

The key qualities that were there which I've tried to adhere to in the work that we do are to try to get as much life as possible, to focus on the place, making it as active and interesting as possible. Now you can't do that in the quieter backwaters of the residential areas but in focal point places to make them truly public, to make them truly democratic, so that people can move around in them easily where someone doesn't come up and tell you to stop taking photographs of them. 

As important parts of a more significant whole, it was the cities place in the region that allowed them to be more of themselves and not need to be all things to all people.

Image: Capitol Building

Posted by: Peter Richards - Deicke Richards

There is a lot of urbanism in many cities in the USA outside of the large major cities. In 2011, I found myself in Madison, Wisconsin at a conference. Madison is a good sized city of 230,000 about the same size as Hobart, but it is the 81^st biggest city in the USA, whereas Hobart is Australia’s 11^th biggest. The city is built around two remarkable lakes with the city centre on a narrow isthmus between the lakes giving it a very unique and memorable setting. Although not the largest city in Wisconsin by a long way, Madison is the state capital with a handsome classical Capitol building right in the middle of the city with a highly regarded university with 30000 students (over 10% of the population) adjacent to the city centre. The surrounding lands are rich farmlands and once a week Madison hosts the largest farmers market in the USA.  Every Saturday, the forecourt and park around the Capitol building are colonized by farmers, produce, live animals and cheese. Wisconsin is famous for cheese and is the largest cheese producer in the United States.

During the 19^th century, the farmland around Madison attracted many immigrants. A Welsh family, the Lloyd Jones, emigrated to a valley in Spring Green west of Madison during the American Civil war in the 1860’s. Their daughter Anna married local boy William Wright and their son Frank (Lloyd Wright) became the world famous 20^th century architect. His home, office and farm, Taliesin East is near the original family land holding where Frank grew up. He certainly remains a favourite son of Madison.

In a short visit, it was easy to see that Madison had a quite a few things going for it with clear understanding of itself and a strong ongoing reason for being. It had a unique identity and purpose within Wisconsin and the nation with government, higher education and agriculture. Madison had a distinctive form and at least one world-renowned favourite son (or daughter). Madison is also fairly close to Chicago, 240km away, similar to the distance between Sydney and Canberra. Chicago, in the neighbouring state of Illinois is a major world city of 2.7 million people, the third biggest in the US, in a region of closer to 10 million.  Frank Lloyd Wright started his career undertook many commissions in Chicago.