GREENING THE BLUE: urban futures of regeneration and repair

A community workshop about urbanisation and climate justice.

Climate change and climate crisis can already be observed with rapidly melting glaciers, a rising average global temperature, and increasingly frequent and extreme weather patterns resulting in biodiversity loss and breakdown. While these environmental changes are damaging and irreversible, there are still things we can and must do now. People in the built environment professions are invited to be exemplars of positive change, become active in transforming industry thinking, education and practice, and become a part of a critical mass to regenerate and permanently repair this Earth. We must affect policy, rethink the design of our homes, suburbs, cities, lifestyles, habits and care for the natural environment.

Architects for Peace, Engineers Without Borders and special guests will come together on the 31st October - World Cities Day. We offer an evening long community workshop to investigate the issues of urbanisation and climate justice. We invite you to participate in transdisciplinary, solutions-based discussion and take decisive action to repair and regenerate now.

Event details:

Thursday 31st October, 2019

Collingwood Library Meeting Room

11 Stanton Street, Abbotsford, Melbourne

6.30pm - 9.30pm

Light refreshments provided

Bookings essential on Eventbrite

This is a free event run by Architects for Peace and Engineers Without Borders and sponsored by the City of Yarra Council.

Slow Cities: Changing Pace Through Design

SLOW CITIES: CHANGING PACE THROUGH DESIGN

How can urban planning, architecture and public art intervention help to slow down the pace of our urban lives and in turn improve city design? How can we respectfully preserve and cultivate Melbourne’s urban culture? What types of local knowledge, practice and design ideologies are valuable in creating inclusive, resilient and healthy communities? Who should be involved in shaping the slow city?

As part of Neapoli Wine Bar’s Sunday Salon Sessions, Architects for Peace invites you to a panel discussion on the value of slow design by looking at “green” design, wellbeing in the city, and policy-making through indigenous and other sources of knowledge and values.

GUEST SPEAKERS:

Dr. Claire Boulange, Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Healthy Liveable Cities Group, RMIT Centre for Urban Research

Dr. Janet McGaw, Senior Lecturer - Architectural Design & Practice, University of Melbourne

Dr. David Nichols, Associate Professor - Urban Planning, University of Melbourne

Julie Francis, Sustainable Farmer - Moffits Farm, Land Use & Green Cities expert


DATE & TIME:
Sunday 25 March 2018
3.30pm - 5.30pm

LOCATION:
Neapoli Wine Bar
30 Russell Place, Melbourne VIC 3000

REGISTER YOUR INTEREST THROUGH EVENTBRITE:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/slow-cities-tickets-42165994625

THIS EVENT IS PART OF MELBOURNE DESIGN WEEK 2018
Melbourne Design Week 2018 is an initiative by Creative Victoria in collaboration with the NGV.

Alvaro Maz on Creative Suburbs - Thursday 9 May 2013

Date: Thursday 9 May, 2013 
Time: 7.00pm
Venue: Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Victorian College of the Arts (Southbank campus), 234 St Kilda Road, Melbourne

Last month’s panel discussion raised questions around how we occupy space – and the problems with existing planning and governance structures that limit and sometimes prohibit socially just access to space.

To continue this conversation, next month we have Alvaro Maz from Creative Suburbs – talking about ways to empower communities and individuals to shape the city they live in.

Alvaro is a former international development devotee interested in spreading ideas, examining and connecting places and people – when he’s not feeding his chocolate addiction. Originally from Colombia, he now lives, eats and blogs in Melbourne. Alvaro is also the founder of Creative Suburbs, a community consultation platform established to share and support ideas to enhance the built environment in suburban Melbourne.

Refreshments provided/gold coin donations welcome!

Image credit: Alvaro Maz

Night Walks in Central Dandenong | Nocturnal | 6pm - 8 pm | Thursday 14 June 2012

Image of large scale projection in Thomas Street Dandenong by Antony Kraus

Words@Building 50 is supporting the “Night Walks” in Central Dandenong as part of Nocturnal. Nocturnal is a Winter Arts Program presented by the City of Greater Dandenong in partnership with RMIT Public Art, Chisholm Institute and invited artists including Ian de Gruchy and Robbie Rolands.

The night walks are a chance to experience Central Dandenong as one of the six Central Activity District in Metropolitan Melbourne through the eyes of artists and to do this in an unusual manner. Two night walks (7 and 14 June) have been organised to tour the area and experience a series of light based installations and performance works.

The event is free but must be booked on line as places are limited. Architects for Peace Members are attending the night walk on 14th June, please join us. Visit 

http://www.greaterdandenong.com/Documents.asp?ID=22563&Title=Nocturnal+2012+-+Night+Walks&Type=d

Housing Tactics | Diego Ramirez-Lovering | Thursday 8 March 2012

 Housing Tactics

Diego Ramirez-Lovering

Senior Lecturer and Acting Head of Department, 

Department of Architecture. Monash University

Thursday 8 March

7.00pm

 RMIT building 50

Orr Street, Carlton

This presentation examines spatial flexibility within the provision of volume housing. Spatial flexibility in volume housing, it is argued, can lead to more sustainable housing outcomes within this market. The volume housing market, characterised by conservatism and low cost construction, has historically been delivered with little design input. The presentation presents a body of housing designs that have been developed over 6 years of practice for delivery in the context of volume housing. Through an examination of these housing projects, I will articulate the different strategies for incorporating spatial flexibility in different housing typologies, detached, duplex, townhouse and apartment. It focuses on adaptability, which is characterised by the ability to change use or occupation patterns without costly modifications to the physical fabric of the building. Spatial flexibility presents a particularly relevant design strategy within the highly constrained cost and development parameters of the volume housing and presents a productive strategy for improving the overall spatial design of these housing projects and demonstrating an enhancement to both social and environmental sustainability.

Resilience in Infrastructure & Urban Form | Thurs. 10 Nov. 7pm | by Che Biggs

Thursday 10 November
7.00pm
Building 50
Orr Street Carlton

Che’s talk will focus on system design principles for transformation and resilience in infrastructure and urban form. It will argue that much of our built environment and critical infrastructure has been (and still is) designed, built and managed under outdated assumptions of environmental and resource stability. This dominant ‘centralised’ model is not only unsustainable, it exacerbates society’s vulnerability to climate change, peak oil and resource scarcity. With these global scale contextual disruptions ‘in the pipeline’, we urgently need new design models for the built environment that are adapted to greater contextual uncertainty, volatility and disruption – models that are more resilient.

The talk will explore results from on-going research at the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab that has identified the ‘distributed systems’ model as having considerable promise. Che will draw on examples from the natural and built environment to explore what this model looks like and how a distributed approach can benefit society in four critical areas, by:

• Reducing society’s base load environmental footprint
• Increasing the resilience of critical infrastructure to shocks and disturbances
• Supporting and fostering behavior change, community capacity and adaptive governance
• Undermining the viability of existing production and consumption systems

The talk will end with an open discussion about the types of opportunities and challenges that people within Architects for Peace may face in enabling distributed systems.

Bio:
Che Biggs is Distributed Systems Research Fellow at the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL). His work focuses on the development of strategies and tools to build society’s resilience to long-term sustainability challenges. A key component of this work addresses the need for new provision systems (for food, energy and water) that strengthen community capacity to adapt to resource scarcity and climate change while enhancing natural capital. Che has a particular interest working with communities to draw out place-based knowledge, envisage common aims and ensure local ownership of development strategies - particularly those increasing people’s relationship to place and nature. Che has a background in environmental science, management and policy and has worked internationally in the environmental sector since 2001 as a consultant, facilitator and researcher.

http://www.architectsforpeace.org/

Nocturnal nightwalks in Dandenong

Thursday 9 June, 6pm
Dandenong Town Hall,
Drum Theatre
Lonsdale Street
Dandenong

A one night only event in Dandenong - Start at the Drum Theatre, walk through lanes and multilevel carparks and around the VicUrban site guided by artworks, installations, projections and whole lot of people mad enough to be out on a winter night in Central Dandenong. End up at the Walker Street Gallery with two video/social media works - free but must book via email: .jpembe at cgd.vic.gov.au

Join the arch-peace team for wine and pizza at the end at Walker Street Gallery, Dandenong!!!

Public forum: Melbourne 's Urban Growth... Boundary? Thursday 9 September 2010

Panel Discussion

At RMIT bldg 50, Orr St (off Victoria St), Carlton

Thursday 9 September 2010, 7 PM

Entry by gold coin donation

Refreshments provided

The Victorian State government recently announced that Melbourne's urban growth boundary will be expanded, an increase roughly equivalent to four times the size of Philip Island, that is expected to accommodate 134,000 new houses (that's about 3.1 dwellings per hectare, pretty low density considering 10 dwellings per hectare is about the average for the equivalent land area South-East of the CBD).

The decision has been supported by the Coalition and applauded by housing and property Industry groups, with the claim being that expansion of the UGB will make housing more affordable. But it has sparked dismay and disbelief elsewhere in the built environment profession, among planning groups and the community at large. It looks like Melbourne's steady outward sprawl, long criticised for pushing people further and further from jobs and services, forcing car dependence and taking over much-needed agricultural land, is here to stay.

Is this really the answer to housing affordability?

How does this measure impact on social and ecological sustainability?

What does this mean for Melbourne?

Join us as we explore this topic with a number of leading experts:

- Paul Mees, lecturer at RMIT Global Studies, Science & Social Planning focusing on transportation.

- Stuart Worn, executive officer of Planning Institute of Australia

- Ian Woods, president of Save our Suburbs

- Tony De Domenico, executive director of Urban Development Institute of Australia

- Carolyn Whitzman, associate professor in Urban Planning, University of Melbourne

- Kate Shaw, ARC research fellow, University of Melbourne

- Maree McPherson, CEO of Victorian Local Governance Association

- Dianne Moy, Project Coordinator, VEIL (Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab)

The discussion will be chaired by Ian Woodcock, research fellow-Urban Design, University of Melbourne.

image by theage.com.au

Thursday 6 August 2009, 7.00pm :. The art of architecture in making community, presented by Silvia Acosta

At RMIT bldg 50, Orr St (off Victoria St), Carlton
Silvia Acosta, architect and professor at the Rhode Island School of Design in the USA, is a visiting academic at Monash University's Department of Art + Design in August. She finds opportunities for student engagement in practice-based projects, and values a “hands-on” approach as a way of doing. Investigation topics are often developed in relation to issues of community and the public realm. Silvia has undertaken community-based design-build projects in Mexico, Costa Rica, Japan and the USA.

Silvia says:

"Collaborative efforts often outweigh work conceived from a singular or individual point of view; working jointly on a project is one way of forming “community.” In making community, everyone involved leaves marks without being concerned about whose handprints are in the work. Collective decisions are made through different points of view, yet these diverse outlooks share a common ambition to make something contributing to the greater good.

Architectural practice is often collaborative—involving many minds and hands, an ongoing exchange of ideas and crafts. While a kind of art form, architecture is not an isolated art; it is bound to a multitude of intersecting circumstances. Part of one large human art, it tries to understand the physical world, shape it and make room for living in it.

Our quest as artists and architects is to discover and articulate what we value. We seek out situations where a contribution might be made in an attempt to improve the lives of individuals, or the qualities of a place in some way. The work we make as architects comes from us, mirrors our reflections and longings, and yet, it is never ours; when finished, it is given away to others. So, how can we propose guidelines for a work of architecture that induces active exchange among its makers—a sense of community among the people it serves?"

Entry by gold coin donation, refreshments provided.

(Images from Silvia's community-based work in Mexico, Japan and the USA)

Making the City an 'Off Lead' Area for Kids - April 5, 2007

This presentation shows how planning can help to increase children's independent mobility by including their views and experiences into planning processes.

Cultural values of freedom, the market and democracy are operationationalised by competitive self-interest and symbolized by privatized lives. This focus on individualism also underpins institutional, community and family risk management activities aimed to protect children. Combined with the conceptualisation of children as ‘incompetent’ or as dangerous, they are removed from public space for their own safety or for the safety of others. As a result, children's independent mobility has decreased significantly in the western world.

About the presenter: Julie Rudner is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne and tutor in Social Planning for Health, Research Methods

More information coming soon...

Thursday April 5th, 7pm at 50 Orr Street, South Carlton

Favela Bairro Project PDF

Click the title to view the whole PDF of Meaghan's presentation on Wednesday night. Thanks again to Meaghan for explaining the methodology of her research in addition to the details of the Rio projects.

Beware the download is large - about 6.6MB.

The Favela Bairro Project

CONSTRUCTING AN URBAN DESIGN CASE
The Favela Bairro Project: Mending the City Fabric
Wednesday October 4th, at 7pm. RMIT Bldg 50 in Orr Street
Speaker : Meaghan Dwyer, architect
A project with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

‘In every city there are qualities that are worth to be lived. These are the qualities that urban design must not steal.’ Wim Wenders

How is the city made and what are current urban design practices? Where do the opportunities for urban design lie, and how are they realised? This presentation outlines the development of a theoretical framework for the presentation of a detailed urban design case, and attempts to elaborate a particular case: The Favela-Bairro Project.

The population of Rio today is estimated to be over 11 million. It is thought that up to 20% of the cities inhabitants live in favelas, or spontaneous informal settlements. The Favela-Bairro Project is conceived as a tool to promote the urban and social integration of the favelas in an effort to reverse the process of urban decline that generally follows the growth of spontaneous low-income settlements in metropolitan areas of the developing countries. With carefully planned and reparative interventions, the favelas are inverted and returned to the city. Unlike past urban planning initiatives in Rio de Janeiro, the Favela-Bairro Project represents a modest practice of mending the city fabric.

This research was undertaken whilst a visiting Scholar at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, as part of the Master of Social Science - International Urban and Environmental Management, at RMIT University, Australia.

(Please not that this month's WORDS is to be held on Wednesday, not the usual Thursday)