'Monica puts wheels in motion'

The article writes:

Noosa university graduate Monica Romanyk is not setting out for a new career in Germany to reinvent the wheel, just the way it is used to get around.

And for this 24-year-old regional and urban planner, who has just gained her degree from the University of the Sunshine Coast, her lateral thinking will focus on non-motorized eco-mobility.

Monica has gained a six month internship with ICLEI a local government organization committed to sustainability, and flew out yesterday for Bonn.

The international student from Canada, who decided to study at USC after holidaying in Noosa five years ago, said she would be using the Sunshine Coast as a comparison of her overseas research and would be keen to come back and sort out some sustainable cycling options locally.

That is if she is not head hunted in Germany.

"The Sunshine Coast was a really interesting place to study regional planning because of its growth." she said. "I'm excited about working in the field... it has so much potential."

"We have to work with communities and not forget the social implications of planning." Monica persued her interest in social planning through a minor in sociology. "As an intern with ICLEI, I will help plan the first EcoMobility World Congress in Korea in October 2011. This will involve researching successful local government active transport initiatives worldwide, such as bicycle lending."

Monica's studies were enhanced by a recent visit to Wroclaw, Poland as a part of a program with UN Habitat, the United Nations agency for human settlements. "I applied to the European Urban Summer School and was selected to join 50 young professionals and academics from a range of countries to discuss sustainable urban planning with UN Habitat."

"We discussed all aspects of sustainability- social, economic, environmental- in relation to the past and present ways of planning."



The last few months have been some of the busiest for me. I recently wrote my final university exams and have completed my studies at the University of the Sunshine Coast. I can now call myself a regional and urban planner!

It was my intention to make my way to Europe to find work in my field and to gain more of an international perspective. Well it has all happened very quickly! I am writing from Bonn, Germany where I arrived this morning to start a new chapter. As you can see in the article above I will be here to work with ICLEI for six months as an intern in EcoMobility.

I look foward to starting my professional career! Although it was hard to say goodbye to Australia. I will miss it.. I will miss the climate. It was a great experience, I enjoyed my studies and the Sunshine Coast was an ideal place to live while I was a student.


M.

Photo- Trees are life

I've been inspired by this photo of Shinji Turner-Yamamoto's Hanging Garden Sculpture. She has featured the juxtaposition of life and death in the Holy Cross Church of Cincinnati.

Plant a tree! Support life, sustainablity, reduction of the urban heat island, character of place, natural beauty, reduction of air pollution... and so much more, by greening our urban grey.

read more about the installation project here.


M.

Photo thanks to inhabitat

Inspiration- Peter Cook

Peter Cook is a well known British architect as well as a teacher and writer. He was one of the founding members of Archigram, described by the ABC as "one of the most revolutionary but strangest architectural collectives the world has ever seen.". He has always been well known for his bizarre concepts and out of this world ideas which he focused on for many years. It has been more recently, in the latter part of his career that he has actually built such space aged designs. The Kundsthaus Graz, or Graz Art Museum being an example. His newest addition will be the London Olympic Stadium, to be complete for 2012.

Graz Art Museum, Austria

Where I find inspiration in his work and his thinking is in the way he understands the city as a multi layered complex collection of spaces. He believes there is a need to create cityscapes that comprise of these 'layers', this 'non-solid architecture'; incidence, nooks, corners and overlays with plenty of relative space in between.

This is what I believe planning has evolved far from, to the modern urbanism of organization, seperation and distancing of activities and social groups. Planners need to think about what a city could be, and how the people who live in it might respond, and with this thinking more functional, sustainable cities can emerge.

Brisbane was lucky enough to host Peter Cook last week. He was there to present the Neilson Design Lecture at the State Library of Queensland as part of Design Week.

"There are lots of clever people at universities and they can make very smart ideas, but they don't come up with anything." -Peter Cook

...lets work on this..

M.

EcoMobility

EcoMobility is an increasingly important urban challenge. Above is a photo of Milan's fairly recent bicycle-sharing system 'BikeMi'. It is a similar concept to the 'Velib' system in Paris and Montreal's brand new 'BIXI' public bike system. These innovative programs are meant to support a growing bicycle culture as well as a sustainable and healthy way to get around.

The Global Alliance for EcoMobility has an educational and inspiring website where you can keep up to date with cities promoting EcoMobiliy and self- propelling modes of transportation, encouraging less dependency on motorized vehicles.

Support sustainable mobility and ride a bike!

Australian Urban Design & Heritage

Having recently had the opportunity to further study the European context of urban planning and heritage it brought me back to think about Australia, my current home. Australia is of course much younger and less developed than the highly historic European cities I focused on however heritage is something that is present in Australian society as well.

Europe has a great history and therefore has an incredible amount of heritage to consider when planning. A vast part of the built environment in major European cities, if not destroyed in the war, has a history of hundreds of years. Different periods in history have left their mark, their architectural style, their industrial space, which planners are faced to consider and incorporate in future planning and development.

Australia on the other hand, due to its youth, must not forget or overlook its history and its heritage. Whether it be abandoned industrial land, old ports, landscape or architecure, it should be considered and used to enhance the identity of space to create vibrant and meaningful cultural places.

An example of successful rehabilitation of heritage in Sydney's Paddington suburb is the Paddington Resevoir Development. The original Paddington Resevoir was built between 1866 and 1878 and was a key element in Sydney's early water supply. Through history it evolved into a garage and workshop for the Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board in 1899, later a service station, and in 1934 it was aquired by the Paddington Municipal Council and leased as a commercial garage. By 1991 the area was unused and closed off to the public due to the quality and state of the old building.

The City of Sydney has successfully restored an area of industrial heritage by rehabilitating the Paddington Reservoir Gardens and creating new space and cultural facility. The skeleton structure of the site has been preserved and incorporated in the design providing character of the precincts heritage. The City of Sydney was presented with the 'Australian Award for Urban Design' in 2009 for demonstrating excellence and innovation in the built environment.

Good urban design can play a critical role in the evolution of our ever transforming cities, and heritage is a criteria that should be consistently considered and incorporated in urban planning to contribute to enhancing a cultural identity and creating meaningful public spaces.

Photos of Paddington Reservoir:

EUSS experience

I have recently returned from what has been an incredible learning experience. Ten days were spent with approximately 50 other young professionals and academics from across Europe to discuss sustainable urban planning in the beautiful city of Wroclaw, Poland.

It started with a very friendly welcome by the head of EUSS, Izabella Mironowicz and presentation by UN Habitat's Krzysztof Mularczyk who shared the organization's aims of bringing young people in the industry together to make it more inclusive and "less jargonistic". The upcoming UN 2010/2011 State of Urban Cities report was also presented which focuses on bridging the urban divide and the outcomes that are expected in the areas of city monitoring, political analysis, urban economy, gender mainstreaming, and partners and youth (thats us!).

Further we were presented with our schedule for the next 10 days which was proven to be jam packed and intense, none the less rewarding and enjoyable! Working in groups, mine including sociologists, engineers, architects and planners from Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Israel, and Poland we were given 3 cases to analyse, research, discuss and come up with solutions for the transformation or rehabilitation of space and successful outcomes. Before each case was started a site tour was organized to visit and experience the challenges we would work to overcome.

All the cases presented to us were unique in the challenges that were presented and the types of solutions that were needed to be initiated therefore final proposed strategies incorporated architecture, urban design principles, landscape architecture, policy, as well as social initiatives. The broad experience and background in our group facilitated very interesting debates, ideas and an incomparable learning experience. Here is a brief summary of the cases we worked on, with Wroclaw, our host city always the focus.

1. Sepolno

A neighbourhood east of the city centre, built starting in 1919 and based on Ebenezer Howard's Garden City Model was presented to us with its challenges. The major challenges included parking, as more residents have more than one car per household and the neighbourhood was not originally designed with so many cars in mind, the issue of the neighbourhood becoming quite trendy and popular with new residents wanting to alter what is heritage listed architecture, legability and connection to surrounding communities including pedestrian routes and public transportation, as well as public space vs. private allotments used for keeping urban gardens.

2. Looking at the city in layers- how do we see, perceive and describe the city?

Here we were asked to understand Wroclaw as a whole, as a city of 650, 000 inhabitants, 140, 000 thousand being students, with a complex history of settlement and such environmental influences as 5 active rivers flowing through the entire city. Various areas that were debated on and decided on to be most significant in terms of strengths or weaknesses of the region were sprawl, unorganized governance and issues of the lack of power, the tradition of allotments, industrial areas/heritage, academic/university importance, water, and development strategies to name a few.

3. Transportation: Downtown Southern Route

Finally we were presented a transportation infrastructure challenge. The city is currently proposing a new downtown southern route. Wroclaw's main transport routes are designed in a radial structure and the new proposal is recommended to relieve traffic congestion south of the centre and old town of the city. The main objective was to create a successful urban public space while also designing and incorporating a new transportation link in the form of a street, road or avenue. Obstacles to be overcome or considered in this case included the multiple and dense residential neighbourhood areas the proposed route would link through, inclusion of public transport (trams), pedestrian and bicycle routes, the foreseen transportation patterns/trends for the next 20-50 years and opportunity for transformation, inclusiveness of public values and needs, creation of new value, organization of connections and crossings, and the potential for new development.

As the programme was intensive and concentrated, for each case we would present initial ideas, design concepts, challenges and background information open to critique and further final presentations of solutions, proposals and expected outcomes then open for debate.

A publication of all cases and recommended solutions and strategies to the above mentioned cases is currently in production and I look forward to sharing it with you.

Throughout the programme we were also given lectures by experienced professionals and academics from across europe coming anywhere from London, Ireland, the Netherlands, to Spain, Italy and Serbia. These were aimed to inspire us and provide successful studies, innovations and practices that would help us with our problem solving and strategizing. Many presented successful case studies or theories, most including a connection to heritage and how it can be positively incorporated in our ever growing and transforming urban environments. They included topics on participatory practices, public private partnership, effective policy strategies, urban regeneration, brownfields & heritage, the role of planners, heritage vs. regeneration, the importance of history and heritage, supporting investment and renewal of urban areas, new form of the city, spatial strategies, green building design, use of green space, public space, quality of life, and the fascinating list goes on! Case studies presented were from major cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Dublin, Athens, and European countries including Albania, France, Romania, Poland, Serbia to list a few. All were inspiring presentations that gave me great insight into the possibility of being a part of creating positive social, economic and environmental urban planning outcomes in my future career.

Thank you to UN Habitat, ISOCARP, EURA and the beautiful Faculty of Architecture (pictured below), University of Technology Wroclaw! See you at EUSS Spain 2011!

M.

Long time..

Its been a long time since my last update. I appologize. I have been frantically (but passionately) studying! Working hard so that I could take some time away for an experience that I believe will be an invaluable one.

I was recently accepted to take part in EUSS to discuss sustainable urban planning with UN Habitat in partnership with AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning), EURA (European Urban Research Association), ISOCARP (International Society of City and Regional Planners) and Wroclaw University of Technology. It will be hosted in Wroclaw, Poland the fourth largest city in Poland that will serve as our case study. We will be discussing all aspects of sustainability, social, economic and environmental in relation to the past and the present ways of planning. Topics such as urban growth, culture and quality of life, public spaces policy, heritage and its place in planning, planning/designing urban transformation, and urban economics (to name a few) will be discussed during the 10 day Programme.

Moreover what is exciting are the issues we will be presented with by the City of Wroclaw to then deliver and present innovative ideas and possible solutions for sustainable urban outcomes.

I look forward to visiting Poland and making the most of this educational experience, and sharing it here in the near future.

Here are some photos of beautiful Wroclaw! I cant wait to discover the city..

(photos: newyorktimes.com)

National connection

Parliament Hill in Ottawa is alive every evening at 9:30 this summer featuring Mosaica, a sound and light show. It takes the audience on a journey of sound and light exploring and learning about Canadian landscapes, history, achievements, values and people.

A great way to bring society together and encourage local and national pride and identity.

Civic Experience

Millennium Park, Chicago
"The Bean"

Often times I think that with all this rapid development going on in our ever expanding cities public space is forgotten. Public art and more appropriately civic art in my opinion is imperative in a successful and thriving civilization and culture. Public art can be understood as an openly accessible piece of art in the public domain. However public art can be exclusive, evanescent, temporary like a gallery exhibition. What I am discussing is a type of public art that can maybe be understood better as civic art, inclusive and accessible to all as well as timeless.

Civic art should have the desired outcomes of shaping people, binding them together through memory and connection and creating character in them. It should be celebratory, value adding and play a pivotal role in civilization. It should be timeless and enduring.

A current example of successful civic art is in Chicago's Millennium Park, it is known by locals as "The Bean". A massive sculpture in the shape of a jelly bean, described as an object of its time, which most great pieces of art or architecture in public spaces or squares are known to be. It has proven to be a great piece of civic art through its ability to access an entire population, people of any age, educational background, nationality etc. and its success can be measured by the masses of people that are drawn to it, the amount of time they spend engaging with it and its transcendence.

Some people would ask why public squares and the experience of art in public space is necessary. It is in hopes of with either not much thought or more interestingly a lot of thought, discussion and curiosity that these pieces of art in partnership with society create a strong sense of place and connection as well as enhance culture and character within people.

Monocle

The current issue 35 2010 of Monocle features their annual quality of life survey, highlighting the tope 25 most liveable cities. Munich tops the list with european cities making up most of it in addition to a few Canadian, Japanese and Australian cities thrown in too.

Have a look, Monocle is a great read that updates on business, global affairs, culture and design. They often focus on urban related issues and life.

http://www.monocle.com/

Photo: Dutch Bridge

photo: http://abduzeedo.com

Floating Communities

Water front community in the Netherlands (above),
Granville Island, Vancouver (below)

Have you ever seen or thought about a floating community? Is this a new direction towards development in waterfront areas? A way to secure public ownership of shoreline and public access to the water's edge? A way to deal with the current and future challenge of a rapidly growing population?

It is becoming an increasingly popular way of living for lovers of the water. Living ON the water, not in a boat, but in a proper unit/apartment style dwelling.

It is a creative and innovative way of enriching the character of a waterfront, enabling a new sense of community.

Granville Island is an example of a central (Vancouver) waterfront community that is growing. Photos are featured above.

With technology and modern comforts at our fingertips, why not embrace living outside the concrete block of the city and head to the water?!

What do you think?

M.

Pitti Uomo

This week in Florence the Pitti Uomo annual tradeshow for men will take place... Oh how I would love to be there! Italian style is so incredibly unique, so classic, so stylish, so much attention to detail I love it!

Check out one my favorite blogs by Sartorialist Scott Schuman for updates and quality photos:

http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

enjoy.

Book: Great Public Squares

FYI! This book is on my wish list :)
(http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Great-Public-Squares/)

"From the storied piazzas of Rome, Venice, and Florence to the elegant places of Paris via less familiar gathering places in Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Portugal, to the former marketplaces and graceful Georgian-style squares of the United Kingdom, to the most interesting and impressive squares of the New World—Santa Fe, Portland, Boston, and New York—architect Robert Gatje offers new insights, stunning computer-generated plans, and color photographs to convey the spatial experience, supplemented by a brief history of each square and measurements to assess their success in meeting human needs for inspiring outdoor space. There is no other source for this comparative data in one place."

Its a good one!

Below is a photo of Place des Vosges, a famous square in Paris. I have great memories of lovely picnics and macaroons in this park :)

M.

Milano bookstores

I LOVE bookstores, when I travel I search for them, but not the general chain stores, the ones down random laneways, off the beaten track, supporting independent publishers and specific categories.

Milan has proven to have the best bookstores I have found so far. One of my favorites is Libreria 121+ . It started as a Libreria al Tempo, a Temporary Bookstore, a concept I didnt know exhisted but is supposedly popular in Milan. They started with a shop lease for 121 days to trial the bookstore and see if the location fit the shop. A great concept!

It features books on design, graphics, architecture, interior design, planning, landscape architecute, urbanism, photography, art, art history, and a selection of great contemporary kids books. A very specific collection of books and magazines from around the world... I was in heaven! Books are a real weakness of mine and unfortunately my need for them results in excess baggage fees when I travel...

121 was a real experience too, Nicoletta the lovely girl working there offered me an espresso, we had a good chat and had more espresso :) The owner then walked in, a soft spoken white haired italian man. He was the mind behind the unique collection of books. He facinated me. Funny thing was almost all books were in English and he didnt speak a word of it! Through Nicoletta's translation we chat until we discovered we both spoke French and off we went into conversation. I spent about 2 hours there. A great memory of cultural exchange.

Another favorite is the bookstore in the picture above, just around the corner from La Scala, Nicoletta put me on to it. Thanks!



M.





http://www.corraini.com/boxcorraini.php

Public Art

The above photo features public art in New York's City Hall Park. Both sculptures are by Aaron Curry ("Big Pink, 2010" and "Yellow Bird Boy, 2010")

Public art allows for artwork to be critqued from a viewpoint outside that of the artworld. I like this idea. It also creates an ambiance of social critique, it gets people thinking outside the box, why is it there? what is it doing? How do I feel?

Instalations such as this allow for a new kind of mental stimulation in a familiar place.

Urban Rural Reconnect

Last week a kilometre stretch of the Champes Elysees in Paris was transformed into a massive strip of farmland. The event lasted 2 days and was organized by The Jeunes Agricultures (Young Farmers) Union which represents around 55,000 farmers under the age of 35yrs and the French Forest industry. The avenue was covered in greenery from trees to lavender and flowers, live stock too!

The purpose of the event was to raise awareness about the decrease in farm revenues and reconnect the city of Paris with its farmers outside the city. It was to show off what they are all about and to inspire and encourage people to be more involved with the farming industry again.

"Do they want the cheapest products in the world or do they want products that pay producers?"

This is an issue I think farmers worldwide are facing. We are losing touch with where our food comes from. Buying oranges that have travelled half way across the world from California, or unknowingly buying local product but that has travelled to China and back to be packaged! These choices are not only affecting local farmers and the local agriculture industry but are also contruting to negative environmental decision making.

Urban Jewel

"A derelict area beneath a series of overpasses in the West Don Lands is going to be transformed into an urban jewel"

Funny I am coming across all of these great projects going on in Canada, and Toronto in particular. It is really great to read about all that is happening to Toronto as it has often been defined by sprawl and a gloomy, dull appearance.

It is apparent the local government is making a real effort in contributing to urban environments making them more user friendly and enjoyable. The city is home to over 2 million residents and thriving urban centres and urban communities need effective public space. It is the experiences that humans have in the environments they occupy that enables meaningful relationships to be created. The attachment of meaning to 'space' therefore creates 'place'! Moreover the positive interactions people have in their environments encourages a sense of identity. This is what we want, residents feeling a part of the spaces they spend most of their time in!

Do you ever think about the everyday environments you live in? Do they contribute positively to your overall experience? How would you feel without them? How could they offer you more?

Underpass Park as they have named it will be a bright new neighbourhood destination. A part of a promised revitalization project in creating Torontos next great neighbourhood. It will take a derelict, unused space (underpasses often are), and produce an innovative urban park. It will feature a socially engaging park for community members of all ages and abilities, incorporating public art, recreational space, climbing structures, flexible community space, community gardens, and public gathering places. Sustainable best practices will be used in the design as well, including the reuse of granite cobblestones, use of recycled rubber materials for the recreational areas, planting of over 50 trees, and using energy efficient LED lighting to name a few.

A refreshing, creative use of space. I look forward to following its progress and want to hear the reviews!

Toronto goes green

Canadian city Toronto has turned an empty unused rooftop to great use! City Halls rooftop/podium which has been closed since the 80's has turned into an 11,000 square metre GREEN, public park! It includes 65 species of plants for people to enjoy. A new urban ecosystem that will contribute to a more sustainable city.

National Museum of 21st Century Arts AKA Maxxi

The new National Museum of 21st Century Arts (also known as Maxxi) opens in Rome on the 30th of May. It will feature contemporary art and architecture and hope to compete with the contemporary art profiles of London and New York.

The building was designed by Iraqi architect and 2004 Pritzker Prize (architectures most prestigious award) winner Zaha Hadid. She is known to be a visionary architect that produces quite extreme designs.

I look forward to visiting Rome in July!! I will report back on it in a few months.

word of the day

'infrasound' is a low level (low frequency) noise that is believed, but also contested to cause health problems... interesting.

Those who are opposed to the development of wind farms use this point of 'infrasound' in their aguments against the idea.

go green

Have you ever seen a living wall? I have recently been noticing an increasing amount of green walls lately through my travels, however I am yet to see one in Australia but thats probably because ive restricted myself to the Sunshine Coast for too long . Im sure they are blooming throughout the cities!

The purpose of these living walls is not only to be innovative, creative, and trendy but they have real positive impacts on the environment (when outside) and on air quality (both indoors and outdoors). Naturally plants absord pollutants out of the air so these walls are contirbuting to less carbon emissions floating around!Indoors they can lesson noise and increase acoustics, be used as insulation, and of course add to the aesthetics of an indoor or outdoor facade.

With all of these benefits and considering how lovely they are to look at lets hope that we will see more vertical greenery in the near future. How about incorporating them into all government buildings?! parliament?!

Another way of 'greening' our surroundings is with roof top gardens. If such dense areas as cities would have more rooftop gardens (to absorb sunlight/rays and pollution) they could decrease the impact of the urban heat island..

Ill write more about rooftop gardens another time...

Back to living walls, Vancouver airport has a great one you can see as you walk out of the airport towards the Skytrain (see my photo below).

The photo at the top of the post is an example of a living wall in Madrid, Spain, a beautiful public display of tropical plants! The next photo is of green tiles that a Spanish company has invented. I think they are awesome!! They can be aranged by designers to add to the character of a building. So cool. I saw a few apartment buildings in Milan that featured vertical greenery, also a chain of fairtrade coffee shops (Bridgehead Coffee) in Ottawa, Canada has incorporated living walls in a few of their locations. I know they can be a bit challenging to upkeep indoors (probably from the lack of sunshine in some cases) but they really are uplifting and refreshing to see especially when you are enjoying a morning coffee and the paper.

I hear PiperDM is thinking of adding some green to their office... or is this a rumour? Go for it!