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: