BOTH networks AND objects

Recent urban and suburban environments are too often the result of an emphasis on objects (buildings, signs, monuments, artworks, cars), with little to no emphasis on those networks necessary for a high quality, liveable environment for people (clear community structures; a refined public domain of parks, plazas, and public transport; continuous green landscape providing bike paths; convenient access to shops, services, and employment opportunities, etc.).

30kms south-west of Melbourne’s Central Activities District and situated between Port Philip Bay and market gardens, this project seeks to accommodate a further 8,000 people in an equitable, liveable, diverse, sustainable and flexible eco-city. A new economically, socially, culturally, and environmentally sustainable city will coexist with areas of organic community supported agriculture. The eco-city will have a sophisticated community network to support community activities on a range of different scales (from the neighbourhood to the regional). Networks of rest, play, and work will run throughout the community. Generous foreshore parkland, linked by a network of public green spaces, will provide a focus of recreation for Melbourne’s growing western suburbs. A number of innovative public programs (including a ferry service) will be linked to this network of public open spaces to enhance the regional focus of the project. Finally, a variety of dwellings, from hi-rise, to medium density, to detached houses provide diversity of environments and housing choice within the project. 

This project will not only demonstrate an environmentally sustainable sub-urban development, it will also present a more equitable, liveable, diverse, vital, and therefore a more interesting sub-urban fabric, a fabric of potential, with many more living, working and playing options than those being offered by current suburban development models. The project has undergone first stage accreditation review for Bioregional’s One Planet Living (OPL) initiative. The development is pending re-zoning classification.

(Team Members: James Brearley, Steve Whitford, Robin Renner, Daniels Langeberg)