Summer 2018 Studio 5
CDE Studio 05: NEWPORT PLACEMAKING
Dr Dominique HES and Judy BUSH
STUDIO OUTLINE
Newport placemaking studio will establish an interdisciplinary practice-type environment to work with community, traders and Council to design the transformation of Market Street to Payne Reserve, an underutilized area in Newport.
Newport’s community hub, including the library, is divided from the commercial shopping area by transport infrastructure, including a major roadway and train line, creating a hostile barrier to connection. The studio subject site, Market Street to Payne Reserve, located between these areas, has the potential to reconnect and reinvigorate these areas, as well as itself providing a valued community space. Using placemaking and design interventions, the studio will address the challenges and opportunities in creating a vibrant community space. The studio will also feed into community processes linking to the Art and Industry Festival to be held in the area in November 2018. The interdisciplinary studio will bring together Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning disciplines to apply placemaking, community engagement, urban planning and design thinking.
STUDIO OUTCOMES
This studio will run from a space overlooking Paine Reserve, Newport. The studio will be led by Dr Dominique Hes and Judy Bush, with regular input from transdisciplinary contributors including Professor Gini Lee, Newport Traders Association President Tom Bulic, Community arts festival coordinator Donna Jackson, and local council officers. Students will be immersed in the community, and using tactical urbanism, placemaking and other pop up strategies, will design and visualise the how the site could be transformed.
Learning outcomes will include how design can be generated from community engagement, how to work in an interdisciplinary lab to develop a project that will be realised, and how to integrate design, social and environmental perspectives into placemaking approaches. The studio will provide opportunities for students to develop design interventions and pitch their proposals to the local council and local community. Outputs will include presentations to the community, poster designs and implementation schemes.
STUDIO LEADERS
Dr Dominique HES, Thrive Director, received a science degree from Melbourne University, a graduate diploma in Engineering (Cleaner Production) and a Doctorate in Architecture from RMIT University. Her key research questions are: ‘why, when we have been ‘doing’ sustainability for so long, are we having an ever-increasing impact?’ People create such beauty with music, food, art, buildings and community, why is it so difficult to be a thriving part of the earth’s systems? She has researched biomimicry, biophilia, regenerative design and positive development. She co-authored, with Professor Chrisna du Plessis, the award-winning book 'Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative sustainability'. Dominique’s research centres on how to create a built environment that is good for people and the nature they are a part of.
Judy BUSH is a researcher and lecturer in environmental policy and practice at the University of Melbourne. Her PhD, ‘Cooling cities with green space: policy perspectives’ examined policy approaches and identified policy success factors for adoption and implementation. She has previously worked as the Executive Officer of the Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action, a local government alliance in Melbourne working on climate change action, and at Merri Creek Management Committee, working on habitat restoration and community engagement. She has a Masters of Environmental Studies, and a Bachelor of Science (Hons).
REFERENCES
Barton, H., Thompson, S., Grant, M., and Burgess S. (Eds) 2015 The Routledge Handbook of Planning for Health and Well-Being: Shaping a sustainable and healthy future (London: Routledge).
Beza, B. B. (2016). The role of deliberative planning in translating best practice into good practice: from placeless-ness to placemaking. Planning Theory and Practice, 17(2), 244-263.
Co Design Studio, Tactical urbanism. Australia and New Zealand https://codesignstudio.com.au/
Gehl, Jan and Svarre, Birgitte, 2013, How to study public life, Washington: Island Press
Lynch, K. (1971). Site planning (2nd ed.). Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Raymond, C. M., Frantzeskaki, N., Kabisch, N., Berry, P., Breil, M., Nita, M. R., . . . Calfapietra, C. (2017). A framework for assessing and implementing the co-benefits of nature-based solutions in urban areas. Environmental Science and Policy, 77, 15-24. doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2017.07.008
Whyte, W. H. (2001). The social life of small urban spaces. New York: Project for Public Spaces.
STUDIO LOCATION + DATES
Classes will be held in the Newport Community Hub, Paine Reserve, Mason St, Newport on 5, 8, 15, 19, 22, 25 January, and 2, 5, 12 February 2018. There will also be student presentations to the local community on 21 February 2018.
- This studio is also available as MUP Studio P01: Placemaking -