7 September 2015
Philip Thalis’s presentation ’What Happened to the Garden City?’ inspired great discussion.
Some evaluations of Ebenezer Howard’s garden city concept (1902) – and its realisation in Letchworth UK – are that it is too spacious and there are few architecturally impressive designs.
Perpetual and increasing attempts are to make this untrue of the design of Canberra. Comparisons with cities of similar populations (381,000) showed Canberra (428 people/km2) is half the density of Wellington NZ (890 people/km2) and one tenth that of Lausanne (4,400 people/km2). On a wide brown land, feeling unconstrained for space to separate people so that issues of visual privacy, noise abatement and access to open landscape avoids the need for careful, high quality design.
Any person can design residences, in fact any building type in Australia.
When increasing the number of people/km2, redevelopment methods and actions are required to:
- achieve excellence in design and amenity; and,
- take responsibility for built outcome performance, beyond completion of any new development.
To achieve excellence in design, the 9 Principles in the NSW Apartment Design Guide are useful, and paraphrased here:
1: Context and Neighbourhood Character – Design responds to the key natural, current and future built elements, their relationship and the combined character they create.
2: Built Form and Scale – Design achieves a scale, bulk and height appropriate to the desired future character of the street and surrounding buildings. Building alignments, proportions, building type, articulation of building elements makes the public domain, the character of streetscapes and parks, including their views and vistas, and provides amenity and outlook.
3: Density – Design that achieves a high level of amenity for residents and each apartment, resulting in a density appropriate to the site and its context.
4: Sustainability – Uses natural cross breezes and sunlight for the liveability of residents and passive thermal design for heating and cooling reducing operation costs; recycling and reuse of materials and waste, use of sustainable materials, and deep soil zones for groundwater recharge and vegetation.
5: Landscape – enhances the development’s environmental performance by retaining natural features, co-ordinated water and soil management, solar access, micro-climate, tree canopy, habitat values, and preserving green networks. Good landscape design optimises usability, privacy and opportunities for social interaction, equitable access, respect for neighbours’ amenity, provides for practical establishment and long term management.
6: Amenity – Internal amenity for residents and external amenity for neighbours combines appropriate room dimensions and shapes, access to sunlight, natural ventilation, outlook, visual and acoustic privacy, storage, indoor and outdoor space, efficient layouts and service areas, and ease of access for all age groups and degrees of mobility.
7: Safety – Safety and security, within the development and the public domain maximise passive surveillance of public and communal areas promoting safety through clearly defined secure access points, well lit and visible areas that are easily maintained.
8: Diversity and Social Interaction – A mix of apartment sizes, providing housing choice for different demographics, living needs and household budgets and providing opportunities for residents meet and engage.
9: Architectural Expression – A built form that has good proportions and composition of elements, reflecting the internal layout and structure. A variety of materials, colours and textures and respond to the existing or future local context.
Further strategies for improving design and built outcome quality are:
- the engagement of a registered architect;
- a design review process;
- Government industry policy which ensures responsibility for what is built may be by legislation requiring “a product guarantee and warrantee” from the proponent or alternatively, continued membership of the body corporatefor a number of years after completion.
Andrew Wilson