The government of Australia has released the final draft of a report encouraging “world class design” for the nation’s cities. Its title, “Creating Places for People,” signals from the beginning that this is about design with a purpose: creating a built environment that supports the lives of the Australian citizenry.
The report is far from prescriptive. Indeed, it is somewhat abstract, featuring a “protocol” of hierarchies and flow charts of planning and design elements and objectives, with few live examples. But it does take a holistic approach to design, focusing on both humans and urban form. The interplay between people and places is expressed across a transect of scales from regions all the way down to buildings. The principles in the protocol are said to be based on lessons learned from the Australia’s best performing cities and addresses urban challenges on different scales.
The report explains why city design matters:
Urban design can significantly influence the economic, environmental, social and cultural outcomes of a place:
- Urban design can influence the economic success and socioeconomic composition of a locality – whether it encourages local businesses and entrepreneurship; whether it attracts people to live there; whether the costs of housing and travel are affordable; and whether access to job opportunities, facilities and services are equitable.
- Urban design determines the physical scale, space and ambience of a place and establishes the built and natural forms within which individual buildings and infrastructure are sited. As such, it affects the balance between natural ecosystems and built environments, and their sustainability outcomes.
- Urban design can influence health and the social and cultural impacts of a locality: how people interact with each other, how they move around, and how they use a place.
- Although urban design is often delivered as a specific ‘project,’ it is in fact a long-term process that continues to evolve over time. It is this layering of building and infrastructure types, natural ecosystems, communities and cultures that gives places their unique characteristics and identities.