Posts Tagged ‘Australia’
Thriving Neighbourhoods 2012: Call for papers
Posted in Models, Research, seeking by Kate Archdeacon on January 26th, 2012
Thriving Neighbourhoods is a conference on emerging approaches to the planning, design and management of local neighbourhoods that are set to radically improve health, social engagement, environmental quality and productivity in communities. Thriving communities have the resilience needed to adapt creatively to unexpected challenges such as climate change, population change, rapid technological change, social upheaval and economic crises.
The complexity of the systems involved in creating thriving communities poses difficult and challenging issues for planners, developers, managers and researchers. But the potential returns on the invested effort and resources are massive. Capturing these returns requires professional collaboration across policy sectors including health, planning, design, infrastructure, IT and the built and natural environments. Communities must also be engaged from the outset, recognising diverse cultural and individual needs.
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We invite papers and presentations on research and practice related to the challenge of creating and supporting thriving neighbourhoods and communities. Work to be presented may be related to the areas represented in the diagram below, on: the challenges; the processes of change and development; the specifics of place; the measurement of outcomes.
2 April 2012: Deadline for Abstracts (400 words)
28 May 2012: Abstracts acceptance notice
Find out more about submitting a paper.
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Making Toys From Waste: Small interventions
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on December 21st, 2011
Makedo:
Wouldn’t you love to make play objects, kid’s costumes, furniture, decorations for the home and well, just about anything you can think of from the materials around you? makedo makes it possible and impossibly fun. makedo is a connector system that enables materials including cardboard, plastic and fabric to easily join together to form new objects or structures. When you’re done playing, simply pull it apart to reuse over and over again.
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Box Play for Kids:
We make eco-friendly, 100% recycled, custom-designed stickers* that (combined with a little imagination) turn any old box into a wonderland of possibilities. Good for the imagination. Good for the earth. Good for the pocketbook.
http://www.boxplayforkids.com/
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Diverting waste to make durable products: Replas on Kangaroo Island
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on December 19th, 2011
From the Re-Plas blog:
Not only was Kangaroo Island, in South Australia, one of the first locations in Australia to ban the use of plastic bags, but now the KI Council has gone a step further in helping the planet by installing 27 outdoor settings, 900 bollards and a staircase, all made from recycled plastic.
Ian Woolard, Co-ordinator Civil Works, Kangaroo Island Council, said, ‘We were looking for a product that would stand up the elements experienced on the South coast of Kangaroo Island and one that would incur the minimum ongoing maintenance cost to Council’. As a result of choosing to use recycled plastic KI council has diverted approx. 22,000 kg of plastic waste from landfill in 2010-11 alone.
Six years ago Kangaroo Island started the trend by purchasing recycled plastic seats for their school. More recently the local Landcare Group built a staircase out of garden panels and the Kingscote Jetty was also refurbished with Enduroplank™ decking as part of a trail by the South Australian government to see if recycled plastic proves more durable and cost effective than timber. All of this adds up to an estimated 35 000 kg of plastic waste which has been diverted from landfill and made into Replas recycled-plastic products for use throughout Kangaroo Island. Not bad for an island with a population of 4500!
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Australia Electric Vehicle Conference
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on October 11th, 2011
Source: Alternative Technology Association(ATA)
The Australia Electric Vehicle Conference provides a unique opportunity to listen to renowned professionals and network across this fast growing industry. The program will focus on electric vehicles and their introduction on the Australian market, as well as a range of issues alongside their emergence.
Topics include the potential impact of EVs on the electricity grid, the provision of charging infrastructure, the development of appropriate policies, the economics of EVs and the role EVs will play in making a transition to cleaner and greener transport. CEOs such as Energex’s Terry Effeney and Chargepoint’s James Brown will be presenting alongside senior representatives of state government EV programs from WA, VIC and QLD. And in its world-first appearance, a full electric super-car based on Australian technology will be released and displayed.
When: 26th October
Time: 8.30am to 5.30pm
Where: Sebel & Citigate Hotel, Brisbane
For more information or bookings go to www.evconference.com.au.
Early bird registration until Oct 19!
Health & Housing Flexibility: Prefabricated ‘wet rooms’
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on October 6th, 2011
Source: Australian Design Review
Photo: Healthabitat
From Maitiú Ward’s “Interview: Healthabitat’s Paul Pholeros“:
Since 1999, Healthabitat has completed 184 projects in remote and impoverished communities, improving the condition of 7308 houses for over 42,000 people. Formally established in 1994, the organisation has a history that stretches back to 1985, when its three directors Dr Paul Torzillo, Stephan Rainow and Paul Pholeros first met in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, north-west South Australia, where they had been thrown together to work with a team of local Aboriginal people to help improve local health and housing conditions. Since that first meeting, the trio has gone on to orchestrate a slew of research programs, lauded not only for the wealth of hard data they have produced, but also for genuinely improving conditions.
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For a number of years, Adrian Welke of Troppo Architects has been working with Healthabitat in the design and construction of health buildings in remote areas. It was with Welke that Healthabitat first starting exploring the potential of prefabrication as a means of delivering high quality buildings, efficiently.
Welke’s most recent project with Healthabitat is a prefabricated wet room unit, designed to be ‘clipped on’ to the back of existing residential buildings. Containing shower, laundry and toilet, the unit addresses the top three of the nine healthy living practices – ‘washing people’, ‘washing clothes’ and ‘waste removal’. As a prefabricated unit it is also a very efficient means of delivering what are traditionally the most expensive components of a residence (the laundry, toilet and bathing areas). In keeping with Healthabitat’s modus operandi, then, the project focuses resources in areas where they are likely to have the most impact, and after a successful prototyping stage, units are now rapidly being deployed to indigenous communities across Australia.
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Read the full interview by Maitiú Ward.
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Healthabitat’s Housing for Health program recently won the 2011 World Habitat Awards. Read more here.
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Hong Kong Urban Intensity: Public Lectures
Posted in Events, Research by Kate Archdeacon on September 7th, 2011
Photo by Mike Behnken via flickr CC
The Melbourne School of Design presents a series of free public lectures by Professor Tom Kvan celebrating the book launch of The Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric.
These lectures examine one of the most intense cities in the world. Hong Kong’s irregular coastline and steep terrain has resulted in built-up areas that are compact, rich in spatial experience, all parts close to hills and water and connected by an exceptional public transport system. The lectures will present how the authors see value in these conditions: a metropolis with a small urban footprint, 90 per cent use of public transport for vehicular journeys and proximity to nature which has arisen from a culturally and topographic specific condition.
This fascinating book, with over 200 original illustrations, adds to the current urban debate around high density compact cities and interconnected public transport systems as one means of reducing urban energy use and carbon emissions. The lecture will explore why urban intensity is vital for more than ecological reasons and presents propositions based on these observations.
This lecture and book launch is part of a national tour. A reception will follow each lecture. Please register on the Melbourne School of Design website.
- Sydney Monday 19 September
- Adelaide, Tuesday 20 September
- Perth, Thursday 22 September
- Brisbane, Friday 23 September
- Launceston, Friday 30 September
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Support Systems: Rebuilding for Resilience
Posted in Models, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on June 30th, 2011
Source: The Fifth Estate
From “Resilience planning for wild weather and climate change” by Leon Gettler:
Queensland, the state of floods and cyclones that devastated property, has become Australia’s laboratory for sustainable building, for creating resilient homes, offices and structures in the face of climatic volatility. In a radical scheme, Grantham residents who had confronted a deadly mountain of water in the floods, have been invited to apply for land swaps to higher ground after the small southeast town was declared the first designated reconstruction area under the new Queensland Reconstruction Authority’s powers. The local council is working with reconstruction authority to create the land swaps.
Green Cross Australia, the non profit group working with developers, insurers and the Property Council of Australia to encourage sustainable thinking, plans to launch a Harden Up portal in August.
The scheme is a world first. Using social media, it aims to makes people aware of the history of the weather patterns in their region, helps prepare them to protect their homes, families and communities and encourages them to share their insights. People will be able to tap into the portal to assess the weather patterns in their suburb or town over the last 150 years, using data from the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. They will be taken on interactive multimedia tours and encouraged to share their insights through a page on Facebook. The exercise is not only about creating awareness, it’s about empowering communities and giving them the know-how and information needed to create more resilient housing.
Green Cross Australia has also run Build It Back Green workshops that seek to reduce household greenhouse gas emissions, improve community resilience through good design and engagement, invest in green school infrastructure, invest in commercial, government and public buildings, invest in green infrastructure projects and develop solutions for low income residents that reduce energy, water and waste.
Significantly, the Build It Back Green model is now being used by 7000 Victorians whose homes were destroyed in the Black Saturday fires. It is also now being taken up by residents in Perth who faced the bushfires there in January.
Read the rest of this article by Leon Gettler on The Fifth Estate.
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I Am A Climate Scientist: Rap
Posted in Opinion, Research by Kate Archdeacon on May 20th, 2011
I AM A CLIMATE SCIENTIST By Dan Ilic
“In the media landscape there are climate change deniers and believers, but rarely are those speaking about climate change actual climate scientists.”
This (clean extended) rap from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Hungry Beast features some real, vocal, climate scientists responding to the posturing of climate change deniers in the media – check it out for some sweet relief if nothing else. There are a couple of versions around with varying degrees of adult concepts so be aware if little ones are watching with you. KA
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories
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CERES: Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on May 2nd, 2011
CERES – Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies, is an award winning, not-for-profit, environment and education centre and urban farm located by the Merri Creek in East Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia. Built on a decommissioned municipal tip that was once a landfill and wasteland, today CERES is a thriving, vibrant community. Over 300,000 people visit CERES each year. Many more connect with us through our innovative program taking sustainable education directly to schools across the State.
CERES is recognised as an international leader in community and environmental practice. CERES Organic Farm, Market, Shop, Co-ops and Café and Permaculture and Bushfood Nursery are unique social enterprises that offer new solutions and ways to combat climate change. Community groups such as the Bike Shed, Community Gardens and Chook Group that call CERES home are also vital to CERES culture.
All waste and water on the site is recycled and much of the site is powered by renewable energy such as wind and solar. CERES is now working towards making the site completely carbon neutral by 2012. CERES is a model for a possible future where innovation, sustainability, equity and connectedness are valued. Both as a place and a community, CERES is striving to create a new way of being.
Watch a video about CERES here or visit the website to explore the enormous range of projects, enterprises and opportunities CERES supports: www.ceres.org.au
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“Innovation: driving resilient energy and economic futures” Conference
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on April 8th, 2011
How can innovation and economic reform assist in developing the new energy sources required to reduce the impact of climate change? Intergenerational equity needs to be considered when developing enduring climate change solutions. This conference will deal with these issues and aims to offer many benefits for those operating in varied policy, planning and management contexts in energy, environment, planning, economics, communities and more. This conference will contribute to the debates on the practical application of innovation to the shifts required by industry, government, and the community in addressing climate change.
Join prominent and insightful presenters such as Prof Will Steffen, Dr John Hewson, Anna Skarbek & Dr David Martin to explore the themes of Australia’s innovation performance, creating new energy markets, climate prosperity and intergenerational equity.
April 14, The Australian National University, Canberra
Visit the Australia 21 website for more details or to register.
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