The Redevelopment of Toronto
“It takes 40 or 50 years to update an industrial landscape. We want to speed that up,” says Sidewalk Labs’ urban planner. After disrupting our online activities, Google’s parent company now wants to disrupt how cities work. Rohit Aggarwala, head of urban systems at Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, spoke about the company as they gear up...
Design / Design Concepts / Environmental Management / Garden and Public Art / Landscape / Landscape Architecture / Landscape Construction / Landscape Design / Landscape Structures / Street and Outdoor Furniture / Water Features
The Public Space Moment
Public spaces are having a moment. People from outside the field of urban planning are beginning to notice the vital contributions they make to our quality of life: inserting nature and cultural memory into the everyday, reminding us of our collective responsibilities, supporting democratic expression. People are also beginning to notice the subtle ways in...
Design / Garden and Public Art / Landscape / Landscape Structures / Street & Outdoor Furniture / Street and Outdoor Furniture / Water Features
The Popularity of the Parklet
While readily embraced by many countries overseas, the parklet has only recently become a popular ‘street-activation’ of choice for city planners across Australia A UNSW Lecturer asks why? As councils across Australia strive to enhance their liveability, parklets are proving popular among city communities. A poll of 300-plus citizens gathered for the inaugural Perth City Summit...
Design Streets for People Not Cars
Go to any medieval European city and you will see what streets looked like before the advent of the car: lovely, small narrow lanes, intimate, and undisputedly human-scale. We have very few cities in the US where you can find streets like this. For the most part what you see is streets that have been designed with the car in mind—at...
Top Tips for the Perfect Spring Lawn
Overwatering, “scalping” and turf varieties mismatched to the conditions are among the three most common traps for Australian homeowners in search of the perfect lawn, warns Toro Australia. Toro Australia’s Senior Marketing Manager – Equipment, Elise Willemsen, says Australian’s dream of having lush, green lawns, but for many, the reality is a patchy, uneven, brown...
Walkable Urban Neighbourhoods
I have lived in neighbourhoods where you can walk around, to a store, a movie, a restaurant, for 40 years, counting my college days. I grew up in a ranch house with a driveway, but came to adulthood in foot-based parts of cities. Others have also rediscovered the joys and benefits of walkable places. They...
Urban Design With Purpose
Strong urban design offers significant community benefits, better quality of life, safer and more secure cities and a greater ability to function as a society. It also provides each city with a unique sense of identity and establishes the framework for it to be more responsive to differing climatic, economic or social variables. Regardless of...
Protecting Populated Places From Terrorism
With increased terrorism concerns, the safety of the Australian people in crowded places such as stadiums, shopping centres, pedestrian malls and major events is becoming an even greater priority for the Australian government. These spaces are highly attractive targets to potential terrorists and as such the government has introduced various strategies and safety measures to...
Integrating Drainage into Pedestrian Friendly External Areas
“Surface water management is crucial to the safety of pedestrian walkways and shared areas. The risk of slips in poorly designed areas is high, and liability can extend to architects and designers.” ACO Polycrete understands the importance of creating pedestrian safe external spaces. A wealth of information from recent studies supports the benefits of creating...
A Well Drained Future
To overcome the negative impacts of increasing urban environments, ACO ProfiLine offers a drainage system that will tackle the challenge of controlling water draining and enable a green roof to flourish. Green roofs and green walls are growing in popularity throughout the world, and for good reason. This eye-catching synergy of nature and cityscape is...
AR Technology in Public Spaces
With the advent of AR technology, people are exploring the virtual world in our parks and public spaces, so Street Furniture Australia has asked the professionals what this technology means for future planning in our cities. International phenomenon Pokémon Go has set the spotlight on Augmented Reality (AR) and its potential to transform our spaces and our lives. If Keiichi...
Are We Underutilising Our Rooftops?
As our cities increase in density, new thoughts are emerging regarding how we configure our urban spaces and the best way to capitalise on our best resource for space – our rooftops. With the increasing density of our cities, Australians are starting to rethink how our urban space is configured. With space at such a...
