Young architects are embracing carbon neutral

WORDS HAMISH MACDONALD

Following the recent federal budget, Anthony Albanese is having a second try at integrated urban development, through a new Urban Policy Forum. Its members are all leaders in the field. And the chair is Barbara Norman, Emeritus Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Canberra, Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, and author of the new book Urban Planning for Climate Change. Ahead of the forum’s first meeting, she spoke to Hamish Mcdonald.

HAMISH MACDONALD : This is the second Urban Policy Forum to be launched, after the one in 2012 when Anthony Albanese was Minister for Infrastructure and other things. What happened in the meantime?

BARBARA NORMAN: That’s correct. There was the State of Australian Cities report series, the National Urban Policy Forum, and the whole urban branch in the federal government to support these initiatives. Due to the change of government in 2013, those initiatives gradually were dismantled. With the election of the new Labor government, the budget this year included re-establishment of that architecture to once again place the federal government in the space of urban policy and cities.

HM: What are your thoughts on the kind of issues you’ll be looking at from the start?

BN: We are yet to have our first meeting, which will be in July. The nature of the forum and the people in it reflect some of the key issues facing our cities. There are the ones we have been dealing with for a long time in planning and designing our cities; housing, transport, environment, open space. But there’s a number of newer issues: climate change, more active engagement with First Nations people, the digital economy of course, post-Covid. This is the range of issues that we now need to feed into that equation.

The membership reflects that: from the Property Council, strong representation from the built environment professions, the Green building Council, Indigenous representation, and planning of course. I’m very excited with the talent and experience of the forum. They are definitely leaders of their peak bodies, very experienced, and quite diverse. We need those conversations.

HM: This is kicking off amid a widely perceived housing crisis, and I guess there is a lot of pressure for people to somehow quick come up with ideas to resolve this. Is there a risk of this leading to us building the wrong kind of houses in the wrong places?

BN: Definitely housing affordability is a key issue. You only have to turn on any media today. Planning has a very important role. You’re talking to someone who’s been a Director of Planning and Land, a Housing Commissioner, and has Chaired the ACT Climate Council, in a long time of practice before I became an academic. So, I bring that background in looking at these issues, like housing affordability. I say that because clearly experts, specialists, people involved in housing need to be at the forefront of urban policy. The forum will take a wider view of how we develop our cities and suburbs. That is also very necessary in tackling some of these issues, whether it be housing affordability or transport and access, or climate change.

That wider view looking at where we develop and how we develop creates more liveable communities and suburbs. With affordable housing, access to services is just as critical in that equation. As we increase urban density and more housing options, provision of quality, green open space becomes very important, because we’re out-sourcing the open space that used to be the back yard to the public domain. Planning and the urban policy system can make a very positive contribution – not necessarily solving the housing challenges, but ensuring that we connect the dots, to make sure that where we locate affordable housing provides an environment that’s beneficial to those residents.

HM: With public housing, the old estates we see in Sydney and Melbourne are quite close to the city centre and therefore to jobs and services. Some have been sold off and new public housing on the fringes, which puts disadvantaged people at extra disadvantage. What you seem to be suggesting is that a lot of the new investment in public housing has to be woven in close to the centre. How we get over the NIMBYism that will result?

BN: Change is always a challenge. Planning can always make a positive contribution to engaging the community, which is an important point in the process.

I’m a strong supporter of demonstration of leading practice in design, for example in carbon-neutral affordable residential development or commercial development. It can bring very positive, creative examples of how we can bring these issues together in place. The second point is that cities are changing. More and more we’re seeing suburban hubs development. Through Covid, many people discovered their locale in much greater detail. There’s a greater appreciation, and possibly community demand coming through, almost a re-imagining of our suburbs, for a revitalisation of those neighbourhood centres. It comes back to social housing, community housing, affordable housing. It can be located across the city, but it needs to be supported by what I would call good precinct planning, that brings these dimensions together, by investment in good strategic planning, and good quality urban design. I think the future bodes well for that. The creation of the national Urban Policy Forum is a very positive step. It provides the forum to bring people together. We need to be working much more closely across the sectors, the disciplines, all levels of government.

HM: How do you see the question of valuecapture evolving, for investment in public transport, public amenity? This probably not a popular idea with the developers, but if we look at other countries, the development of public transport often precedes the building of large housing centres. Have we done enough of this in Australia?

BN: The forum will be an opportunity to hear from that wide range of people to explore ideas. It’s really about urban governance and financing the future developments of our cities and suburbs. I don’t have a fixed view about this, and I don’t think I should as Chair of this group. What I am interested in is people’s contributions about what is practiced around the world, any good examples that we can consider. That’s a very important part of the mix of conversation – yes! When we design our cities, we must look at the economic and productivity side, social inclusion, and environmental considerations – and cultural as well. I’m open to suggestions.

HM: Do you think our best architects have tended to stay away from high-rise, dense housing development? Apart from those by Harry Seidler, can we think of any great apartment buildings in Australia? Should our architects get involved in getting people a choice of much better apartments?

BN: There are some good examples! And interestingly they’re coming through the community housing sector. Nightingale in Melbourne is a good example, and our community housing in Canberra. Innovation is coming through, in a formative way, and does need support. I’m a past National President of the Planning Institute and I’m a strong advocate as I was then of active engagement by the built environment professions in encouraging leading practice and engaging in public debate to showcase the best examples. I see some glimmers of hope. Young architects are embracing carbon neutral. Buyers want to live in a healthy, green building. Some significant commercial buildings like New Acton in the ACT are good examples. The professional bodies for architects, planners, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers need to be working together. The head of the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council has those players on its board, and the head of that is on the Urban Policy Forum.

HM: You mentioned Nightingale in Melbourne and New Action in Canberra.

Can you give any other examples of outstanding urban planning that we should look to as pilot schemes for our cities?

BN: We’ve done some really good work over the decades. As a young planner, I worked on the central area taskforce for the City of Melbourne. I was asked to do a housing survey of the central city, and I could literally walk to each resident’s residence in the city of Melbourne at that time. People did not live in the city centre. Our brief was to try and transform that. Whether it was recycling office buildings, changing fire regulations, a lot of detail had to be tended to for that to happen. People today can’t believe that was the case back in the 1980s. So that was a very successful model of transformation of an inner city over time, with a very strong commitment to an inter-disciplinary approach, people like Rob Adams, a full range of people who led that process, over 30 years. So, we can do things very well if we work together. Not just in our cities, but also in our regional towns. Orange in NSW is a vibrant hub today – a lot of employment there, at the hospital, and it’s become a tourism hub as well.

HM: How do we compare internationally?

BN: We should be very proud of what we’ve achieved. The challenge is: we are now at 26 million people. We are expected to grow to 40 million in the not-too-distant future, around 2050. We may have got away with business as usual to date, but we can see cracks appearing in our urban fabric. So, this is why, very importantly, we now need a more coherent national approach to how we plan and manage our urban development in the future. We are one of the few OECD countries that doesn’t have a national urban policy like this. I’m hoping we will join like countries in the very near future and start to collaborate at that level as well.

HM: Your new book is about urban planning for climate change. Can you sum up its message?

BN: It tackles the future challenges and opportunities for our cities and towns in a changing climate and recommends key actions for more resilient urban futures – carbon neutral development, building back better, meaningful engagement of First Nations people in the planning process and working with nature.

Architect COX Architecture

Builder SCI Consultants

Area 250sqm

Year Completed 2023