ABPL20035 Vision Paper

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Enhance Sunshine’s internal character for its people through urban design Plans to uplift the suburb of Sunshine from a downfall are brought to the forefront by Brimbank City Council in their draft for the Sunshine Super Hub which is supposedly a way to rejuvenate the status of Sunshine. This aim of this paper is to determine objectives of economic, social, environmental and governance factors which will aid the uplift in Sunshine’s urban form and design through scholarly readings and analysis of on-site interviews. In contrast to Brimbank Council’s vision of creating the ‘Capital of Melbourne’s West’ through the Super Hub, the vision of this essay is to enhance the internal character of Sunshine for its people through urban design.

The idea of economic uplift in Sunshine is perceived by the Council’s vision as a growth in employment and revenue through the Super Hub and iHarvest co-working innovation centre but in addition, this essay’s vision focusses on rejuvenating the existing employment centre.

Current data through on-site analysis showed approximately only 22% of interviewees actually work in Sunshine and many mentioned the lack of employment opportunities in Sunshine, hence a strong need to travel outwards (SV2, 2019). The internal vision for economic uplift in Sunshine falls partially in line with the council’s vision where a space like the iHarvest co-working space can allow a kick start for new businesses but in accordance to that, Sunshine needs an innovation precinct, such as the Melbourne Biomedical Precinct which combines education, health, commercial and research to feed knowledge off each other. The success of this in Parkville (Charles, 2011) can be applied to Sunshine through another theme of industry that can feed off each other and generate employment hence in turn lead to economic uplift for the diversity of demographic who enters Sunshine daily.

The vision for Sunshine to capitalise on the diversity can be a great way to improve its sociocultural qualities. As Landry (2000) states, “culture can strengthen social cohesion, increase personal confidence and improve life skills, improve people’s mental and physical well-being, strengthen people’s ability to act as democratic citizens and develop new training and employment routes” (pp. 11). The ignition of a new sector for multi-cultural space can highlight Sunshine’s diversity immensely. As the council mention, they plan to bring tourism into Sunshine for economic growth, but the root of tourism is set in the culture of the city (Landry, 2000), because without culture there is nothing to sightsee. Interesting cultural features such as case study of Montpellier which shows a story through signs connecting the city together such as “Montpellier is an international city”, “Montpellier is a tech city” (pp. 9) or welcome signs in several languages spoken in the city can be ways to show off the city’s cultural diversity. These incremental changes in the urban design tie together in enhancing the true character of the city. An issue the council fails to mention is the severe fear of safety

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in Sunshine due to gangs and crime (SV2, 2019) and ways to turn around this fear can’t be limited to increased police surveillance but need to come from the roots of creating a safer and inclusive design for the diverse city. Hence, it is necessary to address the internal issues of Sunshine and build on the way the crowd navigates itself.

The idea of focusing transport solely on the Super Hub comes back to outward growth whereas the internal transport issues are once again disregarded. Almost 50% of people interviewed in Sunshine prefer to travel by car which correlates with reality of the suburb being heavily car dependent and intimidating for any pedestrian (SV2, 2019). To turn around this car-based perspective, the residents need to be shown a cleaner way of public transport and walkability through efficient urban design in Sunshine. Increase in clearly labelled bicycle paths and walkable footpaths with disability access are ways that types of traffic can be mixed in a shared street. Successful examples can be seen in “British “home zones,” Dutch “woonerfs,” and Scandinavian “sivegader”” (pp. 93) where bike lanes are coloured for protection and footpaths are raised for increased safety (Figure 1) (Gehl, Figure 1: Jan Gehl, Cities for People

2006). These active transport modes

integrated into the urban design can allow residents to see the positives in having walkable spaces and stronger connectivity to the city centre with reduced intimidation from fast cars and trucks, hence creating a safer and environmentally friendly neighbourhood for a better quality of life.

It is essential for the vision of Sunshine to focus on integrating green spaces into the suburb instead of the Council’s focus on creating a visitor destination with focus on carparks. The council’s vision for $11 million multi-deck carpark can create heavy negative implications on the town and go against their own policy of creating better public spaces. The concentration of so many vehicles into one space can increase carbon emissions and add to heat island effect of Sunshine. The solution to this issue is simply smartly integrating green spaces to enhance health of citizens. Green spaces can be formed into the urban design as creative pop-up gardens on nature strips or creating community vegetable gardens, as shown in the GreenKeys approach (2008), Figure 2, in which residents can come together to build a better way of life.

Figure 2: Green spaces – a key resources for urban sustainability The GreenKeys approach for developing green spaces

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Not only do these design solutions generate environmentally friendly neighbourhood, but also increase socialisation of the community.

While Brimbank City Council believes in heavily capitalising on the Regional Rail link to build a super hub at the Sunshine Railway station, the investment needs to be fed into improving the internal character and design of Sunshine for its residents and visitors. The Council’s vision mentions development opportunity of Sunshine as a MAC (Metropolitan Activity Centre) to bring jobs into Sunshine but leads to threat of throwing travellers out towards the regional areas, essentially turning Sunshine into a pass through. The vision touches extremely lightly on improving the urban design features of the suburb surrounding the Super Hub. This idea emulates with the model for better residential environmental quality by Bonaiuto, Aiello, Perugini, Bonnes, & Ercolani (1999) who state that town-planning is the best prediction of people’s neighbourhood attachment, and is enhanced by the aesthetic pleasantness, internal practicability and external connections. Hence the internal urban form and design of Sunshine is key in enhancing the quality of life in Sunshine. Bad quality of life in Sunshine is seen through on-site interviews (SV2, 2019) many interviewees mentioned the dull/boring nature of the suburb. In order to create a “rising Sunshine” as the Council aims to, the streetscape of Sunshine must be renovated to eliminate the dull aura felt by residents and visitors.

Ways to improve Sunshine’s design can begin with removal of run down, boarded up shops which give off a

Figure 3: Global Street Design Guide, Island Press

dystopian atmosphere in the town centre, as Gehl (2006) expands, “in streets with retail, where solid metal shutters close off shops outside opening hours a sense of rejection and insecurity is produced.” (p. 99) and creating a marketplace which can bring together the variety of cultures and seating which encourages prolonged conversations between groups of people who may never interact currently. This idea is supported by studies such as the one conducted by Brookfield (2016) who mentions areas of open space can be seen as “congregation spaces” (p. 52) and their need in residential areas is highly sought after.

Examples of such inclusive streetscapes can be seen in the Global Street Design Guide, shown in figure 3, where a shopping street in converted into an open space to generate heavier interaction between pedestrians. Instead of the Council’s vision of improving outward growth of Sunshine’s railway line, the vision for Sunshine needs to be on improving the walkability and interaction joined with creative green spaces.

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Several opportunities in this essay’s vision to activate Sunshine on the map are put forward through the urban design solutions in creating innovation clusters, integrated green spaces, multicultural spaces and increasing walkability which coincide with the Council’s vision to create opportunity for mixed-use development but major threats still prevail due to low socioeconomic status hence limitations in access to finance for redevelopment. With several upcoming suburbs, there is a huge threat of time for Sunshine to bring itself forward along with negative perceptions of the suburb potentially leading to disinterest from developers who may not perceive any project to be feasible in Sunshine.

Enhancing Sunshine’s character for its people is essentially an amalgamation of economic, socio-cultural, governance and environmental urban design solutions which will generate great uplift in the suburb but the focus in the vision for Sunshine needs to primary be on generating opportunities internally within the community for the residents before looking at the big scale projects outwards such as the Council’s vision for the Super Hub.

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References: Bonaiuto, M., Aiello, A., Perugini, M., Bonnes, M., & Ercolani, A. P. (1999). Multidimensional perception of residential environment quality and neighbourhood attachment in the urban environment. Journal of environmental psychology, 19(4), 331-352.

Brookfield, K. (2017). Residents’ preferences for walkable neighbourhoods. Journal of urban Design, 22(1), 44-58.

Charles, D. (2011). The Role of Universities in Building Knowledge Cities in Australia. Built Environment (1978-), 37(3), 281-298.

Costa, C., Erjavec, I., & Mathey, J. (2008). Green spaces – a key resources for urban sustainability The GreenKeys approach for developing green spaces. Urbani Izziv, 19(2), 199-211.

Gehl, J. (2010). Cities for people Landry, C. (2000). Rediscovering urban creativity: Why are some cities successful? In The creative city: a toolkit for urban innovators (pp. 3–19). London: Earthscan.

Sutton, S. E. (2011). The paradox of urban space: Inequality and transformation in marginalized communities.

Wolch, J. R., Byrne, J., & Newell, J. P. (2014). Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’. Landscape and Urban Planning, 125, 234–244.