FUTURE WEST 08 Place Value

[AUSTRALIAN URBANISM]

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Future 4 O N PLACING VALUE Kate Hislop and Daniel Jan Martin The pairing of design and enterprise takes shape with medium-density design research in the Perth suburb of Ashfield.

12 THE LANDSCAPE-LED APPROACH Daniel Jan Martin, Rosie Halsmith and Loren Holmes Coordination – of both community and stakeholder input and of spatial outcomes – is at the heart of designing for and developing suburbs.

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18 SUBURBAN SHIFT Nic Temov

A glimpse into the future of suburban Perth.

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West 26 MODELLING SCALE Emily Van Eyk, Matt Delroy-Carr and Megan Buckland interviewed by Daniel Jan Martin Members of Team D speak about the need for scale in creating livable design.

34 COORDINATION AND COMMUNICATION Greg Grabasch interviewed

by Rosie Halsmith The importance of considering all perspectives during the design process.

40 FUTURE WEST Timothy Moore

What can the world learn from the west?

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INSERT A broadsheet that showcases schemes for infill housing in Ashfield, Perth.

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On placing value

Kate Hislop and Daniel Jan Martin

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The pairing of design and enterprise takes shape with medium-density design research in the Perth suburb of Ashfield.

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Future West (Australian Urbanism) looks towards the future of urbanism, taking Perth and Western Australia as its reference point.

In looking forward, we acknowledge that this magazine is published on Noongar land, and that Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land, and continue to practise their values, languages, beliefs and knowledge.

Over eight issues, this publication has asked: Are there clues to be found in the west that can inform better urban development in the west, around Australia and elsewhere in the world? This final issue extends the research into ‘design enterprise’ commenced in issue 7. Design enterprise is a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach to shaping a sustainable, resourceful and engaged architecture and urbanism in Western Australia. It is underpinned by an acknowledgement that the pairing of ‘design’ and ‘enterprise’ have a complex but influential legacy in Western Australia. The region of Perth has long been a place of enterprise: evident for millennia in Noongar culture across the region, and a key force in European colonisation.

Enterprise, economy and resourcefulness have shaped Western Australian urbanism and design indelibly.

Resourcefulness is a feature that has long been associated with the design of WA’s built environment. Looking back, it is clear that the European histories of settlement in WA have typically favoured explanations for the evolution of built form according to themes of both austerity and excess. Austerity is restraint and simplicity such as that found in much colonial and postwar architecture, for example. Excess refers to waves of abundance – urban development flowing from economic boom times. The extraordinary remaking and erasure of heritage in Perth CBD in the wake of mineral discoveries is one such example. The sprawl of the region into a phenomenally biodiverse hinterland is another. Gold, nickel, iron ore: WA has been built quite literally on the back of mining as well as lucrative sales of land.

The intersections or overlaps between these seemingly paradoxical themes – austerity and excess – might be found in the shared value of resourcefulness. There is a certain pragmatism that goes with this: WA’s makers seem always to have had an awareness that the stakes are high when it comes to design enterprise, and have acted with level heads.

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Following pages: A suburb-wide landscape framework was developed to improve the public realm, as density would increase under the Place Value Ashfield proposals.

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In continuing the focus on design enterprise, issue 8 centralises the notion of ‘value’, unpacking the nuances of the term to take in value as an assessment; an economic benefit or motivation; and a principle that has ethical, social and cultural dimensions. Alongside this is the equally central notion of place as an action, a location, a status, an identity-giver. Place is, after all, the focus of Future West.

In this issue, we ask how a pairing of design and enterprise might allow creative resourcefulness to influence the values and forms of tomorrow’s environment through the research project Place Value Ashfield, which explores a coordinated approach to medium-density infill housing in the developing Perth suburb of Ashfield. Infill housing has been done poorly across Perth – there has been a blindness to so many values. The emphasis in Place Value came to be on how to support housing and the landscape in which it is situated – the civic and ecological realms of our suburbs.

Place Value explores the importance of placing and coordinating the often competing and misunderstood aspects of value in our city, suburbs and housing. It brings together the urban disciplines – architecture, development and landscape architecture – in productive collaboration, with input from community and government authorities.

Acknowledging that the ongoing densification in Perth has resulted in many poor environmental, public realm and architectural outcomes, the project aims to demonstrate an alternative: an approach to infill housing that encompasses the design, enterprise and landscape realms. The project explores an expanded idea of value, going beyond value in monetary terms to include cultural, community, environmental, movement and suburban value.

In examining the issue of medium-density housing, Place Value stands on the shoulders of many others in Perth and the rest of Australia who have examined better approaches to infill housing. These include Geoffrey London, who has been involved in this issue nationally for several decades, with the Office of the Government Architect in both Western Australia and Victoria, and with the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities; Nigel Bertram at Monash University and NMBW Architecture Studio; and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), which developed the dispersed and coordinated approach to infill housing in a Melbourne context, tested in Ashfield as part of the Place Value project. The project has

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Left: Six multidisciplinary teams of architects, developers and landscape architects worked on the medium-density infill housing proposals. Image: Lauren Holmes

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benefited immensely from the guidance of Geoffrey and Nigel. We also acknowledge the work of the Australian Urban Design Research Centre (AUDRC) based at the UWA School of Design. AUDRC’s work on greenspace-oriented development, and alternative models of infill housing under the ‘Freo Alternative’ developed by Anthony DuckworthSmith, have each informed medium-density design research and practice in Perth.

2020 was an extraordinary year in which to undertake the Place Value project. It developed alongside Design WA, the suite of design policies led by the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage to centralise good design in all development; a medium-density policy is imminent. This was the context in which our ideas about the Place Value project emerged and developed. And of course, in 2020 the world changed. 2020 brought into sharp relief the urgent need for responses to the climate emergency and a global pandemic. These circumstances have spawned a surge in future-thinking commentary, design, education and action, and have expanded the context of and crystallised our values-based approach to the Place Value project.

While the project brief and the teams were formed prior to the COVID-19 lockdown across Australia, much of the work was undertaken during isolation. There was a moment when we considered putting the project on hold; however, design teams were keen to continue. Teams comprising architects, developers and landscape architects worked together through various digital platforms to consider, develop and refine their proposals for the Ashfield sites. Coordination has emerged as both the critical challenge and opportunity – not only between disciplines of design and enterprise, but between government stakeholders. The Department of Communities and Town of Bassendean will together be important players in shaping the future of Ashfield.

The ‘shovel-ready’ planning reform launched in WA and elsewhere as an economic response to COVID-19 provides further scope for placing the kinds of considerations explored by the Place Value project front and centre. With evidence around the globe pointing to a shift to suburban areas and even further afield to regional nodes, the clever and sensitive design of medium- and higher-density development within and outside of city centres will likely be the focus of the next decade. In this context, coordination is critical. How can we respect and work with existing values in our urban environments, rather than erode them? Resourcefulness, sustainability and community are going to be key considerations for the planning, design, adaptation, conservation, inhabitation, enjoyment and durability of our regions and cities.

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Place Value Ashfield: People Landscape coordination team Daniel Jan Martin, Rosie Halsmith and Loren Holmes Design teams Comprising architects, landscape architects and developers Team A. Living Stream. Rene Van Meeuwen, Craig McCormack and Liam Mouritz with Nic Osboine and Luke Parker from OP Properties Team B. The Scale of the House. Fernando Jerez, Belen Perez de Juan, Joshua Cobb-Diamond and Stephen Thick with Tao Bourton from Yolk Property Group Team C. Home Amongst the Gum Trees. Sophie Giles, Amber Martin, Felix Joensson, Yangyan Ou and Samantha Dye with Hootan Golestani from Golestani Developments Team D. Small Wins. Emily Van Eyk, Jessica Mountain, Matthew Delroy-Carr, Serena Pangestu and Anika Kalotay with Megan Buckland from LWP Team E. Community Hub. Geoffrey London and Nigel Bertram with Roscoe Power from Codev Team F. Future Maidos. Simon Anderson, Richard Hassell and James Rietveld with Matthew McNeilly from Sirona Capital Thank you Town of Bassendean Peta Mabbs, Renee McLennan, Luke Gibson, Jai Wilson Design Basso Advisory Committee Alex Snadden and all members Ashfield Community Action Network Simon Perree, Lenny McLeod and the Ashfield community Urban Development Institute of Australia Jane Bennett Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, Design WA Janine Egan, Jenna Campbell, Daniel Bromley, Nic Brunsdon

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Department of Communities, Housing Greg Cash, Tiffany Allen, Michelle Duke

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The landscapeled approach Daniel Jan Martin, Rosie Halsmith and Loren Holmes

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Coordination – of both community and stakeholder input and of spatial outcomes – is at the heart of designing for and developing suburbs.

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Place Value Ashfield is a research project that explores the potential of a coordinated approach to infill housing in the Perth suburb of Ashfield.

At its incipience, it asked multidisciplinary design teams to consider infill housing as part of the broader site context in Ashfield, with each team allocated one of six dispersed groups of sites across the suburb.

Schemes were guided by an overarching landscape framework, with the aim of demonstrating how housing regeneration can respond to existing values of place. Design teams were asked to imagine that these site groupings represented the ownership of the Department of Communities, which owns a quarter of residential properties in Ashfield, to enable the realisation of a suburb-wide strategy.

A three-stage process, facilitated by the landscape coordination team (Daniel Jan Martin, Rosie Halsmith and Loren Holmes), enabled multiple levels of collaboration and knowledge sharing to take place between community, stakeholders and the six multidisciplinary design teams. Stakeholders included state government representatives the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage (DPLH) and the Department of Communities; local government representatives the Town of Bassendean; industry representatives the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA); and community interest groups Design Basso Advisory Committee and Ashfield Community Action Network (AshfieldCAN). On top of garnering local interest and support, the engagement approach enriched the design process by weaving local expertise and input into multiple critical milestones. The coordinated approach allowed teams to think and work across scales: from the scale of the lot, to the coordinated group of sites, to the entire suburb. This resulted in the design of multi-scaled spatial outcomes that were collectively developed, integrating the thoughts of many.

Stage one: Understanding place During the first stage, the landscape coordination team undertook extensive analysis to set the scene for design teams to take part in shared, broad-scale thinking about the issues at play. Key to the analysis was a series of conversations with community members and stakeholders. The landscape coordination team presented early analysis to community groups, the Town of Bassendean and the Department of Communities, to ensure that their knowledge of Ashfield

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Following pages: Central to the landscape framework was to celebrate the Ashfield Flats wetland system and the flows of water through the suburb. Image: Loren Holmes

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was integrated. These conversations also played a communication role, making sure that people essential to Ashfield were informed about what was happening in their place.

Stage two: Landscape framework A suburb-wide landscape framework – a spatial strategy with associated principles – was developed to guide the public realm to offset and enhance an increase in urban density. At a suburb-wide scale, the framework links the rail to river through an upgraded public realm, and at a site grouping scale, it enables connectivity between dwellings and their context. The streetscape is utilised as a permeable and legible movement corridor and public open space in its own right. Alongside strengthened connections, well-maintained public open spaces are enhanced to create amenity that serves a diverse representation of the Ashfield community.

Central to the framework is the need to respect the vitality of the Ashfield Flats wetland system and the flows of water through the suburb. Blue and green infrastructure networks are strengthened, bolstering vital and diverse urban forest and vegetation matrices, throughout backyards, verges and public open space.

In Ashfield, the possibility of spatial coordination was reinforced due to a high proportion of Department of Communities-owned land and other public-owned land in the suburb. The framework taps into the lots’ potential for infill housing to be sited with suburb-wide civic and ecological benefits in mind.

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Stage three: Design schemes Six multidisciplinary teams, consisting of architects, developers and landscape architects, were formed to respond to medium-density infill housing at Ashfield, including developing financial scenarios. Each team was assigned a different site grouping of multiple residential lots and with particular ecological and civic considerations: living stream; linear parkland; connection corridor; tree canopy ‘oasis’; public open space and community hub; and station precinct and laneway.

Midway through the design stage, teams presented their early responses in an open forum. The project’s open and consultative process was critical to this stage, as it allowed for holistic, rather than parallel, iteration. As individual schemes developed, so too did the suburb-wide landscape framework. Input from design teams led to the reinforcement of particular corridors to the river, as well as the inclusion of public open spaces in response to the development of the housing schemes.

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Debriefing Schemes were presented back to community groups whose input was incorporated into the project’s first stage. The open process, early integration of community input and continued conversation around values allowed for conversations around an issue, or a problem to be solved – and discussions of the multiple ways in which that design could respond to this problem.

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Reflection Ongoing densification in Perth has resulted in poor environmental, public realm and architectural outcomes. Coordination, collective action and engagement processes that welcome people in as contributors, rather than just commentators, are critical to imagining and delivering alternatives for infill housing. Place Value sets the groundwork for ongoing conversations between architects, developers, landscape architects, community representatives, planners, policymakers and the Department of Communities. The Department of Communities remains one of Perth’s largest developers of infill housing, and with this comes an opportunity to influence the direction of medium-density development, and to test best-practice models that move beyond ‘business as usual’.

In this context, one of the key strengths of the Place Value process is its flexibility. External input will continue to influence the project as conversations with key stakeholders develop. Processes for conversations with Traditional Owners have begun, with space for this knowledge to have an impact upon the project as it evolves beyond the production of this document. Should Ashfield move from research to real-life action, an expansion of process to allow for a wider range of voices – both from client and community sides – would allow for the collaborative development of values that are driven by people as well as place. As a further expansion, the Place Value process could be shifted and expanded to adapt to a different scope, a different place and diverse groups of knowledge holders.

In asking how we need to place value in times of urban transformation, Place Value Ashfield challenged architects, landscape architects, developers, government authorities and the community to imagine how design, enterprise and landscape ecology could work together to get better results for places and people. Through its exploration of how housing density can be designed in a way that places importance on a range of values, including economic values, the project offers an approach to development that is quite divergent from Perth’s current development status quo.

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Suburban shift

Nic Temov

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A glimpse into the future of suburban Perth.

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In July 2020, 30 talented local design practitioners and students got together to explore different possibilities for suburban renewal.

Their brief was to discover, educate and inspire us all about the outlook for Perth’s middle-ring suburbs, using Ashfield as a laboratory to test new ideas for suburban land, garden and homes.

Ashfield: The testing ground The suburban ideal – to live in a connected place with access to nature and a modest garden – is sought by many. Ashfield can offer this at an affordable price. It has good rail access and connections to the Swan River, and is close to employment and a short distance from historic town centres at Bassendean and Guildford. Houses were originally built as part of the war recovery effort in the late 1950s; they were laid out in a loose grid along with schools and generous grassed parks. Now, Ashfield is on the cusp of change. Many of the houses are at an age where renovation or redevelopment would be considered. The area has been spared from blanket upcoding of the residential codes as they pertain to density – surrounding suburbs have not avoided this – so it’s time to do density differently in Ashfield and do it well. The Place Value Ashfield designers, arranged into six teams, showed us how.

Valuing spaces between: the land Green spaces in which to play, grow food and relax were prominent in schemes across all teams. The Home Amongst the Gum Trees proposal

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Next spread: Retaining the quality of the suburb, such as existing tree canopies, was integral to the proposals. Image: Daniel Jan Martin

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by Team C (Sophie Giles, Amber Martin, Felix Joensson, Yangyan Ou and Samantha Dye) addressed the fact that mature trees are being lost in many suburbs, and that it’s time to imagine new links between houses, where large trees can provide shade on hot days. Their design response included terrace housing fringing a path network to break through typical suburban blocks that were once impermeable. Their proposed communal spaces included high-quality raised walking areas, and wildflowers beside an established tree canopy where “something is always in bloom throughout one of the six Noongar seasons”. These vital links would encourage sharing between neighbours as the local climate becomes warmer and drier.

The Future Maidos scheme by Team F (Simon Anderson, Richard Hassell and James Rietveld) responded to COVID-19’s impact on the quality and reliability of the complex supply chains that put food on our tables. Anderson and Hassell presented a design response that included courtyard apartments wrapped around productive communal open spaces, with fruit and vegetable plots reminiscent of the community gardens seen in large European cities.

But it’s not just about the space between buildings. Strategic connections to the river were encouraged by Team A (Rene Van Meeuwen, Craig McCormack and Liam Mouritz). Their scheme, Living Stream, sited apartments on higher ground and created room for a restorative landscape down to the water’s edge. The publicly accessible green spaces joined large blocks together to improve access to the river and create a living stream out of a major stormwater drain running through the site.

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Valuing quality internal layouts: the home Interrogating the size and configuration of living areas inside the home was a focus throughout the exhibition, given the paradox that our new suburban houses are swelling in size while households are getting smaller. The approach of Team B (Fernando Jerez, Belen Perez de Juan, Joshua Cobb-Diamond and Stephen Thick) in their scheme The Scale of the House was to challenge the site coverage of current infill models that build on most of the land. Team B shared a system for suburban housing based on 4 x 4-metre prefabricated living modules that could be added over three stories and modified as families grow and shrink.

Team F thought of the capacity for our suburbs to be places for work. They presumed the future rollout of a national universal income scheme that would reduce typical work hours, with more time spent on casual pursuits from home. Their building designs included adaptable spaces for shop and home office conversions facing onto the street.

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The transformative potential for coordinated development was presented on Ashfield’s main street leading from the station. Geoffrey London and Nigel Bertram of Team E showed the Community Hub scheme, which proposed flexible housing structures that could be programmed with different living arrangements for those inside. Key to the scheme was how buildings meet at the important corner of Colstoun Road and Haig Street. This was achieved through thoughtful thresholds between private and public space, where residents’ privacy was balanced with opportunities to overlook the street and activate a community heart for Ashfield.

Team D (Emily Van Eyk, Jessica Mountain, Matthew DelroyCarr, Serena Pangestu and Anika Kalotay), in their scheme Small Wins, freed up their site by pushing car parking to the edges, in response to an expected uptake of ride-share and automated vehicles. These trends are likely to reduce the number of two-car households we see in middle-ring suburbs, reducing the need for expensive fully enclosed garages that can dominate the street front.

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Valuing new development models: the funding Place Value Ashfield designs have been conceived at a time in which the financing of homes is changing as a result of COVID-19. Direct economic stimulus is stabilising the market and keeping construction ticking along, and many believe we’re unlikely to return back to fully market-based financing models in the short to medium term. Teams discussed ways this shift could influence the design of their projects with representatives from OP Properties, LWP, Sirona Capital, Golestani Developments, Codev and Yolk (each team partnered with a representative from one of the developers).

State contributions could help to fund more affordable and social housing, in ways we haven’t seen since the coordinated postwar construction effort that built Ashfield in the first place. About one quarter of Ashfield properties are government owned, meaning teams could leverage off discounted land values or leasing arrangements, access favourable conditions for lending and lower returns on investment typically afforded to Department of Communities-led or partnered projects. Teams also discussed the opportunities presented through build-to-rent models, where the true community value of the housing asset can be realised. As the developer retains housing assets, the construction, operation and maintenance of them can be linked to better design decisions.

Our suburbs rely on this experimentation to make them more environmentally healing, social and affordable places into the future.

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Modelling scale Members of Team D, responsible for the proposal Small Wins – Emily Van Eyk, Matt Delroy-Carr and Megan Buckland – speak to Daniel Jan Martin about the importance of scale in creating livable design.

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Daniel Jan Martin: Scale and coordination have been the most interesting themes explored in the Place Value Ashfield project.

We started with multiple lots – mini suburban precincts – and a suburban strategy. By coordinating medium-density housing strategically, teams have demonstrated how they can strengthen the public and landscape realms to support density, orient it to parks and open space, and retain tree canopy and the permeability of the ground. How important was scale in your team’s approach – both in a design sense and through ‘economies of scale’?

Emily Van Eyk: Financially and throughout our design thinking, it proved to be very important. We had an opportunity to challenge the site-by-site process that has produced so much of the poor infill across Perth. The potential for good design and urban outcomes really goes up when you have scale on your side. You can consider how things go together – you can consider a more holistic outcome. Scale made shared spaces more viable – there are a range of uses – creating intimacy and community across the communal areas.

Megan Buckland: Yes, and it also proved that you need scale to make it feasible. We did a few models on less yield and we struggled to break even. We definitely needed scale. Particularly where the underlying land value is modest, if you don’t get the yield, you will pay the price in quality. The sale price for some of the units in our development was under $300,000 – that’s where it was tricky – construction cost versus sales price.

Matt Delroy-Carr: It allows design intelligence, for sure – and works in theory – but it also comes down to demand. The expectations of floor area in infill housing is the great challenge. It seems to always come down to size of dwelling – scale in another sense.

MB: You’re asking the market to trade off land for something a lot smaller, where they also have to pay the strata fee.

MDC: Medium density is an intangible thing for many, until it’s finished. A lot of that stems from the big off-the-plan builders, the land developers.

EVE: The design might be better, but like you say, you’re paying strata fees, you’re getting something smaller and you’re not getting land.

Following pages: Team D's proposal.

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MDC: It comes back to this question of incentivising good development by reducing buy-in costs. How can there be some benefit to the buyer which isn’t just about a good quality outcome and good livability?

DJM: Yes, we have this system here that completely prioritises lot-by-lot thinking, as you say, and with it the model of the ‘house’. How do we confront something so entrenched?

EVE: Yes, it’s the battleaxe block [an L-shaped block behind another block, accessible through a drive or lane]. People still see that as better value.

MDC: Because within a battleaxe you can still fit a ‘house’, as the market thinks of it.

EVE: Exactly. Even if you end up with 1-metre setbacks on every side.

MB: It does come down to value propositions.

DJM: Perceptions.

MB: Yes – perceptions of what is good value.

MDC: I often have this exact discussion with clients. They find it really hard to grasp why they would consolidate their garden and reduce the scale of their building. The outcome will inevitably feel better, but people won’t easily let go of numbers. “Another builder is going to build me this for this much at this big. But you’re going to do that for that much and it’s 40 square metres smaller?”

MB: The market is trained to think in terms of quantity over quality. However, as Perth matures, the number of people wanting to downsize will increase and there may be a shift to smaller and higher quality.

EVE: Yes, quantity is one of the only design tools the public has, isn’t it? And it’s easy to market.

DJM: So if we scale up further, if we take the whole of Ashfield as all our design teams have imagined it, do you anticipate significant shifts – that margin becoming greater?

MB: Yes, if we take more of a master plan approach, you can coordinate and offer bigger-picture controls – preserving particular trees and areas. Everyone can address the bigger volume precinct.

DJM: It’s very interesting and the potentials do open up. Having the Department of Communities here is helpful – a single public landholder owns 25 per cent of lots in Ashfield. This

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presents the opportunity to coordinate and implement a better approach. These scenarios and their possible potentials are repeated throughout Perth.

MDC: If communities are willing to integrate the strategy and work with us to conceive it, it’s great.

Spreading infill through a suburb so it still reads and feels like a suburb. But the lack of strategy at a government level is a big problem.

EVE: The approach we took in Place Value also assists at a psychological level, where infill emerges throughout the suburb – density emerging slowly – connected to the parks and suburban character, so it feels more at home.

DJM: Your scheme, Small Wins, is very interesting, because when you think of the breakdown of costs in medium-density projects, it can be a case of many small wins to make up the whole. What are the pinch points you encountered when you were going through your design process in Ashfield?

MB: In our scheme, we located visitor parking on the verge.

Where we have large verges and services are easily accommodated, this becomes a viable option to free up developable land.

MDC: Given that every car bay is bigger than your master bedroom, however many visitor bays there are is how many beds you’re losing, or how many trees.

EVE: Parking is also such a large development cost. It doesn’t just occupy a lot of land, but it is a very costly part of the construction. Policy could really lead here: for every car bay there has to be a tree or two or more retained or planted. Everyone would win from a policy like that.

DJM: That would be a ‘big win’, even?

MB: One of the other teams brought up the density bonus system for keeping trees on the site. That’s a great idea and could be easily supported through policy and assessment process.

MDC: The accumulation of all the small wins is why the big off-the-plan builders are so successful, because they’ve got a formula and a template for everything to work – it’s such a quick process and it’s easy, it’s marketable. Which is why [the] Nightingale [development] in Melbourne is working, because it’s got a structure – it demonstrates a value increase and cost reduction to buyers. I think it’s a strategy for getting everyone 31

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Above: Team D's proposal

on board so you only have to do it once, rather than repeatedly.

EVE: I have clients that will say, “We really need four bedrooms and we need a second sitting area”. You ask why, and they say, “We’ve had advice that its worth doing because it will add so much value”. I think the market knows what it wants, but when it comes to pulling the wallet out and getting the loan, people are being driven by other forces and that determines what they think they have to get and not what they actually want.

MB: Bank valuations are largely based on how many bedrooms, bathrooms and car spaces you have. That’s where a big problem emerges, so when talking about ‘value’ we can’t forget about the ‘valuers’.

DJM: Yes, you only need to open the pages of the nearest West Australian to see the impact of these exact metrics of ‘value’

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right across our urban fringe. Not to mention plans void of north points – it doesn’t matter which way they face.

MDC: Yes, you just spin it and wait for it to stop!

MB: Then, you mirror it!

EVE: We’ve got to prove our product. We can tell you it is better, but until you prove it, until you see it, then it’s just business as usual. And no investor will take that risk on board.

DJM: That’s an important point. How do we work on this market literacy from the ‘bottom up’? Only a few good examples of medium-density housing exist in Perth. How can the market value something it can’t see or experience? But what would it take for a developer and a government agency, say the WAPC or Department of Communities, to sit down at the table and get on board with a demonstration project, in Ashfield? There is no lack of design schemes; there are plenty of typologies. The issue is that we haven’t demonstrated their development potential here in Perth.

MB: Yes, for a new idea to have market penetration it must be repeatable. The benefit of partnerships is the shared risks, which can assist with innovation. We come back to scale. For developers, repeatability will be key, and there are many benefits to partnerships between designers, developers and government.

DJM: And it’s precisely about finding these intersections.

What have you all learned from bringing ‘design’ and ‘enterprise’ together in this project?

EVE: That the partnership is completely fundamental.

MB: I don’t think you can do one without the other, if you want a good and realistic outcome.

MDC: Economics and design can drive intelligence, quality, resourcefulness.

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Coordination and communication Rosie Halsmith speaks with experienced landscape architect and design facilitator Greg Grabasch about the importance of considering all perspectives during the design process.

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Rosie Halsmith: Could you tell us a bit about yourself, your projects and what you do?

Greg Grabasch: I’m a co-founder of the firm Brave and Curious with my colleague Joe Bean. At Brave and Curious, we facilitate processes of collaboration with people, communities, clients and stakeholders, working towards sustainable social and ecological outcomes.

Our project types are broad – we could be facilitating community and facility master planning processes or facilitating the reimagining of organisational governance. Being ‘brave and curious’ is about always being willing listen and learn.

RH: Place Value Ashfield aims to encourage a broader consideration of values around densification and provision of medium-density housing in Perth’s middle ring.

As designers and coordinators, we bring our own mindsets to a project. How can we be transparent about this, and acknowledge this in project processes?

GG: Coming to a project with a process that allows the integration of other perspectives is important. The real value comes in going through a process of learning [together with the end users of a place]. When [your project process allows you to] learn from other perspectives, you might find that your values change throughout the process, which is quite exciting.

RH: Ashfield is a suburb with a high proportion of Department of Communities housing stock. Place Value proposes a coordinated approach, which is possible in sites where there is one landholder. With this opportunity comes complexity, and a responsibility to all residents of Ashfield, a rich and diverse community. What is important to keep in mind when working in this context?

GG: It’s important to remember that everyone has the same needs – to live in a place that is safe and secure. If an area has a high proportion of social housing, it’s great if we can develop a place that [has a feeling of permanence], and a place that has everything a community needs. Security is key, so it’s great if we can develop a strong and stable community in these areas.

When you’re working with high levels of social housing, it’s even more important to make sure people feel safe and engaged Following pages: Zooming out to the broader region to reveal the blue and green spaces surrounding Ashfield. Mapping by Daniel Jan Martin

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Above: Daniel Jan Martin and Rosie Halsmith from the landscape coordination team. Image: Loren Holmes

in their place. [Working within a landscape framework] can be a great way to do that. One way to do this is to ensure that people feel as if their backyard is bigger than the space they can see in front of them, and bigger than what their economic situation provides them.

It’s about creating a bit of space for people to call their own. A bit of space to think, rather than a place where people are packed in with others, which often happens in social housing.

RH: Could you speak to the role of coordination and communication in creating this sense of safety and security?

GG: In Bunbury, we collaborated with the Department of Communities, South West Development Commission and the City of Bunbury to develop the Withers Local Area Plan. Withers is a suburb of Bunbury that has a lot going for it – proximity to public open space, the coastline and a number of community resources.

When we came in, we were in a situation where many plans had already been proposed to the community, but rejected. We were 38

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engaged to make a plan for this area together with community and stakeholders.

In this situation, it’s important to remember that you might be going against what the community needs if you’re not having conversations with the right people. Withers, like Ashfield, is an area with a high proportion of social housing, and safety and security were a key issue.

The design of the suburb was influenced by Radburn planning principles [typified by the separation of vehicular and pedestrian circulation networks, resulting in a suburban form characterised by shared greenways and cul-de-sacs]. In this context, opening up pedestrian corridors could be seen as logical design move. However, in talking to people in Withers we discovered that safety and security meant reducing, not increasing, access to dead ends – places that were unsafe. These are things that were very specific to [the community of Withers].

In the end, we found that some of the design proposals that worked really well for Withers were in direct opposition to ‘bestpractice’ planning and design. We had to look at different people’s perspectives to best understand what suited the life of people living in that place, and this resulted in a final strategy that was accepted by the community.

RH: What structures and processes have to be in place to ensure that everybody is listened to within a project process?

GG: The client needs to be willing to allow open engagement with the community. The process needs to be both top-down and bottom-up, to allow everyone to come to an agreed or preferred outcome. If this doesn’t occur, you will lose respect from both sides.

We should all be working with and talking to people who will be living in the places we’re designing for. In places like Ashfield it’s not about a singular vision for what a community should be. It’s about learning – an ongoing process that will allow the community to reimagine itself and evolve.

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Future West

Timothy Moore

What can the world learn from the west?

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Over eight issues, Future West (Australian Urbanism) has looked towards the future of urbanism, taking Perth and Western Australia as its reference point. It has interrogated how cities, towns and the regions are shaped by design. It has investigated this through the themes of water, vision, density, tourism, enterprise, the regions and the public realm. And through this, it has engaged with a multitude of players (politicians, activists, architects and property developers) and drawn disciplines together (urbanism, public policy, architecture, environmental sciences, finance, property and landscape).

Importantly, Future West has asked: are there clues to be found in the west that can inform better urban development around the world?

First, the good news. The economic growth in Western Australia in the first decade of the twenty-first century, in tandem with its population growth and swaggering confidence, has been reflected in investment in a number of city-shaping public projects, from Boola Bardip (the new Western Australian Museum) to Yagan Square, and cultural centres in the regions, including Northam’s Bilya Koort Boodja Centre for Nyoongar Culture and Environmental Knowledge, and the East Pilbara Arts Centre and Martumili Artists in Newman. Many cultural projects in Western Australia have given a platform to Indigenous perspectives and approaches to the built environment that have many lessons for the eastern states and the world in their centring of local Indigenous knowledges. There is still a lot more work to do. Every place has its story, and its Traditional Owners.

In parallel with making great public buildings and places across the state, there has been a focus on promoting quality design, particularly through policies under the rubric of Design WA, a state government initiative ‘to ensure good design is at the centre of all development in Western Australia’. Policies, guidelines and regulations lead us to best practice. Rules can also support non-standard approaches to achieving quality design, such as with Design WA’s apartment design policy.

Architect Jennie Officer cites Brian Klopper’s 1993 Primaries Wool Stores conversion to 23 dwellings in Fremantle in issue 2 of Future West; in this project, the preservation of the heritage Following pages: Aerial photograph of Ellenbrook, Western Australia.

Image: Wikipedia Commons/Andrew Owen CC BY 4.0.

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allowed for the relaxation of density requirements. Flexibility is the rule.

And here’s the not-so-good news. The focus on good apartment design and public space, particularly in Perth, has meant that the suburbs, where most building happens, have been somewhat ignored. Housing approvals in WA grew by a staggering 33.8 per cent in July 2020, after the statewide lockdown as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent government stimulus. The quality of the built environment in the suburbs, and the fringes, has been varied, as developers, builders and homeowners rush to take advantage of the stimulus windfall.

One way to intervene in the sprawling and densifying suburbs is to meld the wishes of the market with the creation of more sustainable, higher-quality housing, through demonstration projects, as argued by Geoffrey London in issue 2 of Future West.

These projects inspire citizens to embrace new ways of living.

Of LandCorp’s stage 1 development of Knutsford, a redeveloped precinct close to Fremantle, London writes: “It provides a mix of well-considered housing types with good indoor/outdoor relationships and clever spatial strategies to enable a high degree of internal flexibility, while being offered to the market at very reasonable prices”. Demonstration projects can overcome community resistance to infill by showing how density can be done well while retaining the qualities of the suburbs that people love: economic value, access to green space and solitude.

If there is to be a focus on quality design and density there needs to be a parallel focus on finance. With real estate accounting for more than 60 per cent of global assets, architects and designers need to engage more with the dark matter of finance. They need, particularly, to rethink property, as private enterprise has transformed Perth and Western Australia since European settlement.

This final issue of Future West addresses this, uniting property developers, architects and designers at Ashfield to explore suburban transformation through design, and finance.

The processes the groups went through as part of this speculative exercise revealed that economies of scale in the suburbs are integral to providing quality and affordable housing. The project also demonstrated that local government has a role in supporting housing innovation through land supply and multi-scalar coordination, including of blue-green infrastructure.

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Future West started with a pithy provocation. What can the world learn from the west? Well, it’s a trick question, isn’t it?

Western Australia has many experimental projects that can be demonstrations to the world, but these experimental projects are happening elsewhere around the world, too. It is strengthening connections between Western Australia and elsewhere that can lead to new ways of operating in the built environment to address challenges around equity, justice or the multiple crises that engulf us – climate, energy, governance, health, identity. Western Australia is not short of the goodwill and clear vision needed to meet these challenges. The question is: who will tackle these challenges head-on?

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BIOGRAPHIES SIMON ANDERSON is an architect, educator and author, and senior honorary research fellow at the UWA School of Design. He has received several national awards for his architecture practice.

DANIEL JAN MARTIN is a Perth-based freelance designer and research officer at the UWA School of Design and Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities.

ALESSIO FINI is a Melbournebased, Perth-raised freelance designer. He previously worked at Casper Mueller Kneer Architects and Universal Design Studio in London, and at Fieldwork in Melbourne.

TIMOTHY MOORE is a director of Sibling Architecture. He is also a lecturer at Monash University's Department of Architecture.

ROSIE HALSMITH is a director at To & Fro Studio and a lecturer in landscape architecture at the UWA School of Design.

KATE HISLOP is the dean and head of the UWA School of Design.

LOREN HOLMES is a director at To & Fro Studio. She teaches within the architecture and landscape architecture streams at the UWA School of Design.

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GEOFFREY LONDON is senior honorary research fellow at the UWA School of Design. He is a former government architect of Victoria and Western Australia, and a past dean and head of architecture at UWA.

JENNIE OFFICER is the director of architecture practice Officer Woods. She is also a senior lecturer at the UWA School of Design.

NIC TEMOV is the principal of planning and urban design at Hames Sharley, and former planning manager at the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage in WA.

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DISTRIBUTION Future West (Australian Urbanism) is distributed by the School of Design at the University of Western Australia.

Future West (Australian Urbanism) is a publication that looks towards the future of urbanism, taking Perth and Western Australia as its reference point.

Future West (Australian Urbanism) has been made possible with a generous private donation.

EDITORIAL BOARD Simon Anderson Alessio Fini Geoffrey London Jennie Officer

ISSN 2206-4087 Copyright 2021 The rights to the material within the publication remain with the contributors.

EDITORS Kate Hislop Daniel Jan Martin Timothy Moore SUBEDITOR Rowena Robertson PUBLICATION DESIGN Stuart Geddes PRINTING Printgraphics, Melbourne PUBLISHER Future West (Australian Urbanism) is published by the School of Design at the University of Western Australia.

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