10 : Reading : Transport for Suburbia

My intelligent, urban designer friend from Melbourne, recommended this book Transport For Suburbia - Beyond the Automobile Age, by Paul Mees,  as it compares and discusses suburban transport systems in a variety of international cities (including Canberra).

The Canberra plan had one overriding objective, to eliminate traffic congestion.  This was to be achieved by restricting employment in the city and centre and providing an extensive network of freeways.  Canberra was laid out as a Y-shaped ‘linear city’ ... and one intended to allow a ‘balanced’ transport system incorporating a bus rapid transit connection between major centres.  The proposed busway was never built, but most of the freeways were, and Canberra has become a paradigm of autopia, albeit one with an urban form that would make it feasible to retro-fit a public transport system. (Mees, 2010, Page 44).

10 : Reading : Socio-Economic Areas

I have been trying to compile the information I need to create a map which highlights the areas which will be the most advantaged by a light rail network (for example, places which will require it to get them to from work/school etc if the using private transport was too expensive).

SEIFA: Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas
This has loads of data, but with all the numbers it is difficult to sift through - I think I will focus on finding research papers which have already used this data in relation to Canberra (I figure this will be the most time-efficient approach). 

Suburban scars: Australian cities and socio-economic deprivation
This article by Scott Baum, from Griffith University, uses SEIFA data to create a General Deprivation Index.

Canberra is largely considered as a public service town which usually translate into generally less deprived suburbs. The regional concentration ratio of Canberra shows relative deprivation to be low. In particular there are very few suburbs with even moderately high deprivation (the exception being Acton, the suburb largely containing the Australian National University). (Baum, 2008, page 27).

I have obtained the list of all the suburbs from the appendix of this article and will now use this to create a few pretty little mappings. 

I know that paying some extra special attention to these maps now, can mean some great 'last minute' additions in the final presentation.

09 : Reading : Time-Based Architecture

Last semester I researched a lot about Time-Based Architecture.  This book became particularly useful as it described a number of projects and essays about how there is always a time-factor present in any design project.

Here are some quotes from the book, which I believe are relevant to this project:

In the late 1960s, serious research was done into techniques that would allow buildings to adapt to meet the demands made by time.  However, the desire for flexibility led to programmatically neutral, characterless buildings.

Society is changing at such speed that buildings are faced with new demands which they should be in a position to meet.  There are times when buildings change function during construction or even during the design process.  A new approach, therefore, is to design buildings that are able to cope with such changes, in other words buildings that respond to the time factor.

Designing for the unknown, the unpredictable, is the new challenge facing architects today.  'Form follows function' is giving way to concept like polyvalence, changeability, flexibility, disassembly and semi-permanence.  The design is becoming an innovative tool for developing new spatial and physical structure that generate freedom.

An important design strategy for conditioning mixes of function and interchangeability of living and working is to provide more than one access system.

So it's all about the architect being disposed to designing not just for one condition but always for so much more.  Perhaps this covers the words polyvalence, competence and performance.  You have to be constantly aware of the fact that everything you make should be open to new interpretations as time goes by.

04 : Research : Canberra

I was chatting with a good friend of mine, who happens to be an amazing urban design/landscape architect in Melbourne, and he recommended a few things to me which were I think will be some great references for this project....  I'll be sure to share this information with the group when we try and meet for another progress meeting tomorrow.

One important factor that I didn't realise was that Walter Burley Griffins vision for Canberra, wasn't fully realised... there were lots of changes made by the government at the time to the original plan.. perhaps if they had stuck to the original plan, the development over time would have been better?

This is fully discussed in the "Canberra following Griffin" by Paul Reid.
 

"The history of Canberra mirrors the progress of city design in the twentieth century.  All the urban design theories from the City Beautiful and Garden City movements, through Modernism and New Urban-ism to Environmental Design can be identified in the Australian capital city.  The story of Canberra is not simply the story of the erosion of a brilliant city design; it describes the gradual replacement of one set of ideas with another." (page 1).

"The Mitchell Giurgola Thorp hilltop Parliament House is the only building that recognises the splendor of Griffin's setting.  With its outstretched arms, it receives the many axes simply and directly, resolving them into an nonthreatening democratic monument." (page 7)

 

"The exact geometric location of these star legs is far more than simple pattern-making on a plan.  It is the device which nites the city with the site.  Journeys along avenues head straight for the significant hills and may routes approach a centre with a significant hill lined up behind.  The overall result is continually to remind the citizen of the integration of the man-made world with its natural setting." (page 64).

The diagram below shows the idea of the government triangle, and the attempt to restore 'Russel' to make it more of a gateway into the city.

Reid, P. (2002). Canberra Following Griffin: Design History of Australia's Capital. Canberra: National Archives of Australia.