In these days of environmental awareness it is pleasing to see a growing awareness of the need to improve urban environments. This is not to say that we should, yet again, be looking after the concerns of people over and above the needs of the natural environment.
Our town planners, our architects and we ourselves need to rethink the city. If downtown spaces, internal and external, are to become inhabitable, there needs to be a dramatic shift away from narrowly architectural conception of them and their functions towards an acoustic analysis.
Eco-design is probably one of the most far reaching topics to be assembled under the banner of one small hyphenated word. The linking of ecology with design is for many still a novel concept....conference held at RMIT 17 -19 October 1991.
The South Australian Co-operative Housing Bill allowed for the creation of a new housing authority to administer co-operative housing independently of other forms of public housing was passed in October 1991. This coincides with the Federal Government's recognition, through the National Housing Strategy, of the need to explore "innovative forms of social housing which fit between the extremes of private and public tenure."
New Zealand is not only snake less and nuclear free but also has a tradition of earth buildings. In pre European times, Maori utilised the ground's insulating properties by partially sinking thatched roofed houses into the ground.
Today's temperature will be around 37 degrees. At 6 am the relative humidity was 94%. The Monsoon winds haven't found their bearing to the north west, and the prediction is that el nino will prolong the build up this year - a late wet>
The Seagrass Project has been cited as a model community arts project. Located in Hastings Victoria, the project has been documented on video and shown on television in Austria and Canada and could potentially achieve wide international exposure.