Ecologically sustainable development is a stated aim of our national and state governments. Unless we can stimulate a higher and more sustained level of discussion on what this means, our progressis likely to remain fitful and unfocussed. Hopefully this article will stimulate the debate!
The Mangroves Discovery Cycle was a Community Arts Project which gave a group of school children an opportunity to explore the environment. Located in Cairns, far North Queensland.
The headbutting syndrome which is normally associated with the oppositional mental locations of the engineering versus the environmental are here reconciled in the combined communities' new park. It should become their most treasured recreational amenity. Located two hours south of Perth, Western Australia.
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.
British artist Andy Goldsworthy came to Australia for three weeks in July to work on site at Mount Victor Station east of the Flinders Ranges. During the 1992 Festival of Arts photographs of the works made at Mount Victor and an installation was shown at the Artspace at the Adelaide Festival Centre, a survey of past works was on show at Yarrabee and Goldsworthy produced a permanent work for the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.
We all use rules. By looking at them critically we will precipitate a dynamic evolution in our understanding and practice of designing 'with the 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.