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.
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.
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.
'Choose a woman architect - there is a difference!' proclaim a multitude of stickers all over Sydney. Constructive Women, the Sydney based association of Women Architects and Planners decided it was time for a new approach.
There is a video which shows the noted Viennese artist Hundertwasser sitting on a bucket in his public home unit in Vienna City, uttering this exhortation. He then takes the bucket upstairs to a roof garden of sorts and dumps the contents into a compost bin.
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.
It never gets really cold in the Top End. But it does get very humid during the Wet. However, simple steps in house design can make the house comfortable and you don't need fans and air conditioners.
Gregory Burgess and Associates are a remarkable architectural practice which places high value on the collaborative design process with clients and users as well as low energy use now has three major community projects to its credit...