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The White Hat City Design NewsletterArchived Newsletter - 2nd December 2009Contents
New York opens linear park on Abandoned rail trackA new urban park called High Line has recently opened in New York and a number of White Hat's New York subscribers have given it their thumbs up. Melbourne readers may remember the scepticism with which the development at Southgate was awaited but how the people of Melbourne very quickly adopted it and all manner of people felt comfortable there. Similarly, Sydney readers may well have enjoyed the rooftop garden near Cockle Bay which we have described in Sydney's Hidden Gems. You can find details of New York's latest public space at High Line.
White Hat's Seven Irreverent Laws of City DevelopmentNo.1 – The greatest growth always occurs where the services ain’tMoving into an established suburb or fully serviced estate costs real money. Those with less money will head where the land is cheap – away from train lines, under the flight path, close to an industrial estate. The planning people aren’t too fussy about what you build, and after a decade or two you can start demanding the same services as the other suburbs. You might even get up a petition to have a curfew on night flights at the airport. The mug who bought in the serviced area has seen their property prices go up a bit above inflation but now that you’re getting services you are seeing 200 and 300% increases in your investment. That is why the greatest growth always occurs where the services ain’t.
Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD)
Brutalism
White Hat's Seven Irreverent Laws of City DevelopmentNo.2 – Owning your own home doesn’t generate wealthThe property prices in your area are going through the roof. If you put your home on the market you could make a killing and then buy another house in your area – except their prices have been going through the roof.
Alternative Building TechnologiesIn the coming month, White Hat will be watching with interest a small building site in Russell Place off Bourke Street in Melbourne. It will be using a building technique which may change the way we think about city infill and suburban development. Australia’s traditional home building techniques are wasteful and labour intensive. That is why if an economic stimulus is needed money is pumped towards home building or erecting school halls and that will keep large numbers of people in work, and from what most commentators tell us the strategy has served us well in our recent crisis. However, labour intensive building techniques involving a degree of wastage don’t necessarily serve us well in the long term. The traditional home build involves a number of materials being brought to the site and building proceeds as tradies of the appropriate type are available for that section of the job. Rain or extreme heat can interrupt the process and unwanted by-products may find their way into the stormwater after a downpour. Australian building procedures are continually improving and the efficiencies of this style of building have improved enormously in recent years. However there is an alternative. Prefabrication has negative implications for most Australians. It conjures up images of the identical boxes of a company town or the flimsy demountable classrooms that were full of leaks and draughts. However, sturdy prefabricated buildings have been around for a long time. For instance Melbourne still has some portable iron houses from the gold rush era – see: http://www.whitehat.com.au/melbourne/Places/HistoricHouses.asp and also boasted a prefabricated iron theatre (‘The Iron Pot’) and church. The advantages of prefabricating large sections of a building offsite in a factory are numerous. Water, energy and waste can be controlled in a manner almost impossible onsite, work can continue regardless of the weather outside, OHS issues are easier to manage as is quality control and adaption as new environmentally friendly techniques become more feasible. We have all seen the low end of such techniques with the tilt slab cement constructions common in industrial estates and some of the uglier low rise apartment buildings. The concrete slabs are cast in a factory and then tilted into place and secured on site. However offsite fabrication is currently leading to interesting new developments. In the area of housing for indigenous communities, Remote Housing Australia claim they are producing prefabricated housing using environmentally friendly materials which can be constructed by indigenous labour in a much shorter time and at about a third the cost of alternatives. This is partly because of the ‘bolt together’ nature of the prefabrication allowing it to use mainly unskilled construction labour. You can find more details at: http://www.iba.gov.au/partnerships/construction-expertise/innovative-affordable-remote-housing/ and http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/21/2749555.htm But, back to Russell Place in Melbourne. The well known local firm of Fender Katsalidis have come up with a modular prefabricated system which we at White Hat feel may have large implications worldwide. On our web pages concerning Environmentally Sustainable Building Design at: http://www.whitehat.com.au/australia/Environment/ESDA.asp we have outlined the principles we feel are important in that area. Perhaps the area which is most ignored by architects is the end of life – repurposing and/or demolition. The Fender Katsalidis system, called ‘Unitised Building’ is based on an intelligently designed factory built module that can be used in varieties of orientations for varieties of purposes while allowing the scope to customise with a variety of surface renders. The module arrives on site with wiring and many other services already installed so putting the whole structure together has some of the similarities of simply locking together a number of giant Lego blocks but with the resulting building having none of the feeling inside or out of being ‘prefabricated’ in the old sense. However what particularly attracts White Hat’s attention is that that these units have been particularly designed for designed for reuse and or repurposing when the building has reached the end of its current function. An added advantage of this building approach is that the bu8ilding site and surrounds are disrupted for a much shorter time than with conventional building techniques. It is estimated that once the site preparation has been completed, the construction of a 64 unit apartment would take just nine days. We will be watching the site in Russell Place with great interest and suggest that in Melbourne city workers interested in city design in Melbourne do the same.
Griffin Homes Open DayWhat would a town planner know about architecture? What would an architect know about town planning? Those of you in Melbourne can find out a little more. In a unique event a number of private homes designed by Walter Burley Griffin will be open for display on Sunday 6th December. Walter Burley Griffin is best known to us as the originally designer of Canberra but from 1914 to 1930 he also designed a number of private homes and public buildings in Melbourne. To attribute the design to WBG is, however somewhat misleading because his partner, Marion Mahoney Griffin, was often just as important a contributor. The Griffins espoused a number of the principles of the ‘Arts and Crafts Movement’ which, among other things, encouraged furniture and decorative elements hand crafted on the site of the building. This, along with the Griffins' sensitivity to the surrounding environment, makes some of their architecture feel strangely contemporary half a century on. There are three open houses in Heidelberg, two in Kew and one in Toorak. In addition Newman College at Melbourne University and the Essendon Incinerator at Moonee Ponds will be open for inspection. Here are some White Hat suggestions for planning your day. Because the incinerator now functions as an arts centre and is open to the public most weekends we suggest you place that at the end of your list. Similarly, courteous members of the public wandering around Newman College in daylight hours are unlikely to cause alarm although internal access would involve making the appropriate request. We would put that second last on your list – not because it is unimpressive but because partial access is available throughout the year. The private homes, on the other hand, are rarely available for inspection. We will be starting in Toorak, heading through Kew then on to Heidelberg and expect that to take up most of the day. Tickets for the event are $90 per head which covers all venues and addresses will be given with purchase of tickets. More information at The White Hat Guide to Walter Burley Griffin.
The BuildHarry was late for the site inspection. As he pulled up the truck he saw that the architect and the engineer were already there. “Look at those two ponces” he thought. “A site inspection on a vacant suburban block and they’re both wearing hard hats.” He made his way downhill through the overgrown grass. “Emma,” said Nigel the architect "this is Harold who is the builder for this project.” “I sent you the soil reports” said Emma. “Yes, I read them and filed them away and thought there was no need to bring them today” said Harry glancing at his office parked up on the road with its filing system on the passenger seat. “It’s pretty much as you said” he declared closely examining a few clods of earth. “I think the only way to go is slab on ground.” That’s what he always said because that had the best margins and he could pull together enough bodies to get the build on a slab finished pretty quickly. "The client is very keen on using recycled materials” said Nigel. “Yes, we have become specialists in recycled materials.” said Harry. (“If it’s tucked away in the ceiling or the wall cavity the client will never know it’s not new” thought Harry “and if it works just as well they may as well be paying new prices”) “We like to think to think of ourselves as pioneers in recycled materials long before it was fashionable.” Nigel continued “And the client has some particular requests about . .” “Listen my boy” interrupted Harry. “The client has nothing to do with this. You are the architect – it’s your job to tell the client what they want. I build it, Emma here makes sure it doesn’t fall over and then it’s your job to tell the client why it’s nothing like they expected but it’s really better. We all walk away with a cheque in our pocket, the client holds many a dinner party telling their friends about how they made their grand dream a reality and we all move on to the next job. Everyone’s happy.” Why didn’t Emma go into nursing like her parents hoped she would? Is Nigel gay or do all architects dress like that? Will the house be finished on time and on budget? Find out in the next newsletter . . .
Rethinking the Californian BungalowIn the first half of the twentieth century many Australian cities adopted the design of the Californian Bungalow as appropriate to our climate and it became the ubiquitous house of the middle suburbs. It served well for several generations and many Australians spent their childhood in such a house. However it was never designed with the energy efficiencies we expect today in mind and attempting to reduce the carbon footprint of this old friend by retrofitting is much like trying to make a HD Holden highly fuel efficient. White Hat is particularly impressed with this design created by a team of undergraduate architects and engineers aimed at rethinking the Californian Bungalow for the 21st century at http://www.refracthouse.com/
Urban Transit - all terrain biofuel vehicleThe city and inner suburbs of all Australian capital cities (with the exception of Canberra) were laid out with two forms of urban transit in mind. Walking and the all-terrain biofuel vehicle – the horse. Motor cars were unknown so were not planned for, trams and trains came a little later and the early form of the bicycle was still only considered suitable for providing frivolous recreation for gilded youths or the sort of lady with so little breeding that she would show off her ankles in public (and readers of this newsletter I’m sure would fall into neither of these categories). The horse, either with a single rider or pulling a cart or a carriage, determined the layout of our cities and inner suburbs and the evidence is still everywhere you look over a century later. Horses performed the functions of cars, bicycles, trucks, taxis, wedding stretched humvees, getaway cars and only needed supplementing for the heaviest loads by the b-double of the period – the bullock team. No petrol stations were needed. However, once in the city away from wayside grass, large amounts of hay and water were required. Sydney has a whole inner suburb called Haymarket and most Melburnians are familiar with the Haymarket Roundabout. A working horse also requires about 50 litres of water a day so horse troughs became an important part of infrastructure. After work the luckier horses would be ‘spelled’ on a paddock such as Loys Paddock or Goschs Paddock in Melbourne or the Police Horse Paddock which now houses the MCG. By the late 19th century, most cities had at least as many working horses as they had people and all that hay and water didn't stay inside them forever, thus requiring further maintenance workers. Next time you look at a romantic city photograph from the late 19th century, try adding in the aroma that would go with that street scene. The fact that our inner cities were planned with neither cars nor bicycles in mind offers certain challenges today. However, the old infrastructure for horses may still provide us with some opportunities, so more of that in a future newsletter.
White Hat's Seven Irreverent Laws of City DevelopmentNo.3 – ‘Neighbourhood Character’ is defined by the good bits or nostalgic bits you can remember of the neighbourhood from when you were growing up or when you were going to university. Anything before or after that doesn’t qualify as ‘Neighbourhood Character’.
The White Hat Design Quiz
No prizes – just glory and a warm inner glow..
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