06 March 2007

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Working together to vision a sustainable suburb

Imagining a sustainable suburb - workshop

In order to look at sustainable suburbs, we must also focus on the greater urban area that surrounds them. They cannot be looked at in isolation.

In the process of re-imagining a suburb, the working group found themselves intertwined in dealing with both they suburbs and the areas surrounding suburbs including connectivity to other settlements and biodiversity considerations on a regional scale.

Strong themes supported by the working group included reserving biodiverse areas before development occurs, a poly-nuclear model of urban form, pedestrian oriented development, biodiversity supported within the urban areas in the form of natives/indigenous and edible plants, an emphasis on public open space rather than private urban space, mixed use, medium density development and passive thermal houses.

The working group hopes to meet again in the near future to further develop and refine their ideas.