Water Urbanism in Australian Cities

摘要

Starting from the inclusive and interconnected understandings of urban ecology and the multiple time scales of geomorphology and environmental history, these projects seek to understand more about the conditions of our urbanized places in order to conceive of how they might evolve into the future - in ways that are more water sensitive, more responsive to changing natural and human-made phenomena, more enjoyable for more people, and more resilient in their ability to absorb the shock of new and unforeseen events. To develop a process for this research we started by turning our attention towards the past. From this seemingly counterintuitive viewpoint we placed ourselves as designers in a position to discern particular types of knowledge and to listen to particular other voices, that might have been overlooked, dismissed or simply forgotten in the ongoing process of continual technological improvement, development and competitive change that characterises modern urban space and its planning. Such voices include those of local cultural memory, indigenous knowledge and practice, traditional techniques from other cultures, complex animal and plant systems, and knowledge of the subsurface realm including geology, groundwater and contamination. Focusing our study of urban environments through the lens of water provides us an interface with all of these. Water is dynamic and enduring - an agent which can cross time and space, transcending physical and cultural boundaries. These projects were part of the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC), an Australian research centre that was established in 2012 to help change the way we design, build and manage our cities and towns by valuing the contribution water makes to economic development and growth, our quality of life and the ecosystems of which cities are a part. Through research projects, the CRCWSC brings together many disciplines, world-renowned subject matter experts, and industry thought leaders who want to revolutionize urban water management in Australia and overseas. As part of the CRCWSC, this project explored how a design-led approach could synthesize a range of complex issues towards delivering water sensitive urban design for precinct scale, redevelopment sites in Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane. The project developed a range of processes towards localized, small-scale water systems that could contribute to climate change resilience and intensification issues in cities.