Opening day for the AJA designed Southern Cross Care Village in Parkes was a well-attended event, and both new residents and local visitors enjoyed the festivities as well as tours of the facility. Very positive feedback was received, and some of the compliments are captured in the local Parkes Phoenix – and comments from an SCC board member suggested it ranked highly in terms of its character and pleasant environment. Further details of the project can be sourced from our AJA website.

A BELIEVABLE ‘LIVEABLE SYDNEY’ vs SUSTAINABLE MELBOURNE

by Jon Johannsen       Posted 16.11.17

http://www.sydneyforum.org.au/article-liveable-sydney-by-jon-johannsen-161117.html

Liveability has been a recent catch cry for media attention in the urban domain, and with so much analysis in the ‘most liveable city stakes’, perhaps it is timely to look at what constitutes urban and suburban quality of life.

This photo is indicative of what many would consider a highly desirable component of the liveability stakes, and captures the quintessential Sydney Harbour ambience. But what proportion of our almost 5 million Sydney residents have direct access to such wonderful public open space with views to die for?

In an exercise undertaken in 2016 for the Sydney Morning Herald by Tract Consultants and Deloitte Access Economics, a total of 16 indicators were used to determine a suburb’s liveability, including transport, education, traffic, views, proximity to employment hubs and access to the beach.

The Lower North Shore fared very well, with Lane Cove coming in at No. 41, and Greenwich and Northwood even higher. Lavender Bay topped the list with the next six either side from Kirribilli around to Wollstonecraft, but all these suburbs are well down the list in the affordability category. A less tangible indicator, however, is sense of community – a critical part of cultural/social mix that I believe should have had ‘skin in the game’.

Lane Cove, where I have lived for the past 12 years, has seen a huge increase in unit dwellers in that period, and it would be good to know the breakdown of buyers to ascertain how many actually reside in the area. Judging by numbers of people around the Plaza, traffic congestion and queues for parking, this village has become a ‘Mecca’ for local shopping and entertaining, and without loss of our sense of community. Fortuitously, Lane Cove has ‘good bones’, having benefitted from its mix of public housing, aged care and seniors accommodation along with younger families attracted to single houses and townhouses close to many of the liveability indices – with one caveat. Don’t mention the traffic!

Some recent higher density areas such as East Village and Victoria Park near Zetland seem to have become investor suburbs. With only around one third of units in the hands of owner-occupiers, the result is a high proportion of short term tenants who contribute little to the creation of a real sense of community. Clearly most developers are out for profit, and a high proportion of these have recently come from overseas, with little interest beyond their return on investment. For this sector, local character is judged by its capacity to draw market interest and add to future resale.

But with bias towards short term tenants over owner/occupiers, there will always be lost potential for a real community to be built and maintained. Recent pressure for targets in key worker or affordable housing, and potential for more urban seniors/retirement living, will help raise the level of longer term residents, with a greater stake in the community and the capacity to contribute to it.

“Inclusionary Zoning”

The term ‘inclusionary zoning’ has recently emerged as a strategy to require a proportion of key worker accommodation in new residential developments – but with inevitable pushback from a development industry concerned about potential effects on yield and profit margin. This could offer some very significant benefits that might not seem so obvious to those more interested in return on investment, and is a key to growing connections between more balanced communities that underpin liveability potential.

Zoning or planning code changes to allow for more ‘mix’ in the mixed use definition are necessary, along with design thinking around how to better guide local village life. The latest Government Architect’s Office release of the publication ‘Better Placed’ is a further positive move for support of place-making in this direction.

Pressures on lifestyle from commuting, and less time for socialising with friends and neighbours, have diminished our social capital, and as SMH journalist Ross Gittins wrote recently - “There’s plenty of research showing these things are strongly linked to the wellbeing of individuals and communities”. Social capital feeds ‘a sense of community’ which is in turn fundamental to liveability.

New inner urban development should, in addition to the stock standard units, include more provision for social housing, low-cost affordable housing, and intermediate accommodation for retirees. A resultant more inclusive residential mix can then help build connections between neighbours and communities, creating social networks and sharing service opportunities that can cross age, cultural and social barriers – and make the potential for urban liveability more believable.
Victoria is also experiencing challenges in the liveability stakes – but seems to be a bit ahead of Sydney at this stage….,

On a visit to Melbourne earlier this month, I had the privilege of visiting The Commons, an extraordinary and seemingly successful co-housing development in Florence St. Brunswick. Initiated by Jeremy McLeod of Breathe Architecture, this is a truly imaginative outcome by not-for-profit social enterprise that exists to support, promote and advocate for high-quality housing that is ecologically, socially, financially sustainable. (nightingalehousing.org)

The Commons has been a prototype for the Nightingale model that is now being pursued by a number of consortia of like-minded co-housing aspirants for more sites in Melbourne, Sydney and Fremantle, based on this collaboration of principles -
​

After lunch at the Steam Junkies café off the foyer of The Commons (leading to the bike park and Breathe’s studio), I had a short tour of the roof top communal roof garden, shared laundrette and drying terrace beneath the solar panel array with panoramic views back to Melbourne, and the recycling depot at ground level with organised compost and worm farms.

​This model of affordable housing with 24 units costing around $560,000 each, promotes social cohesion via shared interests, design thinking, risk taking and collaboration – and the next iteration – in Nightingale 1 on the other side of Florence Street – is about to take this to the next level.

​While these schemes have had to battle VCAT (the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal) for development approval with a host of admirable sustainable and environmental initiatives and no or minimal parking, at the top end of town the Australia 108 development with 1,105 units and 800 car spaces on Southbank has sailed through approvals, and is now at around Level 42 of its eventual 100 storeys. Designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects, this is development for the wealthy investor and well-heeled penthouse seeker – and is a story that deserves another article.-

After enjoying almost 20 years in this magnificent McMahons Point residence, our clients have it on the market.

This promotional video is testimony to a design process that included excellent clients, a well-developed brief, great builder and a high quality consultant team.

Bringing together two adjacent sandstone houses, AJA incorporated elements of the original fabric with new spatial flow and contemporary detailing to create a home environment with warmth and a variety of living areas.

The expansive dining room looked onto a meditative water feature by the late Robert Woodward.

 https://stonerealestate.agentboxcrm.com.au/contact-185d1c69157644f4af6bc3a812312071-100P12968

Liveability has become the latest catch cry for media attention in the urban domain, and so following my analysis last month of criteria that can affect unit quality, it is timely to look at what constitutes suburban quality.

Berrys Bay view over Sydney Harbour.
photo by Jon Johannsen

This photo is indicative of what many would consider a highly desirable aspect in the liveability stakes, and captures the quintessential Sydney Harbour ambience. But what proportion of our almost 5 million residents have direct access to such wonderful public open space with views to die for, and how does vista contribute to real liveability?

In the recent exercise undertaken for SMH by Tract Consultants and Deloitte Access Economics - a total of 16 indicators were used to determine a suburb’s liveability, including transport, education, traffic, views, proximity to employment hubs and access to the beach. 

Lower North Shore fared very well, with Lane Cove coming in at No. 41, and Greenwich and Northwood even higher. Lavender Bay topped the list with the next six either side from Kirribilli around to Wollstonecraft, but all these suburbs are well down a list based on affordability. A less tangible but equally relevant indicator of liveability is ‘sense of community’, a critical part of cultural/social mix that I believe should have had ‘skin in the game’.

Some recent higher density areas such as East Village and Victoria Park near Zetland have become investor suburbs, with around only one third of units in the hands of owner-occupiers, resulting in a high proportion of temporary tenants who contribute little to creation of genuine community. Clearly most developers are out to make profits, and a high proportion of these profits have recently come from overseas investors who have no real interest beyond interest return on investment, and for who local character is judged by its capacity to add to future resale.

But bias towards short term tenants over owner/occupiers will see lost potential for real community to be built and maintained, while inclusion of scope for affordable housing and seniors/retirement living will help raise the level of longer term residents with stake in the community and capacity to contribute to it.

Lane Cove has seen a huge increase in unit dwellers over the past few years, and it would be good to know the breakdown of buyers to ascertain how many actually reside in the area. Judging by numbers of people around the Plaza, traffic congestion and queues for parking, our village has become a ‘Mecca’ for local shopping and entertaining, and without loss of our sense of community. Fortuitously Lane Cove has ‘good bones’, having benefitted from its mix of public housing, aged care and seniors accommodation along with single houses and townhouses close to many of the liveability indices that younger families attracted to – but don’t mention the traffic!

In my March TVO (The Village Observer, Lane Cove local paper)  article I wrote -

So much real estate jargon for new development is focused on lifestyle, village character, and local benefits without really looking at what can be added to a growing community.  -  Zoning or planning code changes to allow for more ‘mix’ in the mixed use definition are necessary, along with design thinking around how to better guide local village life.

The term ‘inclusionary zoning’ has recently emerged as a strategy to require a proportion of affordable accommodation in new residential developments, with inevitable pushback from the development industry concerned about potential effects on yield and profit margin. This would, I believe, offer some very significant benefits that might not seem so obvious to those more interested in return on investment or profit in lifestyle, and is a key to growing a balanced community that underpins liveability.

In TVO July 2015 I mentioned the pressing need to address the strains in our social fabric—the network of connections that tie us together as communities. Pressures on lifestyle from commuting and less time for socialising with friends and neighbours has diminished social capital, and as SMH journalist Ross Gittins said then - “There’s plenty of research showing these things are strongly linked to the wellbeing of individuals and communities”

Social capital feeds ‘sense of community’ which is in turn fundamental to liveability.

New inner urban development should, in addition to the stock standard units, include provision for some social housing, low-cost affordable housing, and intermediate accommodation for retirees. A resultant more inclusive residential mix can then help build connections between neighbours and communities, creating social networks and sharing service opportunities that can cross age, cultural and social barriers – and make the potential for urban liveability more believable.

Jon Johannsen

Principal of Architects Johannsen + Associates and Lane Cove resident

This article appeared in the Lane Cove local paper, The Village Observer.

Units, units everywhere – but are they fit to live in? With so many residential developments around Sydney today you would think potential buyers are spoilt for choice – but think again!

On various design review panels for local councils, including some recently ‘amalgamated’ ones, I and several colleagues get to see the latest and frequently not so greatest of the crop. Many developments unfortunately are ‘designed’ in a development system that often discounts the product to achieve savings that we believe are counterproductive in sacrificing architectural quality that would benefit future residents and the community as a whole.

Some developer builders employ architects who can get them a product that can just scrape over the bar of local planning or SEPP 65 Apartment Design Guide controls for the minimum amount of extra cost. Others use designer draftsmen with CAD skills to churn out cookie cutter plans and details from their magazine files, and then ‘buy’ a required Registered Architect signature meant to signify professional authorship of a Development Application.

There is an approval system in play that still allows the lowest common denominator of design to pass through the planning matrix sieve, and many residential projects on the market are out of this stable, leading to a surfeit of poorly conceived and under-performing units.

While unit living can have many advantages – less maintenance, communal pool and/or gym, good views, proximity to local cafes and public transport, the downside is sometimes less obvious.

With many more neighbours comes the potential for increased awareness of their presence, as suggested in SMH Domain 15/7/16 –

“What’s that banging next door? Oh, it’s neighbour one assembling their Ikea furniture. What’s that thumping from the ceiling? Oh, it’s neighbour two practising tap dance… well, hopefully.”

The deficit in design quality for units falls into three broad categories – contextual, communal and internal – and I offer a few classic examples of where they may fail to deliver.

CONTEXT

• Proximity to good public transport infrastructure, local amenities and parks that requires an Uber account to access
• Overlooking by the next block of unit cookies that purport to meet setback controls, privacy and solar access but have negotiated a private certifier’s ‘alterations’
• Design features meant to signify the latest elements from ‘starchitects’ via magazines or blogs, but ignoring local relevance and character
• Orientation based on maximising views or the developer’s yield and profit, but compromising solar access, acoustic exposure to main roads and cross ventilation.

COMMUNAL

• Entry foyers with room to enter a lift but not much more other than an over-stuffed mail box
• Double loaded access corridors that feel like 1 star hotels, with no natural light or ventilation and offering titillating atmospheric cameos of the life behind the walls (see above)
• Landscaped open space meant to encourage community life but right on the road boundary, overshadowed most of the day, or in full view of the thirty units next door
• Waste or storage rooms next to the main entry, or tucked away in a spot that gives residents a chance for parkour lessons en route to access
• The feature fire hydrant booster valve ‘sculpture’ at the main entry that compensates for the bike stand missing in the car park
• Single lift buildings higher than 4 storeys that require fire stair use on maintenance days – but those stairs can also be a great exercise or social catalyst if designed as an attractive alternative to the lift that never comes, or has troublesome passengers!

INTERNAL

• Efficient spatial planning that allows direct views from living or dining rooms into a bedroom or bathroom, or worse if it’s the neighbours!
• Entry into a corridor that gives a guided tour of the bedrooms, laundry cupboard and kitchen before arriving at the back of a living room couch looking onto a narrow balcony with feature a/c condenser, hot water unit and clothesline array
• Ceiling heights that just meet the minimum standard of 2.7m using a sculptural play of bulkheads, claustrophobic corridors and capsule bathrooms
• A front door that requires instructions for visitors (and again from SMH 15/7/16)

“The entrance is behind the bus stop, on the street that’s parallel from my building, when you get outside, solve the Rubik’s Cube at the intercom and a secret door will then be revealed – call me if you have any problems …” – and by the way mobile reception may be poor due to the local shadow.

If higher density living is to deliver on the often promised access to a new urbanity, then the quality must improve. Perhaps the Greater Sydney Commission needs to shine a light on poor performance in this sector, and at the same time look at how affordability can also be a by-product of quality architectural design.

This article appeared in the Lane Cove local paper, The Village Observer.

In A Plan for Growing Sydney produced by the recently established Greater Sydney Commission (http://www.greatersydneycommission.nsw.gov.au/ ), Lane Cove falls into the North Region for which part of its vision (p.124) is -

…to be an attractive place to live, work and visit with a thriving economy….Increases in the supply of housing and jobs will be focused on centres with good public transport. The subregion will offer a growing diversity of high amenity living and working environments.

Two of several priorities to be addressed are stated as -

• Improve transit connections throughout the Global Economic Corridor to better link centres and transport gateways.
• Work with councils to identify suitable locations for housing and employment growth coordinated with infrastructure delivery (urban renewal)

While these are noble and much needed long term objectives, in the interim it seems to be a case of business as usual promoting development – but don’t mention the traffic!

Lane Cove is getting more than its share of development, to which the Rosenthal Avenue site will be added next year creating more retail and parking for 500 cars that will generate yet more traffic on local streets already struggling to cope following increased residential density over the past 5 years. Peak hour congestion on Epping Road continues to grow due to the traffic choke gifted from the original Lane Cove Tunnel contract inherited by current owner Transurban. But the warped idea that toll returns would be better if ground level traffic was penalised by lane limitation did not prevent the first operator from going broke, leaving locals with a legacy of overloaded streets and rat-runs!

Authorities are increasingly looking to get returns on road infrastructure costs that are shared by all, even those who don’t drive or can’t afford a car. Parking costs are factored into the supermarket groceries or embedded in rental prices where parking is attached to an apartment building. Typically developers are required to meet a minimum parking provision whether for residential units or commercial, although there has been a recent change in some cases where proximity to public transport enables reduced maximum parking.

Many cars, on average, are used less than 20% of the time, but take up the same 15 sq.m. area of open carparks. These paved spaces also have environmental impacts through increased stormwater runoff, contribution to heat islands, increased glare and light pollution, and in conjunction with roads severely affect urban character. The imminent arrival of driverless ‘autonomous’ vehicles could see an Uber equivalent evolve where one is booked in lieu of a taxi for point to point service and return. Such initiatives would certainly help reduce both traffic and parking pressures, but not likely in time to ease the current jams.

Recently the NRMA promoted development of innovative smartphone technology for an Air B’n’B style phone app system that would offer short term rental of vacant car spaces to nearby drivers, reducing demand on traditional parking and thereby better utilising existing capacity.

In the Nightingale residential project in Melbourne, architects and ethical investors made a legitimate attempt to create a more sustainable and affordable model for building apartments whereby car parking was excluded. By elimination of car spaces, a saving of $30,000 per dwelling was passed on to buyers based on the site’s proximity to a railway station, bike path, car share service, bus route and tram line. Where basement parking is involved the saving could be even higher at up to $50-60,000, and certainly a step towards more affordable housing for those prepared to .

There is significant evidence from economists that some form of road pricing to reduce congestion could be economically viable, regulating demand and making it possible to manage congestion without adding more NorthConnex or WestConnex projects. Questions on the best form of pricing and potential implications for political backlash may see this also take a few years to even be considered. When it is, it would seem logical to take tolls off the motorways and have a toll system for the rest based on time of use – fair user sharing of costs and a real incentive to encourage more use of motorways or take up of public transport alternatives, car share systems and cycling.

Massive development activity looming under the Baird Government’s mooted state budget allocation to infrastructure of $70 billion has its primary focus on the much needed Sydney Metro. However, with the sub-text ‘value capture’ in the scheme suggesting another development boom around the Metro stations, perhaps the Greater Sydney Commission could lobby for ‘design thinking capture’ in parallel that could promote some of the above initiatives to ease congestion – and please mention the traffic!

This article appeared in the Lane Cove local paper, The Village Observer.

From his European study tour, Guy Luscombe provides insight into ESD initiatives found in European aged care facilities.

Article originally appeared in Australian Ageing Agenda Mar/Apr 2016

Sydney’s concerns with urban density, congestion and environmental issues were brought into perspective on my recent visit to Japan, where the concepts of living in both city and regional areas take on new levels of meaning. From the natural wonderland of Nagano Prefecture (for a skiing indulgence in Hakuba and side trip to visit a Macaque ‘snow monkey’ onsen) down to the sprawling megacity of Tokyo, then a cultural shift to Naoshima Island on the Seto Inland Sea, and to the former imperial capital of Kyoto, it was fascinating to see how a population more than 5 times that of Australia exists in a land area that is just 5% of ours!

Yes there are many reasons for this huge disparity, but the capacity for efficient utilisation of available land and resources along with fast, clean public transport was a revelation. A Shinkhansen bullet train has to be experienced to be believed for the sheer pleasure of being transported smoothly in comfort at 320km per hour, giving access to major cities and regional towns along the spine of Honshu and Shikoku with some amazing scenery along the way. Fast train talk again seems to be evident here, and if ‘value capture’ evident in Japan was to be applied here there might at last be a vision to link Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne with a few regional stops on the way.

At the other end of the transport spectrum, many bicycle riders without helmets or Lycra are free to share footpaths with pedestrians, thereby diminishing car numbers and road conflict – and the culture of communal respect seemed to nurture an awareness of the need for tolerance. Order in the public domain, no rubbish or graffiti, pride in presentation and operational efficiency were also evident as spin offs of a Japanese capacity to think and act with consideration of the individual responsibility in helping to maintain communal harmony – but this did not carry through in many narrow streets where an overhead jungle of cables was seemingly at odds with the high-tech, innovative image of Japan.

Looking past social issues, degrees of self-sacrifice and certain demographic peculiarities that stymie what our western values hold as freedom of expression, there is such a strong sense of the aesthetic values in fashion, design, presentation and customer service. From the qualities of Prada or Issey Miyake stores in Aoyama to main street shops of Kyoto or laneways leading to a Buddhist temple in Nagano, pride in the product and engagement with the market seemed of paramount importance.

Transferring this perception to the architectural sphere, it was hard to not be impressed by the way architect Tadao Ando has crafted spaces for artworks by international and local artists on Naoshima. The Chichu Museum dedicates special spaces (among others) to the last of Claude Monet’s water lily series and several James Turrell light-works, while the Benesse House Museum where we stayed is woven around numerous works by the likes of Christo, Stella, Giacometti and Sugimoto. Elsewhere several site-specific sculptural installations continued the sort of place-worship sensibility common to the native Shinto religion, and also evident in many Zen-crafted gardens of Buddhist temples.

Such landscaped grounds in Kinkaku-ji (home of the Golden Pavilion) and Ginkaku-ji Temples in Kyoto were evidence of the Japanese appreciation of a spiritual world translated into the natural environment. Maintaining and caring for these gardens is very labour intensive, but this is where employment of elders in the community and other low-tech public services keeps them engaged and active in paid duties rather than on a pension – likely a step too far for our work and retire ethos, but perhaps necessary with their population in decline at less than 1.5 births per family.

This aging population also includes artisans who carry on traditional crafts, some such as indigo dyeing that date back almost 1,000 years. A visit to the Kyoto studio Aizen Kobo in the textile district revealed a 3^rd generation business producing a range of vibrant indigo hued fabrics that are exported world-wide from a humble shop-house that would fit within a small suburban Sydney block – subject of course to different planning controls!

In a land of contradictions where egalitarian urban life seems to endure many pressures, Japan may offer more than a few clues to how a future Sydney might consider dealing with so many challenges ahead – with a bit of Zen to help us on the journey!

Prada – Aoyama, Tokyo; Golden Temple – Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto; Ginkaku-ji Temple – Kyoto; Chichu Museum – Naoshima; Benesse Museum House – Naoshima; Horikawa Dori – Kyoto

This article appeared in the Lane Cove local paper, The Village Observer.

After reading ‘The Big Sleep’ article in The Age (15/1/16) about the suicide pact of Melbourne scientists Pat and Peter Shaw, and then about David Bowie’s hugely creative and energetic last 18 months in The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/15/david-bowies-last-days-an-18-month-burst-of-creativity?CMP=twt_gu), I was puzzled.

I wondered how many of us in our retiring years might be caught in the middle, still seeing things left undone, places untraveled and ideas not realised, but frustrated by lack of energy, state of health, family support or basic wherewithal to make the most of a twilight that might linger longer.

The recent Belvoir play ‘Seventeen’ was a poignant juxtaposition of youthful exuberance against the frailties of age, with actors in their 70’s taking the roles of 17 year olds celebrating their last day of school and an uncertain future. One of its key messages was an unfolding awareness of our mortality, and what will we have to celebrate or just keep us going towards the end.

Then reading Marcus Westbury’s recent book Creating Cities and thinking about how his process of remaking downtrodden areas of Newcastle might be applied to the complexity of our retirement and aged care system, perhaps to create easier ways for elder sharing, just like our student days! Much cohabit potential exists in many big houses on the North Shore (and elsewhere) or recycled inner city warehouses if there were less social taboos, bureaucratic barriers, more community and health support mechanisms, and the potential for cultural/social media hook-ups to foster a new silver age for baby boomers, and generations to follow.

There are some existing affordable and social housing complexes such as Pottery Gardens in Lane Cove with potential for redevelopment to more innovative shared village models. With the imminent changes to the strata act many home unit complexes may provide opportunities for different configurations as reimagined multi-age communities, where cooperation and sharing of skills, time, resources and even management expertise might offer new ways for aging in place to be better integrated within existing urban conditions.

During my architect partner Guy Luscombe’s research trip in 2014 to investigate new ways that some European countries are enabling their seniors to enjoy life and even prosper in their silver days, the example of shared seniors’ accommodation was one that stood out. In St Gallen, Switzerland, four elderly friends decided to develop their own co-housing solution in an old fabric factory, and created personalised units with a range of common area facilities to support their interests, and this has won several awards.

Various other inter-generational or multi-age housing he visited had a mixes of families, singles, young couples and older people which had been shown to work, where residents agreed to participate in the community as part of their contract.

With less than 6% of people over 65 considering Retirement/ Seniors Living Village options, and a fewer still wanting to end up in the traditional nursing home, there appears to be a huge desire for alternatives, either with a few friends or others who might share common interests in music, the arts, gardening, literature or various sports, and capacities to fix things or prepare meals.

Perhaps such community activities might take place on site as in Bayside, Victoria and various New York locations, where residency programs aimed at emerging artists, multimedia practitioners, writers and composers provide residencies or studios in exchange for community engagement activities – artist’s talks, workshops, master classes and participation in local festivals or exhibitions to brighten and engage those in their twilight.

Unfortunately there are few precedents in this area, where policy and funding frameworks are limited to existing models, and innovation or disruptive thinking are rarely welcome. A shared equity model based on enablement and affordability might tick the financial boxes, but the regulatory framework appears to be a minimum and ultimate standard.

So perhaps a Marcus Westbury approach is needed, and as he argues in Creating Cities …

most towns and cities are wasting their most obvious opportunities: the talent, imagination, and passion of the people that live there. In a globalised age, local creativity has access to new possibilities that most places have barely begun to grasp.

This article appeared in the Lane Cove local paper, The Village Observer.

A proposition in the latest James Bond movie ‘Spectre’ is that while ‘surveillance is the new norm’, what this information gathering actually delivers is a real source of power. While the potential for a nightmarish Orwellian world of 1984 ‘Big Brother’ monitoring is also real, so is the scope for improving the operation of our built environment and the multiple layered public infrastructure that underpins its performance.

With fast emerging big data systems, digital communication and techno interfaces, the long talked of ‘Smart City ‘ is real, with a contingent rise in data collection, and a corresponding drop in individual privacy. Video surveillance is everywhere! Google Earth monitors our properties, and we have those ubiquitous parking space saucers telling us (supposedly) how many cars are parked in the village, and when a ticket may be expected. There is car number plate recognition in Market Square as an example of real trial by technology!

At a recent Future Cities Collaborative forum titled ‘A Tale of 2 Smart Cities’, speakers from Vienna and Chicago gave oversights of their respective urban environments and how shared information can improve system performance and bureaucratic efficiency from local up to metro scale. Chicago’s open city data portal operates to improve user experience and bureaucratic operations, giving real time data on everything from garbage collection to city planning.Cities and their residents linked together in networks have the potential for optimizing energy use, transportation, logistics, medical information, entertainment, voting and much more.

In every major city, there are a multitude of sensors and meters collecting data of all kinds, but very few are able to transform this data into actionable knowledge. With the right management and feedback process, there is scope to improve performance, lower use and wastage via system monitors, and share use patterns or errors to learn and refocus our ways and means of living in urban environments.

Metrics and algorithms to measure, diagnose and improve ourselves and our world abound, with a plethora of real time data available via the exponential rise in apps and their links to an overloaded World Wide Web of information. But while we are being monitored this can also enable us to listen and learn from an emergent connected city that can be a platform to rethink our problem parts as bits of future solutions. As users, our device patterns and feedback can assist the development of tools for next regeneration of digital technology.

Street or building lighting can monitor passing pedestrian or vehicular traffic and be adjusted to appropriate levels of need or safety, residents can be updated with pre-emptive notice of imminent events, or you can log onto an IP address of almost any object or service to register a malfunction or check availability. While your FitBit tracks your exercise, your mobile phone becomes a tour guide, plotting a path via certain shopfronts based on your ‘user profile’ or taste in coffee. But such levels of cooperation do freak out many who feel they will be exposed to manipulation or corrupt influences, and trust will certainly be tested.

Although largely not yet designed for smart technology, our built environment does have the capacity for much improvement provided there is the will and ways to integrate and utilise the growing multitude of data sources in equitable ways. Research institutions like UNSW Smart Cities Research Cluster are fundamental to creating platforms for the design, planning and implementation of data management aimed at sourcing, evaluating and applying multiple information strands that can be used to promote:

• Sustainable economic development
• Higher quality of life and environments
• Management efficiencies for natural resources and energy
• Participatory action and engagement of communities

While all this should be regarded as investment in human and social capital, there is still suspicion of losing control or privacy at the individual’s level, or giving away intellectual property in the corporate world. A balance of surveillance with collective observability and civic responsibility is needed – just as the blog ‘In The Cove’ is an example of sharing local news and information, a smart open source approach can reduce manipulation and maintain a sense of democracy.

Open source sharing is a concept of releasing intellectual property for the benefit of the broader community (eg. Wikipedia), taking innovative solutions or systems out of the profit driven realms of big business and putting it into a collaborative economy. Urban living is based on sharing, and this is where we can all benefit without paying for corporate overheads, and feel we still have some degree of control – and create time for face to face communication over a coffee!
This article appeared in the Lane Cove local paper, The Village Observer.