Urban by Nature

Urban by Nature Urban by Nature is about working to combine the best of natural and man-made spaces as a community informed design program. and evaluation services.

Cities have lost touch with the nature of our planet. How does a wave of disruption take shape as an urban design and planning driver? Community initiated design and planning holds the key. We examine values and hold these against practices to measure authenticity. We offer community programming, ecological appraisal, strategic assessment, capability and growth, design, implementation monitoring.

It is difficult to value what cannot be measured. We find effective ways to renature cities to engage with others and our Urban Lives.

29/03/2020

Opportunity. As national governments do their best to smash out relief and palliative financial packages (again the economy is their motivation rather than humanity) Is this the time to think seriously, I mean to rethink the notion of universal living wage? When all over the developed world we were wringing our hands over what to do and how to do it - now the universe presents us the imperative to act. It has removed judgement about the unemployed, it has removed the sense of fate or privilege and now asks us all to think about just how much we need to live a meaningful life without the distractions of wealth. In a world of plenty for some - how can this be shared?

27/03/2020

This time.....Maybe the city is to become more like nature?
Closing up for the winter, to rest, renew, making plans, shedding things we no longer need, old ideas, tired practices : this could be a positive way to use this enforced think-time. Helping all to see beyond the inconvenience and to see it as opportunity to re-set. We may have been asked to take a time-out our planet needs, and our society can draw benefit from rethinking what is essential for healthy natural cities. Lets not place this in the hands of others.

20/03/2020

Notice now the fear is for the economy, the vested interests lead the cry for public money to stay on their position. The game changes. So who cries for the victims - people who gave their best and went on the causality list? We need to value the human cost because money is won and lost everyday but people and their healthy minds and bodies cannot be replaced. We must build and protect the worlds social capital and notice how the planet is starting to heal itself provided our greed steps back for a bit.

14/03/2020

crisis:opportunity.

new world order : economic reality of human health

emergency : universal attention to action

result: cut consumption, reduced emissions, re-valuing relationships with people rather than things; travel as a necessity rather than commodity, slower deeper living

could this be a template for future society less hostile to nature and the planet?

In 12 months' time we can evaluate how important health is for society compared to consumerism.

A rose of summer. Blooms in the blaze of heat. its colours and shadings nuanced for the brief time it blooms. harsh sun ...
19/01/2019

A rose of summer. Blooms in the blaze of heat. its colours and shadings nuanced for the brief time it blooms. harsh sun fades the colours. Heat shrivels the petals and it quickly wilts away from splendour.

31/10/2018

Climate affects everybody in some way or another (economically, environmentally and socially) yet we are told it is not our concern, and many believe it is beyond the reach of the individual to make a difference. Governments are letting us all down, and we are excusing their failure, resigning from the future. Do we need to question our priorities of surviving or living for the moment, or do we just need to make important adjustments, and to keep on making them?

28/12/2017

What will 2018 bring our cities? Is it possible to compare 2018 to say 2008 or 1998 for that matter? We are on a moving field of social, economic and environmental programs. HRH Prince of Wales said it well. We need to protect our planet because we do not fully understand how it works. Cities must do their utmost to respect natural processes. Maybe in 2018 we will see a move for more trees, cleaner catchments, more walking and cycling, less air pollution, less consumption and less waste. It all starts with what you do tomorrow. Simple, real and something in 10 years' time you would not be ashamed of having done.

19/12/2017

Reconnecting cities with people and nature is the mission, yet so much I see is mere property marketing, window dressing whilst the same old urban design programs continue beneath the spin. Disingenuous urban design is the scourge of our times. Urban cooling is the latest headline - which is intuitively sensible until we realise that perfectly good bush and woodland is being bulldozed to build green-urbanist demonstration projects. Reworking brownfield or industrial sites needs to become a priority in all cities because this is actively redressing the urban heat island effect and ameliorating blighted lands. We also need evidence demonstrating the purported benefits in unequivocal terms. Awards are being offered to projects which purport to demonstrate green urbanism - yet the site they occupy is less-green that it was prior to development! Disingenuous design conjures instant pop-up social activity and faketure instead of organic and intrinsic community and real nature of local species and land processes. The many projects claiming to reconnect portions of a city to each other, or the river by building cordons of tall monolithic buildings is another example of spurious design-spin. Building along a railway barrier with more buildings, carpark structures and plop-art services architecture for its own sake when all there needed to be is a series of simple at-grade public access connections; sutures if you will. Foreshores, railways, freeways and other linear features are all being dealt blows with this blunt and ill-suited design axe to deliver up public land for private building projects. For this approach to be seriously about connecting there needs to be continuous and free public access over, under or though the buildings. Sadly buildings in their Australian context are seldom public by access or function and so do little to bridge or connect the public to other districts - save for a commercial or other hidden property agenda. (Although the Rialto did have shops and stalls but these never impeded or dictated access and thoroughfare for citizens, and functioned as an adjunct to the thoroughfare of people and goods). Please do not dignify poor design with sham awards and do not dignify marketing or journalist spin merchants as urbanists when they are serving as a property heist of public places.

23/11/2017

Cities and their economies are facing the challenge of international competition. As cities compete for titles - most liveable, most creative etcetera it is possible we are overlooking what is essential to a vital city life. Planning and design is not a Miss World/Mr Universe contest. The great cities we have are due to a history of doing things carefully and with regard for what we know and what we have. From this we can build capital - that is a) opportunities for a broad range of jobs and production of useful goods and services, b) social connection, civics of low crime, volunteering, sense of belonging and happiness, and c) clean vital biodiversity, a connection and experience of nature. Add to this the ability to resolve needs internally rather than cut'n'paste from other cities and then each of our Australian cities can develop real character and potential to be successful for many citizens and not just a privileged slice. In these times we can focus on the things we can best control and influence - external affairs such as global crisis and instability distract and stall us from what we can actually achieve. The originality and good work of our city thinkers such as Stephenson, Hepburn, MMBW and Cumberland County Council has endured well but we must now stop coasting and do more work to plan for smart urbanism: a new imagination of cities, balancing sustainable and prosperous urban life with essential nature and climate resilience.

30/08/2017

Dick Smith, Growth and Water.
Recent headlines indicate that the variable rainfall across Australia leads to some areas with higher than usual and others with less than usual annual rainfall. This is possibly exacerbated by climate change, but also has been the history of Australian expectation and reliance on annual rainfall. In Perth there has been a 'good' year of rain for a change. The Water Corporation - seller and also policy influencer is encouraging urban households to turn off their garden irrigation for an extra month, to not run the tap when brushing their teeth and to restrict showers to the duration of one song. Notwithstanding the merit of elementary water conservation for dummies approach to media, one hopes there is a more sophisticated and overarching understanding of the challenge of water, population growth, and matching their distribution. Dick Smith has recently funded a no-growth campaign - using the logic of finite resources to justify no further immigration to Australia. This is also a simplistic grab at avoiding the challenge of managing and matching growth to resources. Populism has become the new escape clause for having to understand and reconcile competing interests - if we put a simple dead-cat argument to the community via popular media - then they will tell us what to do, what to heed and what to ignore. Assuming this approach to be flawed, it is timely to think about the users of water, their individual approaches to conservation and re-use and the needs for environmental flow in terrestrial nd subterranean water systems. The Snowy 2.0 has been such a program - and Barnetts Kimberly pipeline was another. These proffered moving the water from where it was abundant to places where there is more growth than reliable natural supply. As an additive to this maybe also it is time to consider the location of growth - and to revisit the regular discussion about building northern Australia, not just as an open pit and food bowl, but also as urban and cultural centres of employment, wealth and, yes self-sustaining growth? If 2017 is the year of influencing by infomercial, then parhsp 2018 will be the time to roll up sleeves and commit to some national planning of population growth and infrastructure. Leadership and vision must be required at some stage soon! In the meantime I will be brushing my teeth with a glass of rainwater, and showering for the duration of Bohemian Rhapsody.

22/08/2017

The Australian Government has released a strategy aimed at protecting crowded public places. The contents appears to be well considered and the release packages a lot of good design and management ideas into a consolidated form of how to better protect our cultural expectations to meet in public in safety. Great initiative- right?!
What is alarming about these strategy and associated audits and other guidelines is that they are just 'on-high' documents - without any imperative or resources for implementation.
So yet again we have a federal good idea lobbed onto state and local government, with the expectation they will pick it up, implement and bankroll necessary works and management.
My initial enquiries with state policing authorities suggest they do not see this as a priority - and believe it is a guidance for private venue managers and event organisers to follow if they want to do this. In all probability then it is unlikely to be consistently adopted, implemented and managed. Bold safety promises at launch appear to be a bit vacuous without a plan for training and engagement with all stakeholders. Just like an episode of Utopia - life imitates art!

09/06/2016

So when is a public place truly free? Can it be so when it is shared and possibly it is the sharing that offers freedom of opportunity a solitary space does not? Regional cities can often fall between the denseness of opportunity of a metropolis, yet by alienating nature and landscape we miss inspiration of unmediated space. this abstract thought can seem perverse when considering the contested space and place of war zones, international 'waters' and terra nullius. Perhaps the peaceful future is to make an offering to a place, a selfless gesture of good, planting a tree, making a seat, an artful play - the good we receive is making the gesture: without knowing for sure the benefit or enjoyment it may reap in future.

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