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Urban Design Forum Australia

Past Events

MMeets: Practical solutions for regenerating natural systems in our cities

MPavilion
March 23 2023, 6:30pm

Office, house, street, cafe—rainbow lorikeet corridor?

How did it come to pass that we normalised the idea of our cities as separate from the ‘natural’ world? It should not surprise us that this drift has corresponded neatly with a stark decline in the wellbeing of our planet, and in turn our species. Does the idea that our urban existence can somehow be isolated from the bioregion—the flow of water and the movement of insects and birds—represent innocent ignorance, or a kind of collective insanity?

As we enter an era dominated by urban areas facing the imminent threats of heat waves, floods, toxic air quality, and declining biodiversity, surely we must understand that our seemingly preferred form of habitat is no longer serving our interests.

With so much of our urban areas already built, we ask what tactics are available to us to regenerate the natural systems of our urban environment in a way that provides benefits to humans and other species?

From small practical ideas of garden corridors for pollinating insects to habitat boxes on apartment balconies through to rewilding the Birrarung, Urban Design Forum will facilitate a workshop with leading practitioners, activists and attendees exploring practical, small scale through to more ambitious moves of urban repair that reposition natural systems as central to our city lives.

Workshop output

How to get involved

Design

  • Look up your council website in terms of local indigenous planting,
  • If you are lucky have a garden reduce the paving, see if you can reuse in the garden let the water into the green,
  • Nature strip (council permission (Dial Before you Dig),
  • Reduce lawn – carbon,
  • Improve the condition of your soil,
  • Increase understorey / biodiversity,
  • Plant large trees,
  • Support local indigenous nurseries – VINC / SKINC.

Donate

  • Donate $ (Tax Deductible)
  • Bush Heritage
  • Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)
  • Join your professional body
  • Donate/invest your time to: Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and Urban Design Forum Australia
  • A Landscape Care Group

Educate

  • Enrol in a Landscape architecture or Urban design course,
  • Speak to your family and friends about what they can do,
  • Participate in citizen science experiments Birds/Insects/Climate.

Advocate

  • Ensure you have good values alignment where you work,
  • Practice within a practice approach – values aren’t static thing you can inform them,
  • Make a submission C376 Planning Amendment,
  • Make a submission on the Greenline Master Plan later this year.

Thank you to all our collaborators!

Guest collaborators:

  • Charity Mosienyane | Lead Convenor, Swimmable Birrarung, Regen Melbourne
  • Claire Martin | Landscape Architect and Associate Director, Oculus
  • Alexander Felson | Elisabeth Murdoch Chair of Landscape Architecture, The University of Melbourne
  • Sarah Hicks | Founding Director, Bush Projects Landscape Architecture

 

Event partners:

  • MPavilion
  • Regen Melbourne

 

Photographs by: Josh Blashki