CoDesign Studio co-founder and director Lucinda Hartley was listed in The Age Melbourne Magazine's annual list of 100 most influential Melburnians for 2012.
CoDesign, a social enterprise, has worked closely with communities, governments and clients across Melbourne to tackle issues of social exclusion through physical projects, as well as engaging over 500 professional volunteers with expertise in architecture, landscape architecture, environmental management, engineering and urban planning.
Architecture & Design spoke to Hartley about why best practice design isn't the best approach, social exclusion and design and working with slums in South East Asia.
What do you think of current landscape design in Australia?
It’s an exciting time to be a landscape architect. Never before have we had such unprecedented urbanisation and the need to feed, house and support sustainable urban environments will be one of the major challenges of coming decades. Landscape architecture is a systems thinking profession – influencing cultural, environmental, social, food and built systems, so we are well placed to tackle a lot of the challenges that will emerge in human settlements. I think the profession has a growing role to plan in coming decades, but I think we need to broaden our focus.
We need to define a landscape response that is essentially local. Too often we borrow from international ‘best practice’ before we really listen to local communities. We can be similarly sidetracked by design trends, rather than creating something new and uniquely Australian.
CoDesign has done some work in places like Vietnam and Cambodia. What was your approach to design in those countries?
CoDesign moves away from traditional approaches to the design of public spaces and community facilities, where designs are created by external consultants or governments and focuses instead on building the capacity of the communities to vision, design and implement their own solutions. When working overseas in cross cultural environments this ‘bottom up’ approach is critical, but it is also important in Australia. Often design projects fail to meet the communities needs because not enough time is spent listening and understanding.
For example we undertook a project in an informal settlement in Phnom Penh Cambodia in partnership with a local residents association. Our brief was to design a school, but when we started to ask questions, talk and draw together with the community, it was clear that a school wasn’t the problem, the major issue was the flooding, which affected access to the school. So instead we designed and built a series of raised footpaths overcoming the drainage problem. It was like building a school without a school.
CoDesign Studio is working with Cambodian organisations Agile Development Group and Rural Friends for Community Development to design floating vegetable gardens for floating villages on Lake Tonle Sap. Image: CoDesign.
How has your experiences working in slums in South East Asian informed your current approach to design?
It taught me to completely reconceptualise landscape architecture. I was lucky to work with a number of organisations who are demonstrating leadership in affordable housing, appropriate building technology and slum upgrading. I saw that landscape architectural processes were fundamentally important to addressing a number of challenges, such as looking at the importance of open space, access, urban agriculture. However, the way design was applied needed to be completely changed. Communities needed to be responsible for coming up with their own solutions. Design could facilitate that process, but could not provide the answers.
How can good neighbourhood design help with the problem of social exclusion?
Social exclusion is one of the major, growing social issues in Australian cities – it affects over 1 million people. Social exclusion is also directly linked to the built environment. Disadvantaged communities are more likely to be exposed to pollution, lack of recreational space and unsafe neighbourhoods. At the same time, a key driver for creating thriving communities is public participation, yet disadvantaged groups are less likely to have their voice heard because traditional community engagement techniques are unappealing or inaccessible.
Good neighborhood design is an important way to overcome social exclusion. However, it is only effective if social needs are addressed at the same time. We work to improve both the physical environment through better parks, accessibility and safety, and also the social environment by building social cohesion and giving people a forum to gain the skills and confidence they need to create change. The result is a more sustainable, safe and inclusive environment for everyone.
Is this an approach currently being undertaken in Australia?
There are emerging examples of practices and projects that are exploring ways to work more effectively with communities, which is really exciting. Pop-ups, revitalisation of disused space and guerilla gardening are all good examples. However, our research with governments, non-profits, service providers and schools is that there is a great need to improve the way we engage with communities, and particularly to improve the integration of physical infrastructure and community services.
What are your top three 'must haves' in a good design?
1. Good design is local. Given appropriate avenues for participation, people can transform their living environments into places of sustainability, local identity and pride. I think the best ideas come form people, not from ‘best practice’.
2. Good design is beautiful. None of us would be here is we didn’t value aesthetics and functionality. Beauty has an important role in making the world a better place.
3. Good design gets better with time. We need to get away from a perception that places look their best the moment they are completed. Great places should be able to be moulded, changed, adapted with different activities, people and programs over time.
