Rachel Smith, transport planner at AECOM, recently attended a series of public programs and experiments for the second leg of the BMW Guggenheim Lab in the Berlin neighbourhood of Prenzlauer Berg.

Smith has led active and sustainable transport planning on many of South East Queensland’s major transport infrastructure projects, including the Gold Coast Rapid Transit, North Brisbane Cycleway and Brisbane City Council 2011 flood recovery infrastructure inspections.

Architecture & Design spoke to Smith about sustainability, her experience in Berlin and what she would like to change in Australia’s urban planning industry.

Do you think the architectural industry is doing enough to improve sustainability in buildings?

I think the architectural industry is making some great progress in terms of incorporating sustainable principles in buildings; AECOM’s Wickham Street office in Brisbane is a great example of this.

It’s a 5 star Green Star–rated building and incorporates a state-of-the-art bicycle centre, limited car parking, recycling programs, and a green office team which champions energy-saving behaviour. It’s an example of how a building’s design, and the working environment that design creates, can encourage positive, sustainable behaviours. The architectural industry can take a lot of credit for progress made in this regard.

Can you tell A&D about the trip to Berlin?

The BMW Guggenheim Lab is the result of a collaboration between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the BMW Group. The Lab is a six-year project travelling to nine cities around the world that will conclude in late 2016.

The Lab is a combination think tank, public forum, and community centre that aims to raise awareness of important urban challenges and yield sustainable benefits for cities around the world. Through its live programs and online presence, the BMW Guggenheim Lab engages with individuals at a personal level, encouraging them to be agents of change. Ultimately, the BMW Guggenheim Lab strives to generate ideas and potential solutions for cities of the future.

BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin. 2012 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. bmwblog.com

I got to work with three Lab team partners from very different disciplines, including José Gómez-Márquez, Professor Carlo Ratti and Dr Corinne Rose. We also worked very closely with Maria Nicanor, one of the architectural curators at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

More than 27,000 people attended workshops and field trips in Berlin. For me, if people can come to the Lab – or be part of the global online community – learn something new, take an idea out of it and later apply it to anything in their lives that is success. In the end it’s about starting a conversation and talking about cities.

Can you tell A&D about reverse garbage infrastructure?

At the BMW Guggenheim Lab we challenged waste because it never really goes ‘away’ and because we need to reuse the commodities that we dispose of in our cities. We investigated how to create and build civic infrastructure out of household waste and prototyped it with trash salvaged from Berlin.

Some countries are ‘comfortable’ with their waste and wastage behaviours whilst others are working to eliminate materials such as plastic from their supply chains. Berlin already has numerous successful schemes for recycling and waste management, but success can always be built upon and it is important that other countries and cities can learn from their initiatives and adapt them to their own needs.

It is important to focus on the ‘big picture’ global change requirements and waste elimination, as well as waste behaviour change at the household level. Recycled and waste materials are not only good for small objects in everyday life — like for making park benches out of plastic bottles — but also for large-scale urban infrastructure projects such as plastic bottles being used as the materials for road bridges.

My dream is to see a floating cycling super highway made out of recycled plastic and waste aluminium along the Brisbane River and in Sydney Harbour.  Ultimately, communication, collaboration and innovation are required to raise awareness of elimination, reducing, recycling and reusing issues.

How does Australia's approach to sustainability compare to that of countries like Germany?

Our land use patterns in Australia are very different to land densities in Europe, which in turn determines sustainability practices. Berlin has many car-free households, car sharing is popular and people cycle for many of their transport trips. Infrastructure is being put in place to support e-mobility and there is a rise in ownership of solar powered electric cargo bikes.

One thing I was surprised at in Germany was the amount of bottled drinking water that people purchase. Whilst most of these plastic bottles are recycled in Germany, I really love the way that almost all Australians have a reusable water bottle and refill it.

What is one thing you would like to see changed when it comes to Australia's urban design?

I’d like to see us experiment more with temporary and tactical urbanism. We can’t all redesign the main street in the centre of famous cities or design an icon building, nor can we all be part of removing cars from the centre of cities. But we can all be part of experimenting with and transforming a car parking space or a neighbourhood park.

By experimenting we transformed a street adjacent to the BMW Guggenheim Lab dominated by cars into a space where people felt they ‘owned the space’. The very fact that people stood in the middle of the road to have a conversation with other people, that parents let their children ‘roam free’ and that cars drivers chose to use alternative roads demonstrated how people felt empowered to use public spaces in unconventional ways.

The highlight of the day was a mother and her two daughters who came to the lab unaware of the concept of transforming car parking spaces. They took some of the resources and materials donated by a Berlin recycling company and went out into the street and transformed a parking space. Not only did they have a wonderful time and made new friends but they also told passers-by about the day, the philosophy and why it was so much fun – that’s what community projects are all about.