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Thanking our Sponsors
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008 |
WelcomeThe Subtropical Cities 2008, Brisbane as part of Riverfestival 2008From fault-lines to sight-lines - subtropical urbanism in 20-20
For last minute Conference Registrations, please call Emma Tooth on 0409 270 350. Hosted by the Centre for Subtropical Design, a partnership between Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane City Council and Department of Infrastructure and Planning. Welcome from Conference Chair It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Second International Conference on Subtropical Cities. The inaugural conference on Subtropical Cities in 2006 embraced subtropical cities around the world. In doing so, a number of problems became evident – FAULT LINES – cities at breaking points socially and environmentally. This challenged our complacent notion of subtropical cities as lazy, relaxed, places where the living is easy.
In 2006, Al Gore’s presentations about global warming and the images of political and social breakdown associated with Hurricane Katrina cast dark shadows over cities of 21st century. However by 2008, this heavy cloud is beginning to be lightened, just a little, by rays of optimistic light. Today, no-one is arguing about whether climate change exists or not. Instead politicians and communities are calling for and supporting innovations and inventive responses. So it is in this incipient optimism that we shift from Fault Lines to clear SIGHT LINES by bringing together four keynote speakers who have achieved vitally important work ranging from creative micro-tactics with communities to seductive designs with natural elements in our urban landscapes. We also have a rich array of session presentations that show numerous examples where subtropical cities can provide leadership exemplified by the work of the Centre for Subtropical Design under the stewardship of Rosie Kennedy, Queensland University of Technology and Brisbane City Council. It is almost a tautology to say Brisbane is leading Australia in innovative environmental design. Today responsive and exciting architecture is synonymous with Brisbane. Brisbane City Council suggests that Brisbane, as a well-designed subtropical city, is a place where we can hear the birds during the day and see the stars at night. We can identify with such images. They imply a city which has a relationship with nature and the elements and a sense of human scale. Queensland architects have responded to this. They are generating poetically beautiful and intricate forms with a local materiality and with intriguing connections between inside and out. We are seeing the seamless interpenetration of landscape into new built forms with increasingly attractive green walls and roofs multi-tasking as they climb up, down, around and over non-air-conditioned buildings. It is encouraging to see that we are increasingly becoming eco-citizens, individually or collectively working with designed ecology to provide aesthetic, educational and, most importantly, spiritual engagement with our cities. City dreaming and the elevation of the soul are two of the many fulfilments as we actively engage in making our cities better places to be in. This requires leadership and champions, roles that the CSD willingly takes on. Cities of today and tomorrow need to be resilient. They need to forge new connections with place and landscape that explores innovative ways of working with natural system, and ways to work with communities as a renewed form of engaged citizenship. Eco-design - contemporary, innovative and intriguingly fine-grained - will help our cities to become resilient, particularly as we engage with the unpredictability of climate change. But, we are still living in an era of Spectacle Cities with spectacular buildings and public spaces for heightened consumerism – the most extreme being the urbanism of Dubai. Spectacle cities are thin and brittle. They are uni-dimensional and despite their hype, they are actually passé and of the last century. Many subtropical cities are leading the way towards a different model of the city – not a return to the hippie Whole Earth Catalogue – but forward looking, engaging state-of-the-art technology to achieve environmentally responsible high density living, working and playing, such Kelvin Grove Urban Village and the new urban edge to Roma Street Parklands and the sensitive tapestry of old and new in New Farm. These are models of what the Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, calls a Queensland Spirit of Design, namely working with nature and connecting with community. They are food for the soul but what about food for our stomachs? The challenge that is still to be met is how to maintain existing and introduce new ways of growing food in our subtropical cities. Healthy and environmentally responsible food production, water wise design, and the reduction in carbon emissions are the current challenges for subtropical urbanism. We need a clear vision of how we will achieve this and this conference is the ideal forum at which to share ideas. I hope you will find the next two days to be inspiring and encouraging in your various initiatives to achieve a new way of urban living that eschews the escapism of the spectacle city and instead works with the micro-tactics of engaged citizenship and the associated rewards that elevate our soul. Helen Armstrong, Message from the Director  Following the success of the inaugural conference in 2006, it is my pleasure to invite you to join us at Subtropical Cities 2008 which will again see leading international and national thinkers and designers converge on Brisbane to share world best practice on shaping the cities of the future, particularly those in warm climates like ours where the pressures of growth are already being felt and are likely to increase in coming decades as the effects of global warming are played out.The Centre for Subtropical Design is particularly interested in the interaction/integration amongst climate, landscape and lifestyle (culture) as a starting point for achieving sustainable urban place-building that delivers great outcomes for people and supports long-term and resilient approaches to energy and water resources. By joining us at the conference you can help us to achieve our vision of establishing Brisbane, South East Queensland as an internationally renowned centre for the design and realisation of liveable places in the subtropics. Yours Sincerely |
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Subtropical Cities 2008 conference | 3-6 September 2008 | Brisbane, Queensland
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