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Thanking our Sponsors
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Conference SummaryThe Plenary Conferences are strange and wilful creatures. Sometimes they are static and detached – a collection of hermetic silos, positioned around a theme. Then sometimes, the conference creature is stirred and becomes vibrant, charmed by the interaction of all the presenters; something happens that you could not predict. In this conference it is as though our international keynote speakers were already good friends who regularly meet and share their passion about cities that have subtle messages to tell; not the grand or spectacular but the detailed and delightful. Our keynotes, by their very synergy, have shown that there is another way of seeing the global. While many of us see globalisation as a thick strangling rope trapping us with tight knots, over the last two days we have also seen that the global can be a web of fine treads, resilient, strong and shimmering with beauty and hope. Our four keynote speakers have woven together nature and water, place and time, soul in the city and people as informed and engaged citizens. Over the two days, you could say that we have participated in a form of City Dreaming. Leonie Sandercock, in her recent book, Mongrel Cities of the 21st Century, calls for such city dreaming and the speakers at this conference have clearly heard her call. Our dreaming started with a Welcome to Country which was followed by many speakers acknowledging the dreaming on this land. At the 2006 conference on Subtropical Cities, the futurist Sohail Inayatullah presented a number of scenarios for the future of South East Queensland. One scenario suggested that we will be ‘wired and miserable’ with the best IT but living in gated master-planned communities, globally connected yet completely disconnected from the local, and under heavy surveillance. Two years later, the speakers at this conference have shown that this scenario doesn’t seem to be happening. Yes, we are wired! But we are not miserable! It would seem that we are increasingly living in the city and playing in the public streets and parks. The suburbs are there of course, but as Laurie Buys and Kalara McGregor showed on Day One, people are living in the city and the suburbs at different times in their lives, autonomously moving backwards and forwards. Many of the presentations at the conference focussed on how we can measure and rate the success of subtropical cities as sustainable places. It seems we no longer question environmental sustainability; now we want to see how effective our initiatives are and what kind of fine-tuning is needed. Associated with this, different assessment methods, typologies, and mapping processes were presented in the Best Practice Bazaar. Alex Kohn demonstrated an amazing toolkit for projecting scenarios at a speed that was exhilarating and likely to facilitate much more informed discussions and decisions. There is always the risk, however, that in our focussed evaluations, we are actually asking the wrong questions. Janis Birkeland made this point very clearly in her discussion about our anthropocentric view of environmental sustainability. Her book Vicious Circles and Virtuous Cycles explains how we need to change this and focus instead from the viewpoint of the ecosystem. The presentations in the Local Distinctiveness Stream confirmed that we are working towards urban densities that draw from the distinctiveness of a subtropical climate. Holding the conference in the new building for the State Library of Queensland enabled us to witness the physicality of the sub-tropics while also observing a sophisticated spatial design executed in understated yet intimate ways. Despite these achievements, rapid urbanisation is still consuming special towns as Brit Andreson and Elizabeth Musgrave showed with their example of Yandina. Their work on Transition Towns is vitally important. Brit, as always, maintains clear Sight Lines within the hype of SEQ, reminding us of the impact of rapid development and oversized infrastructure of tunnels and roads. Returning to our keynote speakers, Herbert Dreiseitl provided an inspirational start the conference. As the rain poured down outside, we engaged with the beauty within a drop of water. Then we moved out to water in our cities and how it can be designed to undertake work as well as giving delight. In showing examples of people enjoying water in busy urban squares, he pointed out the unfortunate impact that ‘risk aversion’ policies are having on the fabric of the city and reducing our ability to live with risk. This aroused much interest, so Herbert generously gave a spontaneous workshop on this topic which promoted a great deal of discussion. Clearly this is a topic that needs to be taken further. Anthony Abbate’s presentation ‘From Conversation to Conservation’ was a beautifully layered talk. The historic photos of the Everglades and Florida land reclamation in the 1920s showed how heroic the visions were at that time and how horribly wrong. Anthony’s use of Cartagena as a model town, built on the principles embodied in The Laws of the Indies, was fascinating as this Spanish code for settling in the New World was also proposed, but ignored, when laying out some of the towns in Australia in the late 18th – early 19th century. The recognition of arcaded streets and interpenetrating courtyards are still relevant to subtropical cities today. In cities where breezes are hurricanes, Anthony talked about how big box shopping malls are as inappropriate as the land reclamation of the 1920s. It was encouraging to see applications of his Community Design Guidebooks and to realise what guided communities can achieve. Todd Temkin’s presentation ‘When the City becomes your Way of Life’ was truly inspiring in so many ways; from the vision of one person leading to dedicated work by a small group; from clear thinking and sight lines about a small city, Valparaiso, to ultimate achievement on the world stage as a World Heritage Site. Sitting on 43 hillsides, this city, an urban labyrinth of tight spaces lit by shafts of sunlight, more than 1000 steep stairways and funiculars, and hundreds of hillside passages, has become an alternative to the global race towards homogeneity. This is not a city for risk averse planning; it is a city awakening to its own specialness. Todd’s description of how he, an American poet from Milwaukee, became so involved in Valparaiso confirms what the geographer, Edward Relph noted in his 1977 book Place and Placelessness about empathy with place. Todd is an ideal example of an ‘Empathetic Outsider’ becoming an ‘Empathetic Insider’. Empathy with communities has been Fred Kent’s commitment since the 1970s, however in his keynote address, Projects for Public Spaces, he argued that he has little empathy with high designers who ignore the wisdom embedded within communities about their places. He has argued for many years that the best designers of public places are the local communities. Like Janis Birkeland, he challenged us about whether we are asking the right questions. Instead of concern about physical design, he said we should be asking about comfort and affection. He suggested fantastic designs such as Gehry’s Museum in Bilboa might cause us to draw our breath, but great places are those that breed affection. Affection for place was the essence of Nick Earls’ conference dinner address. In his delightful and endearing talk he confirmed that the best way to work for good subtropical cities lay with the citizens and their willingness to be responsible stewards, exemplified by the Brisbane community’s skill in reducing water consumption, even when no longer mandatory. Nick suggested that we lost faith in breezes to keep us cool and retreated behind closed windows with air-conditioners. He urged us to reclaim the outside, enjoying shady streets and river breezes and to become as good at walking as the Brisbane community are at saving water. This conference has been rich in positive presentations, whether about transit oriented development, working landscapes, water-wise design or improved suburbs. The numerous presentations by the Centre for Subtropical Design confirm the leadership of the Centre under the stewardship and dedication of Rosie Kennedy. Rosie Kennedy and her invaluable team are to be congratulated for achieving a second landmark conference – no mean feat! As delegates we can use the visions and sight lines to consolidate the value and principles of sub-tropical urbanism and to continue to develop the initiatives presented over the last two days. Helen Armstrong, |
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Subtropical Cities 2008 conference | 3-6 September 2008 | Brisbane, Queensland
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