Grow Your Suburb

Its clear that many suburbs need to accommodate more households if we are to transition our urban areas into more compact and sustainable forms. But how can this be achieved in a way which preserves and enhances the qualities of our neighbourhoods?

In the past rezoning for greater density has been indiscriminate and large parts of suburbs have been paved and cleared in a blanket approach to low-rise development. This has created urban environments which are susceptible to the impacts of climate change and eroded the qualities of suburban living.

So what is a better way to achieve density in our suburbs and reflect the values and ambitions of existing and future inhabitants? We created a series of urban context tiles representing typical suburban layouts associated with street networks, train stations and local centres, and then asked participants to ‘grow their burb’ by incrementally introducing new homes, trees, public plazas and commercial premises. This ‘game’ allowed participants to individual explore the constraints and opportunities of increasing density in the suburbs and help understand the benefits and impacts of different approaches to distributing new homes.

‘we NEED a different quote here.’

— Person Person , Title at entity

‘it was great to be able to work collaboratively with other members of the community and visually see what the street could look like’

‘a great way to visualise challenges and solutions’

‘helped think about development/activation above the street level. Also gave perspective to scale of badly designed space taken up by shopping centre/carpark’

— Participant feedback