Perth council’s head planner wants to pay 10 practices $100,000 to spruce up 12 of the city’s urban design failures.

Peter Monks, City of Perth’s planning and development director, would recruit 10 leading architecture and design firms to design conceptual solutions to projects including Langley Park, Emu Brewery, Wellington Square and Central TAFE, if a report is approved by council tomorrow (19.01.10).

The report, obtained by Architecture & Design, lists the 10 firms as: HASSELL, Donaldson + Warn, Cox, Iredale Pedersen Hook, Woods Bagot, Jones Coulter Young, Roberts Day Group, Urbis, Taylor Burrell Barnett, and Urban Design Centre.

?The practices would each be paid $10,000 to tackle a site or concept identified by the draft 2009 Urban Design Framework, and come up with a new treatment that would improve its form and function.

The projects vary from considering covering the railway or freeway reserves in part of the city, to temporary uses for the Emu Brewery. Others are conceptual projects, such as coping with population growth or designing a greener Perth.

Perth’s city architect, Craig Smith, is proposed as the project leader, with a working group including the state government architect, Steve Woodland, along with representatives from the Department of Planning and the EPRA.

Dubbed the ‘What if? Project’, Monks hoping that the scheme will stimulate ideas about the potential of underused parts of the city. While there is no presumption that all or even any of the ideas will be used, teams will be required to make sure each idea has the technical and budgetary means to be made a reality.

“The project has the potential to capture the public and design communities’ imagination and is warranted to be carried out at this point of time as the city transitions between the ten year major development cycle that it has experienced between the late 1990s and the end of the 2009, and the next period of consolidation,” Monks said in the report.

The sites and concepts debated under the project will provide opportunities for future five-year capital works programmes, Monks said.

The report, obtained by Architecture & Design, will go before City of Perth’s planning committee on the 19 January.

Full list of sites and concepts under the proposed Perth What if? Project

1. Reconnecting the City Part 1 — Parliament Freeway Cover

A priority for the city is to consider alternatives for covering the freeway between the city and Parliament House in a way that is achievable and affordable. This project will build on preliminary work undertaken by the City and various consultants, and propose current ideas on ways of reconnecting the city to the West Perth area defined by Parliament House.

2. Reconnecting the City Part 2 — Covering the railway east of Barrack Street to the Swan River

Now that the commitment has been given for the Link project to proceed, this project is to build on preliminary work undertaken by the City and the East Perth Redevelopment Authority (EPRA) on opportunities to cover the railway reserve east of Barrack Street through the railway reserve marshalling yards to the river adjacent to the East Perth power station, and improve access between the northern and southern parts of the city in this area.

3. Reconnecting the City Part 3 — Covering the railway reserve between

Thomas Street and City West

Similar to the above projects, this project is to consider ways of improving access between these two precincts either side of the railway reserve and of future options to upgrade the Hamilton precinct around the Citywest complex.

4. Green City

How does the city respond to climate change? What are the physical manifestations that will guide the future form of the city? Does it include roof gardens, different scale and form, community gardens, renewable energy infrastructure in each development? This project provides an opportunity to suggest the range of measures the City should be investigating for a sustainable Perth of the future.

5. Populate Perth

At 13,500 residents, the majority of which are located on the edge of the central core rather than in the centre of Perth, Perth remains one of the smallest central city populations in Australia’s capital cities. Populating central Perth to reach a critical threshold of people will stimulate the local economy, especially out of hours, and positively contribute to the vibrancy of the area. This project is to imagine different scenarios on how to best populate central Perth and consider where, how and in what form could additional housing be created in central Perth.

6. Mounts Bay Road between William Street and the Point Lewis Rotary

This section of Mounts Bay Road is characterised by extremely poor presentation to the street which acts purely as a traffic route rather than a city street with no ground level public activity at present. On one side, the Busport and Perth Convention Centre presents poorly to the street and the northern side, the ground level frontages are mostly of carparking levels to major city buildings. Mounts Bay Road has the lovely character of mature London Plane trees and will need to work effectively as a two way street in the future. This project is intended to explore opportunities to recreate this section of the city as a traditional city street with street front activities including how to better integrate the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre into the city.

7. Langley Park

Public activity on Langley Park has significantly declined over the years to the extent that it currently performs little more than a passive, flat and featureless expanse of grass on the city foreshore with minimal public benefit or interest. Retaining the area as parkland is important and reflects the status of its crown reservation but opportunities may exist to consider transforming this into a landscaped feature setting that serves to attract the public to the location, whilst retaining some recognition of its historical significance as the location of the State’s first aviation activities.

8. Central TAFE Precinct

With the imminent completion of extensions to the Central TAFE complex in

Northbridge, up to 20,000 students will access this site each day yet the precinct does not present well as an inner city campus location. This project will look at the variety of measures that can be undertaken to give the precinct a sense of identity and link with the work that the EPRA is undertaking in the Perth Cultural Centre.

9. Jacobs Ladder

This site forms an important and popular part of the pedestrian network between Kings Park and the city foreshore. The existing concrete stair structure has served its purpose well but opportunities may exist to improve the quality of this pedestrian experience by looking at the desired pedestrian routes and the form of the stair structure.

10. Emu Brewery

This site forms a major entrance to the city and has been vacant since the former brewery was demolished in the early 1990’s. It is likely to remain vacant for some time. This project is to consider transitional uses that the site could be used for prior to its ultimate development so that it presents an attractive public function during this period.

11. Wellington Square

This Square is a considerable size and remains largely underutilised. This project should consider options that can consolidate the public recreational and community use of the reserve, and how it best can serve the surrounding neighbourhood.

12. Kings Park Road and the Parliament House precinct

This road forms a major entrance to the city and the landscaped setting, with Kings Park on one side of the road and the formal rose gardens planted in the median, contrast with the lack of structure to the landscaping around the Parliament House Precinct which diminishes the sense of arrival in the city. This project is to consider options for the Council to consider in enhancing this street environment.

Gemma Battenbough

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