Current planning and design policies do little to encourage interaction between local communities and students, who make up around half of the City of Melbourne's population, according to the University of Melbourne’s Dr Kate Shaw.
Increased housing alternatives and better public space designs are the key recommendations from the University's final report "Transnational and Temporary: students, community and place-making in central Melbourne."
Shaw said that the research team looked closely at the relationship between the many transnational and temporary student residents in the area between RMIT and the University of Melbourne, and the local students.
“The project is motivated by the question of how place-making — the practice of fostering community in place — can be brought about when many people in that community are transnational and or temporary,” Shaw said.
The research looked closely at the types of opportunities students needed to form meaningful social interactions, given they are only here for 3 to 4 years.
“What is it about the design of space, the type of housing we provide and the practices we engage in as a university or as a government that facilitates interaction amongst and within these temporary communities, or obstructs it?” she said.
Current practices are unwittingly contributing to separations, Shaw said.
“These transnational and temporary residents are not like longer term settler communities that start in one place and move further out once settled. What we need to do in the 21st century is to design and plan places that facilitate diversity and interaction in a more inclusive way that we do at the moment.”
Watch a video of Dr Shaw’s presentation below.
