Cox Richardson and Hames Sharley are among the winners of the 2016 City Life Project, an international competition hosted by the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA).
The competition aims to promote the development of ‘liveable, affordable, and connected’ Australian cities and presents an opportunity for three industry organisations to partner with the UDIA NSW on research projects in 2016.
Each of the three category winners will receive funding and branding/sponsorship opportunities worth up to $145,000- in total, just under $500,000. Competitors were challenged to overcome the challenges posed by growing city populations through rethinking ways to master plan and design.
The 2016 winners of the City life Project are Macro Plan Dimasi for their new policy framework for affordable living, Hames Sharley and UTS for an innovative connectivity measuring tool, and Cox Richardson and UNSW for an e-platform and phone app that connects the public, private and community sectors on urban development through data.
They were chosen from a pool of nine finalists which included Hassell, DSA Studio Architects and Urbis.
Learn more about the projects below:
LIVEABLE CITIES CATEGORY WINNER
Macro Plan Dimasi for Suburban employment and a polycentric Sydney: creating a new policy framework for affordable living
Stage 1: This research will add to our current understanding of polycentric urban development by identifying the attitudinal and regulatory obstacles that need to be addressed to release the potential of employment based urban development in non-CBD centres.
Stage 2: Combining an understanding of the imminent changes in technology and the new mobility ecosystem with the polycentric model, this research has the potential to reduce infrastructure expenditure, increase employment and increase development density.
AFFORDABLE CITIES CATEGORY WINNER
Hames Sharley and UTS for Connectivity Measuring tool
Whereas the twentieth century was focused on what we now understand to be traditional economics and traditional land use planning, the future city will be founded on a network economy either through physical clustering or virtual connections. This will take the form of agglomeration of use, global connections, technology, transport infrastructure and active infrastructure.
This research will not only measure the capacity (or deficiency) of connectivity in our cities but, through evidence-based and design thinking process, apply this data to a tool that assists the guidance of funds allocation, project programing and staging, and stakeholder agreement in order to facilitate the most efficient spending on connectivity infrastructure.
CONNECTED CITIES CATEGORY WINNER
Cox Richardson & UNSW for Urban Pinboard
Urban Pinboard will be a new tool for collaboration that connects the public, private and community sectors in a single conversation with innovative digital technology to drive smart city transformation.
The Urban Pinboard will be unique and powerful because, unlike other one-way e-platforms in use around the world, it will allow these three sectors to not just access data but also exchange their ideas, thus creating a real and powerful feedback loop.
