Melbourne really does have it all — including, as we saw last month, earthquakes.

The COVID-19 pandemic may continue to dominate headlines, but natural events like last month’s 5.9 magnitude quake that shook the city have been no less frequent, and no less devastating, over the past year.

Additionally, we’ve seen wildfires decimate communities in California and Spain’s Andalusia region. We’ve watched summer flooding destroy parts of Germany, Austria and Belgium, and submerge subway systems in New York and in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou. And in Haiti, mammoth quakes have once again caused widespread devastation.

Collectively, these events reinforce the growing need to think of resilience in much broader terms; they are both a timely wake-up call to ensure our existing and new buildings have appropriate levels of resilience, and an opportunity to demonstrate the commercial benefits of doing so.

The principles of resilience encourage an integrated consideration of climate scenarios, sustainability and design excellence, and provide insights into how to manage through emergency situations in a way that can enhance economic, environmental and social outcomes.

Resilient design requires a different approach based around four questions:

1. What critical flows is this asset dependent on? (e.g., water, power, information, workforce)
2. What hazards endanger those flows and assets? (e.g., natural, cyber or manmade)
3. What plans and countermeasures are in place to reduce the risks and mitigate the impacts of those hazards?
4. What steps can be taken to increase the asset’s ability to recover faster and be more resilient?

In Australia, we’ve recently applied the above four questions to the operations and design strategies of a commercial tower and university campus.

Our review identified a range of exposure findings related to water security, critical infrastructure failure, direct attack (physical or cyber), geological hazards, economic crisis and regional conflict. The stresses were identified and the range of interdependent assets and services during a shock event relating to digital, energy, social, transport and water infrastructure were considered as we mitigated risks through our design approach and operational responses.  

For landlords or developers, resilient buildings attract sales and tenants, enhance property values and dramatically improve an asset’s ability to be adapted or modified to accommodate changing needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a prominent case-in-point: we now have a heightened awareness of the importance of biosecurity in buildings and have accelerated the integration of resilient design approaches. Health facilities are now being designed to better respond to isolation and social distancing requirements, while encouraging greater use of natural ventilation and outdoor spaces.

Owners of other asset types can leverage lessons learned in the context of the pandemic, as well as others relating to seismic safety (where in California venues like the LA Clippers’ Intuit Dome and the Inland Empire Emergency Operations Centre are designed to meet, and even exceed, respective code requirements). The result? More resilient assets that can remain operational and minimize risk to occupants in the event of future disease outbreaks or natural events.

From the pandemic to last month’s earthquake in Melbourne, recent events have only reinforced the importance of building with resilience in mind. It’s an approach that requires planning, multidisciplinary expertise, integrated design, and a long-term view that, if embraced, will ensure our global cities, including ‘Marvellous Melbourne’, continue to grow and thrive, regardless of what might shake them.

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The first question I ask is why? What is the desired outcome? Is the intention to reduce vehicular congestions in the city, reduce pollution, improve public amenity, or all of the above? Rebalancing the city is a phrase that has recently been used.

In Melbourne the CBD grid was first laid out in the 1830s. Melbourne has been fortunate to have such a clear and robust structure, which has endured. We could say Robert Hoddle was extremely far-sighted (even if my understanding is that the width of Melbourne’s principle streets was actually defined by the width required to accommodate large bullock carts that could continue straight through the city and not hold up other horse drawn traffic from making right turns).

In any event, Melbourne has a structure that was established 185 years ago, and while it serves the city well and has managed to accommodate changes in mobility and population (both resident and worker) over the years, does the current configuration reflect the needs of contemporary Melbourne?

We have become better at understanding the finer grain elements of how the city functions, and the importance these finer elements have on the successful operation of the city. It is not just about vehicle movement (or bullock carts), the road, or the public realm. It is about accommodating the needs and demands of a range of users. It is about public transport modes, pedestrians, cyclist, utilities, businesses, residents and, importantly, the need to further evolve the public realm in mitigating and managing the impacts of climate change within the city, a concept perhaps better understood as enhancing the city’s resilience.

All these elements have a spatial requirement. The challenge is understanding these demands – some of which can be at conflict with each other – and allocating space within the fixed parameters of the public realm or street.

Melbourne has been proactive with this issue and we have seen an evolution in terms of the way the streets are designed and used. If we look back, some of the bold moves in addressing the balance have been the introduction of Melbourne’s tram system, the creation of the Bourke Street Mall, and the exclusion of cars from Swanston Street.

Swanston Street is the most recent example, but it has taken the best part of 20 years – and various iterations – to become the successful street it is today. Across the city, we are continually seeing the recalibration of the CBD’s streets with the development of the tram super stops, expansion of footpaths, and increase in trees, but is it time again for a bolder move?

While there has been recent discussion around restoring William’s Creek along Elizabeth Street, I think the next move should be to address East-West access across the CBD. Do we expand the Bourke Street Mall up to Parliament, but remove the asphalt and replace it with an urban forest to address urban heat islands and improve stormwater management? Do we further restrict vehicles and prioritise cycling along Collins Street?

The wholesale exclusion of cars from the CBD would not result in a successful outcome; what is needed is a clear strategy. If cars are removed what do the streets become? There is a range of issues that need to be addressed in relation to how the city currently functions. We would need, for example, to agree on how to service our retail, restaurants, commercial and residential in getting goods in, and waste out.

Further, how do we address emergency services? How do we ensure our public transport system can support a dramatic increase in patronage? How do we mitigate increased vehicular traffic on the wider road network? Importantly, how do we ensure our productivity and competitiveness is not impacted?

There are solutions to all these challenges, but it takes a clear vision and strong leadership to deliver change. Many cities have introduced initiatives such as car-free days, congestion charging, or restrictions of the entry of cars with odd- or even-number plate numbers, or incentives for zero-emission cars. But these initiatives have only been successful when implemented as part of a bigger strategy.

In Mexico City, for example, the restrictions on odd- or even-number plates resulted in people either buying another car or an additional set of number plates. In London, meanwhile, the CBD’s congestion charge has been expanded, and a large part of the program’s success is that the revenue raised from the charge is reinvested in the public transport system and cycling network.

I clearly recall the day when Swanton’s Street was covered in grass. While no one expected it to stay as grass, it did demonstrate that we could envisage the street as something more than just a road for cars.

Adam Williams (adam.williams@archtam.com) is director, Global Sports leader, Asia Pacific, ArchTam. Based in Melbourne, Adam is currently leading ArchTam’s work on the Rio 2016 Olympic Master Plan and venues, and previously lead ArchTam’s work on the London 2012 Olympic legacy masterplan.

He recently joined industry experts in a live online forum discussing the potential removal of cars from Melbourne’s CBD, which accompanied a story in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper.

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Timber structures are undergoing a renaissance worldwide and look poised to make an impact in Australia. Recently completed buildings like Forte in Melbourne – the tallest timber apartment building the world – and the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology in New Zealand are showcasing new technologies and the way forward for large-scale construction in timber in Australia.

‘Engineered timber’ is a term which broadly describes the group of products manufactured by taking raw timber logs, splitting them into smaller component parts and then gluing them back together. This has the effect of reducing the effects of natural timber variability and ensures that we, as engineers, can rely on greater strength, better performance and more accuracy than we’ve traditionally been able to, allowing us to build higher, farther and longer than ever before. Products like Glulam and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) have been used in Australia in small quantities for a number of years but, increasingly, new computer technology is allowing these materials to be produced and shaped into more complex arrangements and manufactured more efficiently. Cross-laminated timber (CLT), meanwhile, is the ‘new kid on the block’ and looks set to make waves in the Australian construction industry, particularly in medium-rise multi-residential construction, with the 2012 construction of Lend Lease’s 9-storey CLT apartment building in Melbourne one example.

Construction using CLT has been common in central Europe since the 1990s, where floors, walls and beams are all cut to shape in factories and simply screwed together on site like a giant piece of flat pack furniture. The use of this type of timber has increased in volume by over 600 percent in Europe in the last decade, going from being a niche building material to a standard form of construction, familiar to most builders and designers.

So what’s driving demand?

Timber is the world’s oldest and only truly renewable structural resource. With the amount of carbon sequestered in a typical timber structure, we can offset the amount generated in decades of service, and some organisations are already starting to make great use of timber to drive these efficiencies. Marks and Spencer (M&S), for example, has become the world’s first carbon neutral major retailer, and has created a signature timber roof on its flagship Cheshire Oaks store in the UK, in what is one of the largest sustainable retail stores in the world. ArchTam’s structural specialists worked closely with M&S to ensure the roof gave a strong visual statement of the building’s green credentials. Its manufacture used only a fifth of the energy used for a comparable steel structure while also reducing energy levels due to increased natural light.

But it’s not just the environmental benefits of wood that are leading to an increased use of timber; contractors around the world are taking advantage of some other key advantages. Computer-controlled off-site manufacture coupled with simple on-site connection details means buildings can be constructed in a far shorter timescale. In Europe this has led to a lot of timber construction in schools as the major structural works can be completed during holidays, leading to safer and less disruptive builds.

Programme savings are also often achievable on timber structures. Apartment buildings are typically able to achieve around 30 percent time savings over the duration of the project, not just because the timber can be erected faster, but also because following trades can commence work on site much earlier.

Changing perceptions

In Australia, timber is the most common material used to build residential houses, and as such, the current perception is that it’s only appropriate for design in this sector. However, the use of engineered timber for larger-scale construction has more in common with precast concrete or steel frame construction. There are also concerns around fire safety on large scale timber buildings, with a perception that they’re at more risk of burning down. In reality, however, the use of thick timber sections actually has far more inherent fire resistance than an equivalent steel structure.

Another issue is that some of the timber products are not manufactured in Australia and have to be imported. While this is unlikely to be an issue on most projects, it must be managed as part of the procurement process. Such a heavily pre-fabricated system requires more design work before construction starts, although this is typically balanced by much less coordination being required ‘on-the-fly’ during construction.

Unlocking wider opportunities

The use of timber will unlock opportunities for development on Australian sites previously considered to be uneconomical due to the implications of building with heavier materials. Furthermore, its use becomes more viable to extend on top of existing buildings, allows construction on lower quality soils and enables more development flexibility when planning the construction of buildings over rail corridors.

The future of large-scale timber structures in Australia looks bright, with huge potential for timber construction to become a more familiar part of our built environment, enabling our cities to be built in a more sustainable way. Although part of this shift will be led by increased regulation around building efficiencies, an industry comprising engineers, architects, builders and developers has an important part to play to drive sustainable agendas and promote aspirational change.

Nick Hewson (nick.hewson@archtam.com) is a senior structural engineer in Melbourne.

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Times certainly have changed, not just in terms of what students are learning and eating, but the environments where they’re learning. Increasingly, the design of schools isn’t going out, but up, as the concept of multi-storey schools gains popularity.

This year’s Victorian State budget confirmed investment for the planning and site preparation of a new vertical primary school in South Melbourne, a first for Australia and likely to set a precedent for the design of both new and existing schools in our cities.

Vertical schools are already being successfully designed and delivered elsewhere in the world, including the Hampden Gurney primary school in London. Davis Langdon, an ArchTam company, provided project and cost management services to enable this school to be constructed over 6 levels on a space-restricted site. Incorporating a playground on the roof with play decks on intermediate floors, schools like this are set to inform the design process for similar schools in Australia.

So what’s driving the growth of these schools as opposed to more conventionally designed ones? Space, or the lack of it, is the most obvious reason. Population growth is seeing young families settle in high-density areas, attracted by associated lifestyle benefits that also make the ‘traditional’ school design model harder to achieve. There’s simply not sufficient space to either build new schools or expand onto existing school buildings.

Schools are thus required to use their spaces more efficiently while maintaining a creative and accessible learning environment. Often, existing buildings in city locations where schools would not traditionally have been found can be adapted. This has happened in New York, where a former public library warehouse is being turned into an expanded Beacon High School. Where such conversions aren’t possible, however, alternative expansionist solutions are being sought.

The health benefits associated with vertical schools are also driving their popularity. Being more efficient with space in inner-city areas enables schools to retain their premium locations and be located in close proximity to students’ homes, encouraging more to walk to school and increase daily exercise while reducing congestion on surrounding roads.

For all the benefits, however, there are important factors to be considered when designing such vertical schools to ensure optimum learning experiences for students.

Impact on recreation

The benefits of vertical school cannot be at the expense of student learning and recreation. A lack of outdoor space on the upper levels of a vertical school may require teachers to adapt their style of learning, which may be restricted to indoor areas. A major consideration during design would be to review how outdoor areas are incorporated into upper levels to accommodate student recreation and sporting activities, or how open spaces on adjacent sites could be used. Careful planning would also be required to avoid overcrowding during student recreation times in these areas.

Movement of students

Swift movement and circulation of students throughout each of the floors is key to managing class timetables. A heavy reliance on lifts to upper floors requires maintenance to be minimised so as to avoid delays in getting to class. A solution, though, could be to zone different year groups into blocks connected by stairs, thus requiring lift/escalator access by these groups at the beginning and end of the day only. This would also promote activeness and wellbeing by encouraging walking up stairs. Staggering class start times could also be considered to avoid congestion in the lift foyers and stairwells.

Health and safety

Fire evacuation and safety is paramount to the design of any school, but in the case of vertical schools, it takes on additional importance. Basing students in lower storeys, for example, would result in less risk for younger age groups and ensure evacuation procedures are carried out with minimal delay. Road traffic and safety also need to be considered if fire assembly points are located outside of the school premises.

The UN Habitat predicts that by 2050 more than 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. This growing urban densification and the vertical cities it creates mean vertical schools will become more common.

Building ‘up’ as opposed to ‘out’ requires a shift in perception in how we should adapt the design of public facilities; we need to consider how we can better plan for public services such as education. The days of the ‘old school yard’ are changing, but we need to remember that, as learning environments evolve and rise, so too will expectations for quality learning outcomes.

Nick Ockleshaw (nick.ockleshaw@archtam.com) is an associate in project management at Davis Langdon, an ArchTam company.

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics forecasts that the populations of Sydney and Melbourne will grow to 7.8 million each by 2052, a respective increase of 66 percent and 86 percent over a 40 year period.

Such rapid growth prompts some obvious questions, the answers to which are less obvious:

Where and how will all these people live?

Where will they work and what will their jobs be?

An increasing challenge for local government is how to balance policy objectives of a diverse employment market with increasing demand for residential development. As our cities become more connected through transport, planning, and urban renewal decisions and outcomes, it’s a balancing act that’s proving difficult.

The employment and residential nexus

Over the last decade, rising housing demand has seen a significant increase in high-rise apartment developments in Australian cities, resulting in debates regarding overshadowing and the visual impacts and merits of urban densification. In some Melbourne suburbs, for example, the proposed application of new planning regulations could limit higher residential densities in certain areas.

Meanwhile, there’s been a continued shift in employment focus across Australian cities. Melbourne’s manufacturing sector continues to decline, while the much-touted transition to a more “knowledge-based economy” – namely increased opportunities in the health and business services sectors – shows early promise but will take time to translate into major points on the economic scoreboard.

The challenge for inner-city local governments is how to support the growth of these emerging sectors while maintaining and supporting light industry, small business, and retail, all desirable and essential parts of healthy, functional and connected cities.

The problem is that increased demand for residential development has already substantially impacted these activities, forcing them farther out of the city.

The term ‘mixed-use’ is often promoted as a way to address these challenges, but the uncomfortable truth is that few developments successfully achieve their primary objective, resulting in a ‘mixed bag’ of outcomes. Further, the rental expectations for these premises can also be significantly higher when compared to the spaces they have replaced. What tends to be delivered is a residential development with retail or small office provision at the ground floor, an approach that often results in a disconnect with the actual local demand for such spaces. They often lack the physical features that allow them to be attractive work places, and prove difficult to adapt to other uses without creating conflict for the residential portion.

Global lessons learnt

The Greater London Authority’s (GLA) policy objective to deliver mixed-use developments holds lessons for us here in Australia. Its inclusion of active frontages and employment spaces has resulted in ground floor retail space of predominantly residential buildings often being boarded up and unoccupied, creating an unwelcoming and unpleasant urban environment in many middle-ring suburbs.

We can’t allow such outcomes to eventuate here in Australia. Encouragingly, however, a number of approaches can be adopted to address this emerging employment and residential nexus.

Smarter design is a crucial factor at both the precinct and building level. There is often the tendency to deliver a standard product that limits diversity and fails to provide for multiple users. Good mixed-use developments can introduce a level of complexity that not only delivers visual interest, but provides additional market opportunities.

Cross-subsidies between uses and inclusionary zoning mechanisms meanwhile present an interesting layer into the process, but they need to be calibrated at detailed scale and applied to specific areas to be both commercially and socially successful. Such an approach has been used in the planning and development of Hackney Wick in London. While still in its early stages, Hackney Wick has had robust technical support and strong leadership from the GLA, and may present a way forward in providing homes and jobs for a growing population.

Local government must inform and test its structure planning process, and it should be supported in these efforts by an analysis of the market to understand not just existing and future demand, but to recognise the requirements for the job sectors it wishes to support.

This will ensure that local government is able to clearly articulate its ambition and guide development in a way that utilises market forces to deliver short and long-term benefits for our cities and their communities.

If tomorrow’s Sydney and Melbourne are to reach their potential – if “home is where the jobs are” – we need to get cracking; the people – millions of them – are coming, and they’re going to want somewhere to live and somewhere to work.

Adam Williams (adam.williams@archtam.com) leads ArchTam’s Design, Planning and Economics practice in Victoria.

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The world’s cities are already home to the majority of the global population, with this forecast to grow by a further 3 billion people by 2050. The infrastructure needed to support this growth is often underfunded or falls short of what it could deliver to urban communities.

Cities have long planned and developed strategies to provide infrastructure investment, but as successive governments have discovered, there is never enough room in public budgets for all necessary projects.

Del Mar Station, Pasadena.

Many treasury departments have introduced processes to better manage public spending and project budgets as they are being conceived, developed and readied for construction. While more effective use of taxpayers’ money is commendable, the focus on budgets has often made it harder for governments to justify infrastructure investment which will enhance local livability, particularly where a project has little or no immediate or obvious economic return.

In Melbourne, with a population of over 4 million, a heritage of building resilient infrastructure over the decades has delivered world-class livability. Important thoroughfares, drainage works and railway projects of the past have delivered iconic boulevards, significant parks and city landmarks which have not only fulfilled their functional brief but also contributed to Melbourne’s amenity and reputation. However, times have changed and the scrutiny to which projects are subjected has tended to hobble the investigation, let alone the execution, of new roads, rails or drains that could also improve amenity over time.

When the focus of a project is narrow and does not consider broader long-term amenity considerations, the outcomes can be suboptimal and, in the long run, expensive.

Octavia Boulevard, San Francisco.

There are many global examples of infrastructure being built only to be completely torn down at great expense when broader negative health, economic and social impacts have done their damage.  This could be avoided with more inclusive and integrated thinking.

The solution is for project proponents to reconfigure the way in which they conceive and design projects. Specifically, designers need to consider community amenity and aesthetics as core parts of a project’s design and functionality. This is likely to require a precinct approach to project planning, rather than considering infrastructure in isolation. In Melbourne the recent spate of railway level crossing removals carried out by the Victorian Government have considered amenity as a central part of their design, resulting in rail lines being sunk with development opportunity created above, rather than previous approaches such as road overpasses, which have undermined community connectedness.

There is great promise in these times of austerity for those of us who dream of greener and more enjoyable cities in which to live and work. Rather than looking at livability as an expensive ‘add-on’ it should be seen as potentially adding value to infrastructure project and avoiding costs in the future.

Zac Cvitkovic is a principal urban designer in ArchTam’s Melbourne office.

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I gave my best friend, Sarah, the book The Power for Christmas. Yesterday she emailed me saying that “if it only does one thing – to make me grateful with my lot – then that’s enough for me.”

If you’ve read The Power, you know it says that “like attracts like” and that “what you give out you receive back.” Some would say it’s about being grateful, and I agree. It’s why I write in my gratitude diary every night.

Last week was a terrible week for cycling in Australia. Last Sunday, a car collided with a bunch of cyclists in Sydney, and an Adelaide woman died from injuries sustained after a collision with a car.

The next day, video footage was released in which a cyclist in Brisbane was hit from behind by a car. On Tuesday, a Melbourne taxi passenger opened a door in the path of a cyclist.

The list goes on, but I’ll stop the negative stories right here and simply ask, is Australia cycling against the Law of Attraction?

I think both cyclist and car drivers are.

I’ve had it with this car driver vs. cyclist war. The more I see, the less I like. It leaves my head spinning and my heart screaming and it’s undoing all the good work that many of us are doing to encourage riding a bicycle as just one step to help cut the Aussie obesity epidemic. As Jamie Oliver says, Australia is now fourth in the list of the unhealthiest places on planet earth.

Right now Australia has two problems.

Firstly, too much negativity. As The Power says, negativity creates negativity, which creates a vicious cycle of anger and resentment. Take my Facebook friend John. He likes to tell Council exactly what he thinks. But what it really means is that Council is diverted into solving John’s endless dissatisfaction and grievances.

As a nation we’re so angry that we never stop and think about how to solve the actual problems. If we really want things to change – for cyclists and for car drivers – we have to do the slow and difficult work to identify the real problems. Wouldn’t it be great if people like John were part of the solution rather than just shouting about the problems?

Secondly, like it or not, Australia will never be like Copenhagen or Amsterdam. Our land use planning is completely wrong for cycling. The Australian Dream was – and maybe still is – space: a big house, a big backyard, and space for lots of cars. Everyone copied everyone else and so now Australia is full of big houses. Normal is driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for to get to the job you need to pay for the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it. As Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said at my Australian Citizenship ceremony last week, “We need to respect each other and we need to leave the hatred behind.”

Now, he wasn’t talking directly about cycling, but he’s right. Cyclists need to respect car drivers and car drivers need to accept that cycling is a valid mode of transport.

So let’s start cycling towards the Law of Attraction.

• Let’s celebrate the positive achievements, however big or small. As Bicycle Network tweeted last Friday, “Despite this week’s media storm, let’s not forget that Kirsty, a year 12 student, rode to school for the first time.”
• Let’s work on the things that we can influence and control, and ignore the ones we can’t. How about cyclists stop jumping red lights and swearing at car drivers and car drivers stop driving whilst talking on their mobile phones, driving too close, and beeping their horns?
• Let’s be grateful for what we have. Australia has some world-class cycling infrastructure; Brisbane’s Bicentennial Bikeway, and Bourke Street Bikeway in Sydney to name but two. Rottnest Island has the largest cycle hire in the southern hemisphere while my mate Jonathan Giles attracts more than 100 people to his “Cycle Chic” bike rides with just a couple of Facebook posts.

We create our reality with our thoughts. Australia may never be a cycling utopia, but different road users can respect each other, and we can leave the hatred behind. And if we all only do one thing, let’s cycle towards the Law of Attraction, not against it. Like my friend Sarah says, “we can start with being grateful with our lot.”

Rachel Smith (rachel.smith@archtam.com) is an internationally-recognized urban planner and commentator, and principal transport planner with ArchTam’s Brisbane office. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter, or follow her blog here.

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