Visualise if you may, the image of thousands of anguished cloned Peter Finches screaming 'I've had enough and I'm not going to take it anymore,' sitting in another privately funded freeway car park, contented in the knowledge that in a mere 90 minutes they'll be home from their part time employment to their new, fairly high cost home nestled in an outlaying hamlet. After diverting to pick up Johnny from the creche in the next suburb, the two weary travellers arrive home. In they walk, the baby is crying, there's no milk, the car won't start, the shop is 3 km away, they would walk the baby to the shop to settle it but there are no footpaths and the lack of good lighting makes the trip unsafe. They are car dependent yet they cannot afford the servicing to keep it reliable and the hours of commuting exacerbate the problem.

This is something as urban designers we can say we don't want. Yet a combination of public sector reforms leading to rationalisation of services, and an often two dimensional approach to urban planning is resulting in places that each of us know like this.

I will not spend the time talking about details; fundamentals of orientation, privacy, identity, private space, streetscape access etc, because hopefully these have now been accepted as fundamental guidelines for urban design. Instead today I thought it might be worth reviewing some overseas and local projects and some strategies they offer for integrated design.

In late 1995, I spent two months in Europe examining models for urban development. I was particularly interested in examining integrated models for urban development, notably those that overlaid design of economic and social systems with the design and planning of built form development in the realisation of cities.

In Paris, the approach has been to simultaneously promote a strategy of urban repair aimed at reinvigorating the city and better utilising and enhancing existing potentials and infrastructure therein, with the De Gaulle instigated satellite city developments within the perimeter green belt. The combined strategies have to a significant degree successfully preserved the character, vitality and integrity of the historic capital and controlled urban sprawl, whilst simultaneously preserving rural belts and encouraging in the satellite towns an integration of workplace, education (both undergraduate and vocational), services and diverse residential accommodation options, through the bringing together of the workplace and lower cost housing opportunities in cities such as St Quentin, Cergy-Pontoise and Marne Le Valle. Cities that although imperfect in their realisation, employ up to 65% of their residential population within their city environs.

Since the 1970s there has been in Paris a strategy aimed at the restoration of the traditional urban housing model of the street edge facade and block with inner courtyard. Behind this development has been a strategy aimed at the repair of the urban fabric, predominantly where it has been scarred by 19th century industrial intervention and subsequent obsolescence. The aim being to return a visual coherence to the built form of the city.

This push has been supported by a number of public organisations who have been prepared to commit both money and resources to this strategy. Key amongst these groups have been the Municipality of Paris (Ville de Paris) and the Ministry for Post (Ministre des Postes).

In 1983 the Ville de Paris authorised the Programme de l' Est, a programme aimed at reinvigorating the industrial wastelands of the East of Paris. The mechanism used to implement the redevelopment is known as ZAC, (Zone d'Amenagement Concertee), which in essence is a defined mixed public and private sector that provides an operational framework in which the construction of public buildings and infrastructure can be integrated with mixed public and private sector housing and commercial development.

Not unlike parts of Melbourne, the availability of large tracts of land resulting from the obsolescent and / or relocation of industrial and transportation activities from the north eastern quarter of Paris has made possible the transformation of entire district of the city.

Over the past 10 years a number of these urban renewal areas have been developed including ZAC Bercy, Reuillly (on the site of the old railway shunting yard) Seine River Gauche (Left Bank) and the Chevaleret Jeanne-d'Arc projects. In total these represent a redevelopment of over 130 hectares in the city.
The development of urban design strategies for each of these precincts, have germinated via short invited competitions. In each case the resultant contemporary architectural solutions incorporate complex, well resolved programmes, and include major public sector commitments to cultural, education, community service and transportation infrastructure and public and private open space. Housing options include workshop / studio residential combinations, conventional studio, one, two, three and four bedroom apartments, shop top housing, and warehouse style conversions of old industrial and commercial buildings. At the micro and macro level they provide an urban coherence and complexity often lacking in the peripheral new town developments of Paris and our own suburban models.

They have succeeded because they have been realised as a result of coordinated strategies that integrate social, economic, transportation, planning, and urban form modelling. In this process, a new role has been clearly defined for architects in the design management of these precincts to ensure a coherent integration of the individual projects into the overall development strategy.

Social planning, aimed at the avoidance of social ghettos is also evident. New social housing has been capped at at a level of 30% within any new quarter, whilst a minimum of 900 houses in each stage has been determined to be the minimum level required to sustain a sense of community and support basic levels of retailing, health and education infrastructure.

Economic and employment strategies are also evident.. State and Local government have made significant initial investments in core infrastructure, and to proactive regulatory support for targeted private sector investments within a coordinated state wide urban and economic development framework.

The development of these projects has also been assisted by a number of integrated state and regional initiatives. In 1990 the Minister des Postes launched a programme for 1500 dwellings, the aim of which was to make better use of the sites at its disposal. A major concern about its image led the institution to commission a group of young architects to develop various projects ,generally consisting of a post office and dwellings, the aim most often to repair gaps in streetscapes.

Each of the ZAC redevelopments has been characterised by important public infrastructure initiatives developed at the projects inception and providing the impetus and confidence for the private sector to invest.

In ZAC Bercy for example, the state has financed the development of a major park, sports stadium and schools.

ZAC chavaleret adopts similar strategies together with additional employment initiatives including privately funded, low rental workshop / office accommodation for service and construction industry small business, and headquarters for the Department of Taxation.

The centrepiece for the Rive Gauche development is the development of the new State Library, a pedestrian link to the Zac Barcy park lands on the right bank, the development of new metro and RER stations, the redevelopment of the Austerlitz railway station, the development of new creche, primary and secondary school facilities, and the creation of a commercial district that enables commerce to develop at plot ratios of 5:1 in lieu of the 1:1 that exists elsewhere in central Paris. Of these initiatives, remarkably all but the Austerlitz redevelopment and the commercial precinct will be in place prior to the first project of 900 houses being complete, in a project that has a 15 year completion timetable.

The mix of housing initiatives combining tax incentives and imposts, rental subsides and the integration of housing policy with employment and infrastructure initiatives have provided the cornerstones for significant urban renewal and satellite city development. They sit within a structure of regional housing policies that encourage a range of housing choice and employment opportunities.

New town developments adopt many of the same lessons as the Capital, but having started some 20 years earlier are more flawed, revealing more, apparently, when social mix, built form, and planning mixes have missed the mark. Nevertheless the success of the economic, employment and affordable housing strategies are laudable, and the small group of slides shown here of Gergy and St Quentin reveal the progress being made in recent initiatives.

The strategies employed by the French for procurement, together with the richness of the programmes, and the Statežs commitment to the design quality of the urban environments, to the provision of infrastructure and to the coordination of an overall housing and urban renewal strategy plan, is a timely example, at a time when the future form of Australia's cities are being redefined.

In the last few years, new housing trends in Victoria, for example, have seen a significant statistical increase in multi unit housing, particularly in inner city areas relative to the middle rings and outer areas. The trend towards the inner city and multi unit housing as a viable new housing market is put down to a number of factors including; the ageing of the population, relative affordability of higher density alternatives, changing family structures, a desire to be closer to facilities and entertainment and the increase in single person households. Many of these preferences have been well catered for by existing housing stock hence the development of recent alternatives.

Our recent work has sought to incorporate some of the lessons that we believe enhance the quality of occupancy and development. An example is the MacRobertsons factory redevelopment. In this case the obsolescence of a largely vacant 19th century chocolate factory spread over an entire inter-city Fitzroy block has been reborn as a mixed use residential and small business precinct incorporating a significant new landscaped piazza and pedestrian street with symbolic references to its historic past notably the Robertson tartan pavements, weeping cherries and preserved buildings. To this urban structure we overlaid a diverse range of housing options catering to home businesses, singles,couples and families. Whilst some dwellings were offered as empty shells, others were fitted out. Some more lavishly than others. Strong sales were achieved, predominately based on word of mouth rather than via expensive market campaigns.

The finished project provides home/business accommodation for landscape architects, photographers, artists, fashion designers, management consultants and accountants, together with housing for many retirees, a resident Aikido School, a religious book publisher, and provides a significant new open space in the middle of diversely populated Fitzroy with the disused basements providing valuable off street parking for all residents.

At Jackson's hill, a project just commencing west of Melbourne, we have worked with Collie planning and the Urban Land Authority to realise a new vision for a University Town. Though in the infancy of its new life, the buildings and landscaping that formed the infamous Calloola training centre are now a campus for the Victoria University and a primary school, and provide the urban focus, critical mass and employment impetus needed for successful development.

To this the consultant design team has overlayed an urban design model that seeks to preserve and better enhance the character and qualities of the place, and develop precincts around localised elements of built natural and historical significance, a diverse mix of affordable land and housing options.

As designers our objective in each case is to enrich the experiences of places, to engender them with character informed by the context and history of a place, to respond to the social, economic and residential accommodation needs of the community, and to create at a micro level a built environment that provides flexibility and opportunities. Opportunity's for employment. The enhancement of connections and relationships between uses, built form, users, and the environment that may in term improve and enrich a place.

And finally, to ensure the optimal realisation of the topographical, architectural, urban design and environmental opportunities that exist uniquely in each project. These might all be livability indicators but I would like to be more positive and describe them as vital elements in the realisation of places that provide the opportunity for work, homes, learning and discovery, social interaction, recreation and care, in safe and visually coherent and rich urban environment informed by its context, its climate, its history and its aspirations.

Perhaps idealistic visions, but nevertheless the dreams without which our forefathers would not have realised what we so admire now. Moreover, desperately needed if we are not to disappoint the reasonable expectations of future generations.

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