Future park : imagining tomorrow's urban parks

361 Pages·2013·67.864 MB·English

by  Amalie Wright, CSIRO (Australia)

Future Park invites Australian policy-makers and built environment
professionals to consider the future of parks in our cities. It describes the
economic, social and environmental benefits of urban parks, and then
outlines the threats and challenges facing cities and communities in an age
when more than half the world’s population are urban dwellers. This book
introduces the need to embrace new public park thinking to ensure that
benefits continue to be realised.
The first public parks were created on urban ‘greenfields’. Once these
designated sites had been used, cities looked towards post-industrial sites,
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and built parks in places that had suffered from environmental degradation,
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neglect, abandonment and conflict. With finite stocks of urban post- g
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industrial land now also approaching exhaustion, more ways of making n
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parks are required to create inclusive, accessible and resilient urban places.
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Future Park presents recent proposals and projects that coalesce around T
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four broad themes – linkages, obsolescences, co-locations and installations – m
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responding to contemporary urban paradoxes, and ensuring parks continue r
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to play a vital role in the lives of our cities. o
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About the author b
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Amalie Wright is a landscape architect, urban designer and architect with 16 years’ n

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experience creating meaningful places for people. Her work has included award-
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winning residential, urban design, infrastructure and public realm projects. In 2012 k
s Imagining Tomorrow’s
Amalie established her own design studio, Landscapology, which helps passionate
and curious people create beautiful, memorable legacy landscapes. Urban Parks

www.landscapology.com.au
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Amalie Wright
BCB.indd 2 16/07/13 10:32 AM
20mm spine
Imagining Tomorrow’s
Urban Parks

Amalie Wright
© Amalie Wright 2013
All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Australian
Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, duplicating or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Contact CSIRO
PUBLISHING for all permission requests.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Wright, Amalie, author.
Future park : imagining tomorrow’s urban parks / by Amalie Wright.
9780643100336 (paperback)
9780643106611 (epdf)
9780643106628 (epub)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Urban parks – Economic aspects – Australia.
Urban parks – Environmental aspects – Australia.
Urban parks – Social aspects – Australia.
333.7830994
Published by
CSIRO PUBLISHING
150 Oxford Street (PO Box 1139)
Collingwood VIC 3066
Australia
Telephone: [phone]
Local call: 1300 788 000 (Australia only)
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.publish.csiro.au
Front cover photography: Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord Amalie Wright.
Photography throughout: Amalie Wright unless credited.
Set in Clarendon LT and Corona Lt Std.
Edited by Anne Findlay
Cover and text design by Nicole Arnett Phillips
Typeset by Nicole Arnett Phillips
Printed in China by 1010 Printing International Ltd
CSIRO PUBLISHING publishes and distributes scientific, technical and health
science books, magazines and journals from Australia to a worldwide audience
and conducts these activities autonomously from the research activities of
the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily represent those of, and should not be attributed to, the publisher or
CSIRO. The copyright owner shall not be liable for technical or other errors or
omissions contained herein. The reader/user accepts all risks and responsibility
for losses, damages, costs and other consequences resulting directly or
indirectly from using this information.
Original print edition:
The paper this book is printed on is
in accordance with the rules of the
Forest Stewardship Council®.
The FSC® promotes environmentally
responsible, socially beneficial and
economically viable management of
the world’s forests.
Contents
Introduction p.1
01 . Linkages p.31
02 . Obsolescences p.113
03 . Co-locations p.169
04 . Installations p.255
Where to from here? p.311
Endnotes p.323

Appendix p.339
Project distribution p.340
Index p.343
Places p.348
Projects p.350
People p.352
Acknowledgements
This book has been a long journey, and I acknowledge with deep
gratitude those who have travelled the road with me.
Firstly I thank Rosemarie Kennedy and the Centre for Subtropical
Design in Brisbane, Australia. In 2007 I was the lucky recipient
of a travel scholarship awarded by the CSD, which enabled me to
visit the first of many parks in Colombia and the United States that
feature in these pages.
Thanks also go to Ted Hamilton at CSIRO Publishing. Ted heard
me interviewed about my scholarship travels and kindly offered the
opportunity to develop a book. Ted later passed the baton to Tracey
Millen and her team, who guided the book through to publication.
I am deeply humbled and grateful for the amazing generosity of
design firms, local authorities, photographers, both professional and
amateur, and other wonderful individuals all around the world, who
have granted permission to use their photographs to illustrate the
parkland projects.
To my family and friends who have lived this project for more years
than should surely be reasonable, I thank you for your endless
encouragement despite well concealed scepticism that it would ever
be completed.
Thank-you Nicole Arnett Phillips, for creating such a wonderful
house for my words to inhabit. The ‘k’ is indeed a delight.
Lastly to Richard – backstop, sounding board, site visit accompanist
and head cheerleader – thank-you. Your support makes everything
seem like a walk in the park.
The Author
Amalie Wright is an award-winning landscape
architect and architect, passionate about achieving
positive change through great design.
She is the director of Landscapology, a design
studio established to help passionate and curious
people create beautiful, contemporary and sculptural
landscapes that are responsible and resilient. She has
over 16 years’ prior experience in multidisciplinary
practices, working on significant public realm projects
in Australia and abroad.
In 2007 Amalie won the mecu travel bursary awarded
by Queensland’s Centre for Subtropical Design. She
travelled to Colombia and the United States studying
the changing role of city parks, and parks as agents
of social change. These investigations formed the
starting point for this book, and for an ongoing
fascination with the way cities and communities
imagine, use and value their parks and people places
– the places where everyday life happens.
www.landscapology.com.au
Amalie in the Landscapology design
studio (Michael Clarkson)

For my parents, Marilyn Ann Charlesworth and Keith Samuel Wright.
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Introduction