Working with designers, developers and locals to create a site-responsive housing strategy for Ashfield

Project: Place Value Ashfield

Situation:
There is an urgent need for cooperation and coordination between urban actors to imagine and deliver alternatives for infill housing. Coordination, collective action and engagement processes that welcome people in as contributors, rather than just commentators, are critical.

Place Value Ashfield is a research project that explores the potentials of a coordinated approach to infill housing in the Perth suburb of Ashfield. Over 12 months, six multi-disciplinary design teams were led by the landscape coordination team (To & Fro Studio with Daniel Jan Martin), in an exploration of the ways that this problem could be addressed through a landscape-led approach.

Results:
Place Value asks multidisciplinary design teams to consider infill housing as part of the broader site context in Ashfield, with each team allocated one of six dispersed groups of sites (each group consisting of multiple lots) across the suburb. Schemes were guided by an overarching landscape framework designed by the landscape coordination team, with an aim to demonstrate how housing regeneration can respond to existing values of place and landscape.

A three-stage process, facilitated by the landscape coordination team, enabled multiple levels of collaboration, communication and knowledge sharing to take place. This coordinated approach allowed for a two-way flow of key information between community, stakeholders and the six multidisciplinary design teams, as well as for the communication of information about the unique site characteristics of Ashfield.

Through its exploration of how housing density can be designed in a way that responds to site and community desires, this project offers an alternative approach to Perth’s development status quo.

Scope:
Research - Community and stakeholder engagement - Landscape architecture - Facilitation - Brand identity - Website design

Awards:
2021 Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) WA Award of Excellence for Research, Policy and Communication

Research project undertaken through:
University of Western Australia, Future West

Collaborators:
Landscape coordination team: Daniel Jan Martin, Rosie Halsmith and Loren Holmes; state government representatives: the Department of Planning Lands and Heritage (DPLH) and the Department of Communities; local government representatives: the Town of Bassendean; industry representatives: the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA); community interest groups: the Design Basso Advisory Committee and Ashfield Community Action Network (AshfieldCAN); design teams: Team A - Rene van Meeuwen, Craig McCormack and Liam Mouritz with Nic Osboine from Op Properties; Team B - Fernando Jerez, Belen Perez de Juan, Joshua Cobb-Diamond and Stephen Thick with Tao Bourton from Yolk Property Group; Team C - Sophie Giles, Amber Martin, Felix Joensson, Yangyan Ou and Samantha Dye with Hootan Golestani from Golestani Development; Team D - Emily van Eyk, Jessica Mountain, Matthew Delroy-Carr, Serena Pangestu and Anika Kalotay with Megan Buckland from LWP, Team E - Geoffrey London and Nigel Bertram with Roscoe Power from Codev; Team F - Simon Anderson, Richard Hassell and James Rietveld with Matthew McNeilly from Sirona Capital.