Place Value Ashfield
Place Value Ashfield explores the potentials of a coordinated and landscape-led approach to future housing in the Perth suburb of Ashfield.
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.
Over 12 months, six multi-disciplinary design teams were led by the landscape coordination team (Daniel Jan Martin with To & Fro Studio), in an exploration of the ways that this problem could be addressed through a landscape-led approach.
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.
Visit the Place Value Ashfield website
Role
Project coordinator with To & Fro Studio
Client
Future West (Australian Urbanism)
Awards
Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) State Award of Excellence and National Landscape Architecture Award for Research, Policy and Communication, 2021
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: Rene van Meeuwen, Craig McCormack, Liam Mouritz and Nic Osboine (A); Fernando Jerez, Belen Perez de Juan, Joshua Cobb-Diamond, Stephen Thick and Tao Bourton (B); Sophie Giles, Amber Martin, Felix Joensson, Yangyan Ou, Samantha Dye and Hootan Golestani (C); Emily van Eyk, Jessica Mountain, Matthew Delroy-Carr, Serena Pangestu, Anika Kalotay and Megan Buckland (D); Geoffrey London, Nigel Bertram and Roscoe Power (E); Simon Anderson, Richard Hassell, James Rietveld and Matthew McNeilly (F)
Housing; Urban strategy; Landscape architecture; Architecture; Briefing; Facilitation
