streetchat

Charlene Bordley (photo: right), the visionary founder of Parramatta Bike Hub, Parramatta Bike Tours and Addventageous, creates programs for ‘hard-to-reach’ groups including First Nations communities, women, seniors and disadvantaged youth. She met with StreetChat writer Kari Hill at the new home of the Parramatta Bike Hub on Wangal country, along the Parramatta River in Sydney Olympic Park. Charlene’s passion for making a difference in the community can be seen across the many social enterprise programs she runs. Wearing her uniform of blue, yellow and green, each colour symbolises a program: Blue for Addventageous, Yellow for Parramatta Bike Tours and Green for the Parramatta Bike Hub. Social enterprise Addventageous started off as a school program when Charlene gained confidence as a returning cyclist later in life. She experienced the benefits of …

A leading voice in placemaking, Kylie Legge is an architecture graduate, planner, place maker, author, facilitator, curator and entrepreneur. She is founding Director of Place Partners, a multidisciplinary placemaking consultancy based in Sydney, Australia and Place Score – the world’s first place experience measurement company. How did you get started and find your unique career pathway? My career has tended to veer off the beaten track. I’ve never been too worried about what other people think and am risk-hungry. I’m also interested in disruption – looking for better ways of doing things. At 23 as an architecture grad I talked my way into an internship at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I lived a double life, working in a dive bar by night and at the most …

Houston’s first botanic garden opened in September 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, offering locals a green escape from the confines of their living spaces into 132 acres of living museum. Some 2.5 miles of walking trails guide visitors along a bayou meander and through six outdoor gallery spaces displaying a collection of tropical, sub-tropical and arid plants from around the world to showcase the biodiversity that thrives along the Texas Gulf Coast. Claudia Gee Vassar, President and General Counsel of the Garden, joined the institution’s long journey towards establishment (18 years from nonprofit formation to opening day) in 2016. She shares her insights with StreetChat about the creation and growth of a very rare thing in 2020: a brand-new botanic garden. 1. What inspires you? I am inspired …

Oi Choong, winner of the 2018 Marion Mahony Griffin Prize for a distinctive body of work by a female architect, looks back on a career that spans the rise of landscape architecture as a profession, and women in the workplace.

An inductee into the Design Hall of Fame and Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, Mark Armstrong was Co-founder and Director of Blue Sky Design Group, the company that designed the Sydney Olympic Torch and Qantas check-in experience. He is now a Practice Professor in Design with Monash University and advises Street Furniture Australia’s design team in an era of great technological change Professor Armstrong provides industrial design expertise to several strategic research projects, utilising user-centered design methods to change outcomes for end-users. When and why did you start Blue Sky Design Group, and what was your vision? Blue Sky is a multidisciplinary design firm based in Sydney. The company was started in the early eighties by myself and partner. When it was founded I was working in Europe with Philips and was …

As Founding Executive Director of the Smart Cities Council Australia New Zealand, Adam Beck has a mission to accelerate sustainability in cities and towns through technology, data and intelligent design. The Council partnered with AILA and the Internet of Things Alliance Australia to demonstrate these ideas in action in Sydney with the Future Street, designed by Place Design Group as part of the 2017 International Festival of Landscape Architecture. Beck is also an Ambassador with Portland-based think tank EcoDistricts, a former lecturer and studio lead in social impact assessment and community engagement at the University of Queensland, and spent 15 years with global consulting firms like Arup. He shares his Future Street findings and vision for next-gen cities in a smarter, more sustainable world. What can we learn from Future Street? Future Street exceeded our …