Ten principles for designing play spaces for neurodiverse children The growing body of research around inclusive design has deepened our understanding of this important area, paving the way for projects like Hassell’s new Mildred Creak Playground. Before the revitalisation of Edward Millen Park on Whadjuk Country in Perth, Western Australia, Hassell’s Senior Associate, Hannah Galloway and her team at Hassell met with teachers at Carson Street School and the Autism Association of Western Australia. They created ten key principles for designing play spaces for all children. Galloway said their goal was to design a unique space for all children to enjoy, regardless of their neurodiverse traits. “By incorporating sensory elements, promoting social interaction and providing spaces for regrouping and control, we can create environments where every child can thrive.” Hassell’s ten …
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Building a professional culture: A decade of AILA Festivals In 2024 Street Furniture Australia celebrates 10 years of partnership with AILA Australia-wide. Through this partnership we have sought to enrich the landscape architecture profession, engaging in research collaborations, co-hosting events and supporting the AILA festival. While AILA takes a pause to redevelop their festival format, Jillian Walliss and Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard reflect on a decade of AILA Festivals, considering their contribution to professional growth and community building among Australian landscape architecture professionals. Read the article in Landscape Australia. Five Emerging Placemaking Trends International Placemaking Week, hosted by Project for Public Space in Baltimore, Maryland, USA will be held for the 4th year in June. The proposals submitted for the event have provided good insight into emerging placemaking trends in the …
Guerilla urbanism “asking forgiveness, not permission” A grassroots movement known as ‘guerilla urbanism’ is emerging in the US, where community groups bypass bureaucracy with innovative improvements to the urban spaces they care about. Their mantra is ‘ask forgiveness, not permission.’ The guerilla urbanism movement was the focus of a recent webinar hosted by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) – ‘On the Park Bench: Guerilla Urbanism.’ Robert Steuteville from the CNU writes, “From toilet plungers for bike lanes to community gardens on vacant lots to locally sourced incremental development, citizens are finding creative ways to make urban space.” During the webinar, small developer, Jason Hyman talks about a not for profit organisation in Houston D3tM, or Do the Things That Matter, guerilla urbanism that ‘disrupts’ existing systems to create …
How a Colombian city cooled dramatically in three years Focusing on plants and people, Peter Yeung writes about how Medellín, known as the City of Eternal Spring with its year-round high temperatures, has created a people-led scheme of ‘green corridors’ to keep cool on the website ‘Reasons to be Cheerful.’ The project to plant and maintain hundreds of thousands of trees and plants across the city is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners, who come from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, with the support of 15 specialised forest engineers. Yeung said: “The $16.3 million initiative led to the creation of 30 Green Corridors along the city’s roads and waterways, improving or producing more than 70 hectares of green space, which includes 20 kilometres of shaded routes with cycle lanes and pedestrian paths. …
Children living near green spaces ‘have stronger bones’: The link between stronger bones and green space for children is likely to be the result of more physical activities, Damian Carrington writes for The Guardian. Carington says, “Scientists found that children living in places with 20-25% more natural areas had increased bone strength that was equivalent to half a year’s natural growth. The study, the first of its kind, also found that the risk of having very low bone density was about 65% lower for these children.” The study took place in Belgium with Professor Tim Nawrot at Hasselt University. Nawrot said, “So the real public health message from this study is that urban planners can make stronger bones of children, and that has long-lasting consequences.” Carington adds, “The researchers said …
Image: Carroll Go-Sam. Are yarning circles the new decal? With requests for yarning circles becoming increasingly commonplace in design briefs, Carroll Go-Sam, Indigenous research fellow in the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University of Queensland’s School of Architecture, writes on ArchitectureAU how they might be more meaningfully incorporated into projects. In the early stages of a project design, she writes, a yarning circle concept is often supported by Indigenous engagement. “But, after the initial meeting and discussion, human-centred design, iterative development, empathetic accommodation, questioning and dialogue all stop, with the result that poor built examples outnumber good ones,” she said. Go-Sam is concerned when yarning circles become “quasi-sacred zones of exclusion, set aside for one day a year during NAIDOC Week.” She outlines five recommendations for designing a yarning …