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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 …

Nathalie Ward, director of Brisbane’s Lat27, shares with StreetChat her love of the craft, working locally and abroad, and creating a new home for the Ekka. Tell us about yourself. Why did you pursue landscape architecture? Four colleagues and I established Lat27 five years ago, looking to create a practice focused on contextually based design; hence our name. Over the past 20-plus years I have lived and worked in the UK, Hong Kong and Australia and am passionate about the role that design can play in revealing the story of a place and in creating places that are environmentally responsible and inspire people. Landscape architecture is deeply ingrained in my family. My great-grandfather and grandfather were both garden designers and artists, my father was a landscape architect, as is my brother. My earliest memories include nature walks …