Radio Architecture with Ilana Razbash is a weekly plain-language radio show that explores the intersection of architecture, design, and personal history.
Broadcast live-to-air on Radio Carrum, the show features engaging conversations with architects, designers, and creative professionals from diverse backgrounds. Each episode highlights the value of good design and architecture by delving into the guest's personal stories, career journey, and insights into the built environment. Through candid, unscripted discussions, Radio Architecture fosters a deeper appreciation for design while making complex ideas accessible to a broad audience.
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1 | June 07, 2023
Dr Damien Williams on Zero Kingston 2030
Dr. Damien Wiliams is a prize winning historian, writer, producer and community organiser. Dr Williams was educated at the University of Melbourne and graduated with a PhD in history in 2010.
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Dr Damien Williams on Zero Kingston 2030
[00:00:07 - 00:00:24] Radio Carrum Sponsor Announcement & Radio Architecture Opening Theme
[00:00:40 - 00:02:41] Ilana Razbash: I'm Ilana Razbash and this is Radio Architecture. Good evening from beautiful Bunurong country. I'm so grateful to live work, play and broadcast live to you on Radio Carom from this very special part of the world. Welcome to the first ever show of Radio Architecture with Ilana Razbash. Every week I'll be joined by a new guest to talk about public places and spaces, interesting buildings, their people and their stories. We'll discuss issues important to the Kingston community as well as those playing out at state and national level. As I embark upon this new adventure in radio, I'd love to read and share our listeners thoughts as well. You can text the Carrum Radio Studio on 04-932-13831 whilst we're on air or write to me via Instagram @radioarchitecture if you're catching up on podcast. Thank you so much for joining me this evening. My name is Ilana Razbash. I'm a practicing architect and local Kingston resident. I'm passionate about public buildings and our civic life together. I'm really excited to introduce my first conversation partner, Dr. Damian Williams, a prize winning historian, writer, producer and community organizer. He was born on Bunurong country where he continues to live and work today. Dr. Williams was educated at the University of Melbourne and graduated with a PhD in history in 2010. His interest in walkability and designing streets for people was heightened after being diagnosed a few years ago with a functional neurological disorder and type 1 narcolepsy. These days he runs a woodworking school in Chelsea and is president of Zero Kingston 2030. Welcome Damien. Thank you for joining me.
[00:02:41 - 00:02:52] Damien William: Thanks very much, Ilana. It's great to be here on your first show. I feel like I should have brought some champagne to Chris and this as the Champagne radio program and I'm really looking forward to the conversation.
[00:02:52 - 00:02:55] Ilana Razbash: Thank you so much. Like a ship on a voyage.
[00:02:55 - 00:02:56] Damien William: Yes, very much.
[00:02:56 - 00:03:04] Ilana Razbash: Well, I have a first question that I want to ask all my guests. So you're first up. What's your earliest memory of a building or a place?
[00:03:06 - 00:04:04] Damien William: It would be the home that we lived in. When my family were in the Western District we lived in Hamilton, which was a major centre there in the west of Victoria. And my dad was a manager with Telstra or Telecom Australia as it was when it was still a wholly owned government entity. And we drove around in a Commonwealth car with a red Z on the number plate, which I don't think they have anymore. And I had two sisters born there when we lived there in the 80s. And the house that I probably have my first memories of was, I think, the first house that Mum and Dad actually had a mortgage on. They'd lived in several rentals and we'd moved around a lot in that area before they settled on this particular place. And I guess it was either very early 20th century or late 19th century place with a bullnose veranda. And I think it had a corrugated tin roof.
[00:04:06 - 00:04:07] Ilana Razbash: Do you remember the colour?
[00:04:07 - 00:04:41] Damien William: I do, actually, because my dad, who's someone who'd grown up on the farm and was very much used to doing everything himself and prided himself on that, undertook the task of stripping the bullnose veranda back and replacing the paint with the heritage stripes, so they were cream and red. And I remember him saying to me, or saying to some people I was in the presence of sometime after that, that if you didn't know how to swear beforehand, you would certainly know how to swear after restoring a bullnose veranda.
[00:04:42 - 00:04:49] Ilana Razbash: What a project. And that probably started your interest perhaps in so many different fields.
[00:04:49 - 00:05:50] Damien William: Yeah, I mean, he was someone who had done quite well academically, but I think growing up in. In rural Victoria at the time, when he and his twin brother, who was also is very academically talented, they just didn't have the same sort of opportunities that certainly kids in the city would have had. And also I think that they. They both. They both trained as engineers, one in mechanical, the other in civil. And so even though dad ended up sort of going down that sort of managerial, corporate route, both of them, I think, were happiest, say, under the hood of a car or, you know, pulling something apart and putting it back together again, whether it was a house or an engine or, you know, anything of that type. And when you, I guess, are growing up in a family like that, there's a sort of, I would say, involuntary apprenticeship that you, you know, dragged into by virtue of being the assistant and.
[00:05:50 - 00:05:54] Ilana Razbash: Probably an attention and a care to where you are, to the land that you're on.
[00:05:54 - 00:08:07] Damien William: Yeah, and that certainly came through from my mum. I mean, the Hamilton Art Gallery, for example, has actually got a really wonderful collection. I mean, in the 19th century, there were some directors of that gallery who were quite renowned antiquarians and so they were really into, you know, collecting stories and also objects from indigenous people in that Area that's. That's Gunditjmara country there. But it's. It's not far from Djaburong country, which is sort of to the north around the Grampians. And then there's other groups and clans which traditionally would, you know, congregate in areas such as Lake Bolak, where there's a. Where there's an eel festival today. And it's a kind of confluence of various different nations. And today, you know, you might be aware, there's the World Heritage Site to the south of there at Budjpim, which is where the Mount Eccles, as the Europeans called it, or Budj Bim. The volcano erupted several thousand years ago. It cut off the creek, it formed this lake network, and then mobbed there about. It's been dated to at least 7,000 years ago. Started engineering the channels, using the volcanic rocks and also building stone houses. And if you do the walk out there at Budjboom today, where I used to take students when I was teaching at Monash, you can see the round shapes of the bases of those houses. And they're quite nifty because although they're small, they're very, very strong. So when Europeans first came through on horseback, they could famously put a horse on top of the structure and it would still stay up. But what's interesting is where the prevailing winds come through from the southwest and obviously quite cold in that part of the world. The entrances to the buildings all faced the northeast, so you could still have a fire in there. You could still have animals and people and stuff congregating, but there was that level of protection. And I think. I mean, it's interesting going back to those sorts of places as an adult and. And looking at them afresh, seeing the.
[00:08:07 - 00:08:11] Ilana Razbash: Ancient wisdom, the ancient sustainability by default.
[00:08:11 - 00:08:57] Damien William: Yeah, very much so. But I think also it repositions the history of vernacular housing in this country. It takes it back much, much further than perhaps just thinking about a sort of a zero point between, you know, indigenous history to a point and then European history beginning. And it provides us with a sense of continuity, I think. And maybe this would be something we could look at in conversation later, but maybe a basis for a more vernacular type of architecture that's more strongly rooted in the country that we're actually living on in combination with some of those ideas that if they come from elsewhere.
[00:08:58 - 00:09:36] Ilana Razbash: Definitely just for our listeners, vernacular really means something that's representative and shows off where you are as being true to place. And there's a very interesting kind of belief theory position that true sustainability, more than just solar panels and at least tech things that we need to get right anyway. But more than that is feeling connected to where you are and having a connection to place so that you care about it and you love it. And I feel that you really love Kingston. You're incredibly passionate about this community. So I'm interested. How did Zero Kingston 2030 start up?
[00:09:38 - 00:14:24] Damien William: It really started towards the end of 2019 when I had been in Ireland, actually, and I'd been traveling around the island of Ireland. It was about August, September. I'd been in Galway on a day of. It was one of the worldwide school strikes, and there were a whole bunch of kids and local people there. And we got talking to some of the people who'd assembled who were from the labor movement, and they were just appalled, I think would be the best way to describe it, about the news reports that they'd seen coming out of northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland about the fires that were taking place. And I remember one turning to me and saying, isn't this the end of your winter? And I think it was the way that that person posed the question that made it suddenly seem a whole lot less familiar to me, because there's a sense, I think, living in Australia today, in which the. These growing sorts of extreme events are kind of becoming the background static to our lives, particularly those of us who live in urban areas. And they had, I think, been receiving probably a greater volume and possibly better reports of what was happening than Australians were in their own media. And so on returning to Australia, I started to look into, you know, just what were the current sort of plans that we had locally for this sort of stuff. And it was clear that there were elements that needed updating. And so over that summer began to sort of agitate a bit more with local councilors and others about, you know, what was the plan? What were you doing? And then basically just, you know, with the help of friends and others who we knew in the area, we. We started to gain more traction as that summer became much more of a. Of a horror show, really. That was what shifted the politics. I think before Christmas that year, there was sort of a view that, oh, well, look, the settings we've got were pretty right. This is probably only concerning a niche group of people. And then, if you recall the scenes on the beach at Mallacoota and those sorts of places, that was that summer. In hindsight, also, what makes it even more extraordinary is that it was really only about six or seven weeks after the Mallacoota incident. That Covid arrived on our shores. And it's interesting, I think would be one way to put it, to consider what would have happened if there had been overlap. I mean, in that sense, I think a national leader like Scott Morrison was a very lucky man in not having to try and deal with a situation like that. But, you know, famously he had been approached by emergency leaders from New South Wales three times, you know, over that preceding year, saying, listen, Prime Minister, you know, there's a need to upgrade the aircraft fleet, we need to do this, we need to do that. And they were rebuffed every time. So once those stories of those people's experiences started to come out, I think there was a greater urgency locally. And yeah, I mean, it was a. It was an extraordinary effort really, from a lot of people to, to petition council to. To do what it did. Interesting though, what was the petition? It was to declare a climate emergency. Yeah. So that had started at what was Moreland now, Merribeck Council, and then other councils in Melbourne started to do it. And when you looked at what had been done around the Bay, Bayside Council had done it in late 2019. And then I think what also sort of spurred things along was that Dandenong was preparing to announce on the Same Night in January 2020. And so what I've come to appreciate is that councils are in some ways quite risk averse, but at the same time, no one wants to be left behind. So you don't want to be seen to be the last ones to move, nor do you necessarily want to be seen to be the first ones to move. So when your neighbor starts to move and everybody else start to move, then you join in. And that's indeed what happened. And with a bit of work afterwards during that consultation process, we got a really good plan put together and to their credit, they have invested in staff to see this plan through. And so it includes a net zero target for council itself by 2025 and then for the community by 2030.
[00:14:26 - 00:14:31] Ilana Razbash: Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Really leading the way in local governments.
[00:14:31 - 00:14:42] Damien William: Yeah, they are now. Yeah, yeah. And that was part of the sell. You know, we said to them, look, you should be developing something that other communities which are similar can take off the shelf and say, we want to adopt this as the Kingston model.
[00:14:42 - 00:14:49] Ilana Razbash: And how is your committee going now? How's your group going now? After a very difficult few years for any organization, really.
[00:14:49 - 00:15:47] Damien William: Yeah, Look, I think the impression I get from talking to other people who do this kind of work is that is that Covid really stripped out people's personnel and their energy and anybody in a voluntary organization of whatever shape or form that was able to do those two first years of the pandemic where, you know, sitting through those boring zoom meetings and having those issues with disconnection and isolation and all those sorts of things. Plus, I'm sure, you know, for larger organisations there were financial considerations around just not getting people through the gate anymore. We're all live questions. And I've said to people several times, you know, at our meetings and other meetups and things that we shouldn't forget to give ourselves credit for just surviving, I think. So I try not to put too much pressure on myself for, you know, things that are late, delayed, you know.
[00:15:48 - 00:15:54] Ilana Razbash: It's radical and important in many ways. Right. You have to remember your own sustainability while fighting.
[00:15:54 - 00:16:58] Damien William: Oh, yeah, yeah, very much so. And I mean, we could return to that theme, actually, about, you know, whether sustainability is sustainable. But there's. There's an important need, as you say, to just make sure that you can carry on personally. But also, I think when you're involved with a committee of people that's still relatively small about how you work as a group and look, honestly, I find that to be a challenge. But then again, when I talk to other groups, like, for example, our sister organisation in Bayside is bcag, which is the Bayside Climate Crisis Action Group. They've been going for about a decade, longer. They've probably got about 1,000 people on their email list, which is extraordinary. But it's really the same story. It's about half a dozen people on the committee that turn up, do the work. Everything from putting out the chairs to the PR to, you know, it might be similar to running this station. I think any small organisation has a very similar story and that's just the way it goes.
[00:16:58 - 00:17:14] Ilana Razbash: Absolutely. And you do a lot of work. You've been incredibly busy. You've been on a recent tour of Austin Maynard Architects developments up north at Park Life and Terrace House. What are your first impressions of those projects?
[00:17:16 - 00:19:31] Damien William: Look, the first impression was the warmth. I mean, we went up to. In Park Life, we went up to the third or fourth floor where the architect Ray Dinn has a place there that he and his family live in and he was kind enough to show us through. And it was a day a bit like today. It was quite chilly and there was a bit of a breeze and we walked into this apartment and it was just like T shirt weather. It was. And it was such a lovely warmth too. Not a. Not a dry warmth like you get with, say, central heating. And besides being taken by the book, matched recycled timber floorboards. That caught my eye. He raced over to the back door and said, oh look, the door's still open. And it was. It was open about 15 centimeters. And the front door obviously had been opened to let us through. So even in that moment where I assumed there was a breeze that had come through, when he opened the front door, the warmth was still there. And then someone said to him, so what's the heating in here? And just said, there is none. It's a 9.1 star building. There's no heating and no cooling and no bills. No bills, no fossil fuel emissions. They don't do that sort of waste of space in terms of individual laundries in each dwelling. So there's a communal laundry, same with Terrett House. And that they stressed was something that was done in consultation with those that had formed the community to want to be the residents. And, you know, it's just a very smart use of space. And obviously the technology involved in the heat exchange, you know how these things work. I don't, but the fact that it is possible to demonstrate these things now and then watch as other commercial developers that do involve real estate agents and others are now using the same sorts of things as selling points, which before, I think they sort of just perhaps dismissed or looked down their nose at or thought it was an extra that perhaps wouldn't necessarily meet the market's needs.
[00:19:32 - 00:20:03] Ilana Razbash: And it was very brave of first Breathe, really to test the market with the Nightingale development model. And then many others joined. And those developments are by Austin Maynard as also a developer and architect. That's why they had so much yellow. I can't imagine a commercial developer letting you have so much joyous color everywhere. But it's amazing. The aesthetic is amazing as well. Many ways. It's a big building, it's a tall building. Remind me, how many stories was it from your visit?
[00:20:04 - 00:20:05] Damien William: That's a good question.
[00:20:05 - 00:20:07] Ilana Razbash: It looks around 5 in the.
[00:20:07 - 00:20:22] Damien William: The Park Life building must be about. Maybe that's higher. I think they might have been able to go a bit higher. They had to knock one story off, which became the sort of rooftop terrace. And that's pretty good too, sitting out there.
[00:20:22 - 00:20:23] Ilana Razbash: Stunning views.
[00:20:23 - 00:20:35] Damien William: Yeah, just incredible views, really. And. And that was. They were saying, actually that was where Ray and his wife had their wedding. And so there's some lovely photos of all the guests, you know, seated on there.
[00:20:35 - 00:21:01] Ilana Razbash: Those photos are on the Austin Maynard website as well. And all the tech, tech data and all the details and what, what really makes that building function is so amazing. So I really encourage people to actually jump on and have a look at that. But that, that moment that you described in the building, both doors are open, front and back, breathing through, breezing through. You've got air, but it's warm and nobody's paying for it.
[00:21:01 - 00:21:31] Damien William: No. And, and it's, it's winter time and it's. As I was describing, it was a, it was a very gentle warmth and I can only liken it to, excuse me, being in a building, for example, where the, the sun, you know, has a nice aspect during the wintertime. The sort of place that you imagine a cat would want to call up, crawl into a ball and just, you know, go to sleep. That was, it was that kind of cozy warmth.
[00:21:31 - 00:21:35] Ilana Razbash: I'm not a cat person, but I, I hear they're very good judges of character.
[00:21:35 - 00:21:37] Damien William: I think so. Yeah. And aspect, evidently.
[00:21:39 - 00:22:13] Ilana Razbash: Exactly right. It's. And it's, it's part of that joy. It's not just the color that they use, but also some of the shapes to break up the overall mass of the building. They, they bring in these little pointed roof elements and they dissolve how big the form is. And that's, I think, what people are really worried about sometimes when they're here for five story development is going up, but that building mass. But they've added something that we call fine grain, which basically just means adding enough detail that you don't have this massive wall up against you.
[00:22:13 - 00:22:39] Damien William: Yeah, very much so. And I mean, I guess perhaps further to what we were talking about earlier about vernacular style, it's color bond and that to me evokes, you know, things like the corrugated iron veranda. Colourbond would have to be one of the most well used products in building in Australia ever. Perhaps only rival by Hardy's.
[00:22:40 - 00:22:43] Ilana Razbash: And it's home to you, as I'm sure it's home to many people.
[00:22:43 - 00:23:19] Damien William: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And also, I mean, you think about the sort of the legendary stories of, you know, Bradman, for example, practicing his art underneath a tank stand. And it's a corrugated iron tank stand. So there's those sorts of functional elements which are brought into it too, because there are actually a few of those corrugated iron water tanks on the roof in both places, I think in both places, definitely in Terrace House. And you know, to me that's, that's evocative of seeing those sorts of objects, you know, in other places at earlier times in my life. And I'm sure for Others as well.
[00:23:20 - 00:23:30] Ilana Razbash: And you can have that, you can have those feelings of home in an apartment building in a community where everyone knows each other, everyone knows their neighbours and they live near where they want to be.
[00:23:30 - 00:23:31] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:23:32 - 00:23:34] Ilana Razbash: So you had some members from council join you on that tour?
[00:23:35 - 00:24:28] Damien William: I did, yes. We really just sort of played matchmaker. I was describing it yesterday. And so, yeah, the mayor, Hardy Saab came along, Councillor Chris Hill, the deputy came too, and Councillor Steve Stacos, who's been mayor three times and has experience working in the Housing association area, as does Chris. And so we also had the general manager for Planning and development, Jonathan Goodman coming along too. And it was a really good sized group to go through with a couple of other people from Zero Kingston as well and to be shown, you know, those places from people who live there. So Sophie Whitakers, who's the general manager for ama, she lives in Terrace House and was kind enough to show us through her apartment too. And that had a very similar sort of warmth to it.
[00:24:30 - 00:25:04] Ilana Razbash: It's very telling, isn't it, when people who worked on the project, and there's a number of architects who live inside these buildings, who worked on the project, who have run the project, choose to live in there. So not just something they've fobbed off to the market. I don't know many other buildings. I have heard of a Mirvac development from the 90s in South Yarra that many of the employees bought up early on, but these developments under the Nightingale model as well, and ama, very, very popular amongst the people that work on it. So it's really a testament to the quality of life you get in such a place.
[00:25:05 - 00:27:05] Damien William: Yeah, that's right. And look, I mean, I think the reason for doing that is obviously to just, you know, you get such a wonderful feel for a place as well as a look at it when you do a walkthrough. Right. And I think that's a terrific way to experience, you know, built space, built environment and it sort of, I think, offers an opportunity to, for people to sort of anchor their understanding of what's possible locally in that experience that they've had elsewhere, which, given the distance we are from those sort of centers of development at the moment, is not really achievable here at the moment you can't do a walkthrough of a similar type building. But I think where this area will start to change and where, I hope, I hope that the quality of building stock improves so that for residents here, you know, their long term running costs, for example, will start to be decreased. I think it will be in whoever does it, that one development that can at least achieve that same, you know, type of level or maybe even go to 10 stars. Right. That would be, I think, achievable at the moment. And once people here can walk through and experience what I was describing to you earlier, then I think they'll go home, they'll do their sums and they'll look more readily at that type of thing and perhaps have less of that knee jerk reaction against, oh, five stories. You know, there's a height-ist kind of approach to, you know, thinking about, thinking about building character and that sort of thing at the moment. But I think that that might start to change and ideally will start to change pretty quickly.
[00:27:05 - 00:27:16] Ilana Razbash: You raise an interesting question on neighbourhood character. What are some of the positions? What does your group think about neighbourhood character as a planning mechanism, as something council often gets worried about?
[00:27:17 - 00:29:17] Damien William: I mean, individually, there's a variation. Some people would see that there is great value in, you know, being able to retain, say, detached dwellings on suburban blocks in order to preserve vegetation cover, which obviously is a big concern at the moment because like a lot of places, you know, this area is seeing less and less cover. And then I think there's others who would perhaps like to see a greater amount of focus on the public and the private in thinking about character. I mean, my assessment of the way that people discuss and think about character at the moment is it's very much on the private side of the fence as opposed to the public side. The public side is taken, I think, as a given, as a space where, you know, there's nature strips and there's places for cars. And I think that if we are to move to a more walkable community, then there's a need for us to think about the urban environment and character in a more total sense, in a more holistic sense. And that's going to involve, you know, some new discussions, I think, about the, the kind of strategic land use that we currently undertake and the sort of value that we put on land at the moment. You know, we, we have, we have a strange situation here where really not, not just locally, I should say, but really in Australia, generally land is spoken about as land and then we have other commodities. So maybe when land gets started to be seen as something with a value like we'd value a commodity, then maybe we can have a smarter discussion about.
[00:29:17 - 00:29:22] Ilana Razbash: What's used when you start caring about land and place and country. Like gold.
[00:29:22 - 00:29:24] Damien William: Yep, that's right.
[00:29:24 - 00:29:32] Ilana Razbash: And look after it and repair it. And restore it to a neighborhood character that was before the colonized neighborhood.
[00:29:32 - 00:29:32] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:29:34 - 00:29:54] Ilana Razbash: I believe often historians grapple with this question, particularly in cities or civilizations with lots of layers of history where you choose how far to go back. And if you were really pushing the neighborhood character question, wouldn't you repair critical ecosystems which we're so lucky to have? Beautiful wetlands and the Karam Karom Swamp?
[00:29:54 - 00:33:21] Damien William: Yes, very much so. And also areas that have been built on that existing swamp. I mean, you know, you've got one in four houses in Kingston that are built on the historic swamp. And at the moment that's subject to an 80 centimeter flood overlay, which is the state government standard. But in other places like Moyn Shire in southwest of Victoria, where Port Fairy sits today, they've voluntarily undergone a new assessment that's using a 1.2 meter assessment. I believe that Queenscliff has been, you know, considering a similar sort of move that's in a similarly very low lying area. And it wouldn't surprise me if Kingston looks at that as well. I mean, interestingly, to come back to the question of character, there are people who would generally be opposed to greater amounts of development who are starting to use some of the flood arguments as a reason for trying to restrict supply in that sense of restricting heights. I hesitate about going down that path though, because I think that if you're going to make those sorts of claims, you need good evidence to back it. And although, you know, we're aware of the general threats and the differing likelihoods of change under certain, you know, climate change scenarios, it is important to note that in local instances there is variation. I mean, for example, in this area here, we're talking about areas that are essentially flooding behind the sea in the sense that, you know, the sea level rise that we're talking about, the risk of it is about water coming up the creeks and the tributaries and then flooding the areas behind. And then you've got the problem of the historic flow from the Dandenong and Memorin creeks, you know, going in the opposite direction towards the bay. So that raises situations that can't necessarily be mapped from other places onto here. And it just requires a bit of nuance and careful consideration because, you know, as you're aware, we are talking about nationally trillions of dollars worth of housing stock. We're talking about a situation where obviously private insurers and reinsurers are doing their calculations as well. And I'm not sure whether you and I discussed this earlier, but there are people here who last year were contacting Council saying I've received an assessment for my house insurance, it's $10,000, another person saying it's $6,000. And these are standard sized properties. And the view that was expressed to me from people who know more about this stuff was that it's likely that their reinsurers have put red lines through this part of the the world. And then it does become a live question about, well, in the event that there is an extreme weather event that damages people's property or makes them homeless, who pays? At the moment we have a situation where we assume that insurers are going to cover part of it, but when you've got a situation nationally where they're still profitable, still returning money to the shareholders, but their costs are getting higher and they have their own in house experts now, I mean, follow the actuaries. That's right.
[00:33:21 - 00:33:23] Ilana Razbash: See where the risk sits. Follow the actuaries.
[00:33:23 - 00:33:28] Damien William: AIG employs climatologists and meteorologists now, you know, they're providing expert advice to them.
[00:33:28 - 00:34:07] Ilana Razbash: So, you know, it's a massive matter of equity really. And I think about all my wonderful neighbours that I've had the pleasure of meeting in the almost a year now that I think about it, that we've lived in this area and I think about them being able to age in place and stay in their community or their home for reasons of, insurance for reasons of. Is their city safe for them, Are their streets safe for them? Can they comfortably walk? And that's really a question, right? If we can make a street, a town, a place safe for both elderly and children, we're really covering people, we're.
[00:34:07 - 00:36:16] Damien William: Covering very much so. And I think that's where, you know, we're also going a long way towards meeting those targets that we, that we need to meet as far as reducing our emissions to zero as quickly as possible. But in doing so, to borrow a phrase from Kim Stanley Robinson that he uses in his newish novel the Ministry of the Future, he talks about a good Anthropocene. And I think we're at a moment where we can plan for a good Anthropocene or we can do nothing and watch it roll out as a shit show. And when it comes to, you know, returning to that theme of equity, I think it's really beholden on us when we have a very good idea with a high level of confidence about what the likely effects of doing nothing are going to be on people who are born today or who are too young to participate in the political process or don't have the capital to participate in the process as ratepayers, right, as owner occupiers, then equity demands that an equal weight be given to their needs. So for instance, if you have a child who's in prep this year, might be 4 or 5 years old, they'll be 31 or 32 years old in 2050, and that's probably an age at which we can say with some confidence they're probably going to be looking for a place to start a family if they want to do that. Now, I think there's a question mark that there's a question that we should be asking ourselves, which is that if we know with the level of confidence that their chances of being able to find shelter here are going to be harder, or their ability to walk the streets is going to be more difficult because of extreme weather, or that their parents will be elderly by that time will also be finding it more difficult, then if the choices we're making now are likely to result in those things, we should probably be reconsidering the choices we're making now.
[00:36:17 - 00:37:05] Ilana Razbash: That's why I'm really interested in the priorities of Zero Kingston 2030. When I first learned about them, in many ways I was a bit surprised because it's not. Many environmental groups identify urban forestry as a main strategy, identify the importance of housing as a main strategy, identify the walking city is going to be these big ideas. And architecture is very much about ideas. So I'm really loving this, this thread that it underpins everything else we're going to do because if we can get those three things right. Correct me if I've misunderstood your strategies, but if we can get those three things right, we will have a sustainable Kingston that will be adapted and adaptive for whatever's to come.
[00:37:06 - 00:39:34] Damien William: Very much so, no, that's hitting the nail right on the head. I mean, I think it's an opportunity for us to be able to plan in a way that actually makes the community healthier and wealthier by saving money from long term household running costs, and that also can at the same time overcome some of those persistent problems that we have throughout the community to do with social isolation. For example, I mean, I've not driven a car here for about the past seven years and truth be told, it's pretty shit when you don't drive a car in a place that's very much car centric and you're this far from town, there are times when you have that kind of FML moment. But the other flip side to that is that in walking around everywhere, I've made more Friends locally, just from bumping into people. And this is one of the things that, of course, urbanists have been saying for years, that one of the things that makes good cities function is the fact that you can bump into one another and that cities bring together people of diverse backgrounds and skills. And that's where you see innovation, because people have discussions like this and we come to new conclusions about things and new ideas and business opportunities and friendships start to emerge. So that's where, you know, I'm. I'm still hopeful enough to think that something better can come from this, even with the knowledge that, at least for, you know, our generation and likely for the next, that things are going to get pretty tough. So I think we can plan to mitigate against those likelihoods, even though, you know, none of us know 100% for certain what the future is going to hold. But we can say that based on the best available evidence that we can be planning for this sort of scenario and trying to create something better out of it. And without laboring the point too much. I mean, that's why I sort of prefer these days to use that phrase planning for good Anthropocene, rather than something like responding to climate change, because I think it's got to the point where that phrase now is sort of so empty or people kind of roll their eyes at it and it becomes part of that again, that background static.
[00:39:34 - 00:39:37] Ilana Razbash: Where's the tangible hope in that as well?
[00:39:37 - 00:39:38] Damien William: Yeah, yeah.
[00:39:38 - 00:40:02] Ilana Razbash: Because I think my neighbors and I can all visualize a greener street with beautiful leafy canopies when it's too hot to walk the dog along the beach, which is where I meet up with everyone and chat and say hi. So necessary, those interactions of community, because we are inextricably interconnected, we can't be separated from each other for that good future Anthropocene.
[00:40:02 - 00:40:03] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:40:03 - 00:40:18] Ilana Razbash: So how do you imagine Kingston if you closed your eyes and thought about the ideal that council adopts, the projects, the policies, the hopes. How do you see the main street? Probably Nepean Highway, I guess, is our main street.
[00:40:18 - 00:40:53] Damien William: Well, I really love what they've done in places like Lancaster, California, where they had a very similar five lane, what would you call it, four and a half, five lane thoroughfare going through the middle of town there. And a few years ago they decided to talk to the community about doing something new. And they did that in a deliberative process and spoke to some designers. And to their credit, they chose really the most daring design. And the most daring design was to put what they Call a round blast. Sort of Barcelona style ramblas down the middle, which is treed. They've moved most of the parking.
[00:40:53 - 00:41:03] Ilana Razbash: That's a big promenade. Beautiful, big open promenade with lots of people can just walk through and stalls and carts and shop vendors and skateboarders. I think they've let the skateboarders stay.
[00:41:03 - 00:42:14] Damien William: Yeah, I. I think they probably have roller skaters. It's been. They've reduced the speed limit to. I'm not quite sure the conversion, because it's American, but I think it might be 15 miles an hour or 25 miles an hour. Anyway, it's a speed that's low enough for cyclists to use it safely without the need for protected lanes. And they reduce the traffic to one lane each way. So that means that there's a slowing. When you narrow the lanes, there's a slowing effect on the traffic. And each Thursday, instead of having the parking, there's a weekly market. And so the run blast is used for stall holders. Now, that is entirely possible here. And to my surprise and also joy, I saw the other week that there's a proposal to do just that at the Frankston end of Nepean Highway. So there's a proposal to do it, I think, between where Davies Hotel is and Oliver's Hill, along that bit that kind of bends around as you head towards the peninsula. Now, if they're going to kick it off, all well and good. It's the same road. We just continue the project until it moves up to Morde Elich Creek and then hopefully beyond.
[00:42:14 - 00:42:16] Ilana Razbash: Exactly. They have their case study.
[00:42:16 - 00:42:17] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:42:17 - 00:42:25] Ilana Razbash: And Kingston actually has an open application at the moment for parklets, so hospitality businesses can get on board.
[00:42:25 - 00:42:29] Damien William: I have. Look, I have mixed feelings about parklets.
[00:42:29 - 00:42:29] Ilana Razbash: Me too.
[00:42:30 - 00:42:31] Damien William: Why do you have mixed feelings about parklets?
[00:42:32 - 00:43:08] Ilana Razbash: I'm concerned about the privatization of public space. I support the idea of parklets generally. I think there's so many businesses around where I live that would really benefit from all that space, especially in our ongoing pandemic. Outdoor dining is great options for people and it's good for business, it's good for people, it's good for the activation of the street. But I don't want to see the privatization of beaches like they have all across most of the Mediterranean in Europe happening here. So when I see that in Elwood cropping up on the beach, that makes me a bit nervous.
[00:43:09 - 00:43:10] Damien William: Well, for like beachside bars or something.
[00:43:10 - 00:43:29] Ilana Razbash: Yeah. There's beachside kiosks, beachside. And the restaurants and bars take up sand space and put up there and St Kilda too. Elbert and St Kilda have it right with marquees and umbrellas and sun chairs and lounges, but you have to buy a drink to sit at the table. So I wouldn't want to see that on the shore.
[00:43:29 - 00:44:54] Damien William: But no, no, it's something that's actually been underpinned by some research at UNSW. They were looking at this issue of transforming car parking. And in this particular project the team there decided to essentially sit some officers or bureaucrats of some kind on the car park and see what people's responses to it were. And to their surprise, rather than, I don't know what the hypothesis was, but it was something along the lines that the researchers hypothesized that people would respond well to this idea of them moving people out of buildings, in other words, that could be repurposed and then out into the open, essentially just working outside. And it was not liked and for exactly the reason that you talk about it was perceived as being the privatization of space. But then when they did the follow up and instead converted it just to green open space that anybody could use, like for example, the pop up outside the Sun Theatre in Yarraville, it was much more widely accepted. And I mean, to return to that thing we talked about earlier about, you know, strategic land use, when you look at the parklets in town, for example, after closing time, they're just strewn with leaves. No one uses them because they're perceived as private space.
[00:44:56 - 00:44:58] Ilana Razbash: People don't feel invited to come there.
[00:44:58 - 00:45:00] Damien William: Yeah, they put a picket fence around it.
[00:45:00 - 00:45:04] Ilana Razbash: And if it was public space, you could get your coffee take away and sit there.
[00:45:04 - 00:45:04] Damien William: That's it.
[00:45:04 - 00:45:23] Ilana Razbash: You could get a meal takeaway and sit there and still use it. Yeah, around the clock, 24 hours. Yeah, but it's an interesting conversation, interesting question about what is it that we do give space to in a city and how much space we give to one car usually occupied by one person versus me and 20 of my friends in the parklet.
[00:45:24 - 00:46:54] Damien William: Well, I mean, in that bit of public green, maybe there is, maybe it is time to offer a more critical response to parklets because, I mean, it occurs to me that in one sense they could be interpreted as ring fencing space for cars. It's not actually about ring fencing space for people. I think if we were serious about streets for people, then we wouldn't kind of go halfway. Like City of Melbourne's been having trouble with some of its one way streets, as I'm sure you're aware, where they've been designated shared spaces. But the drivers don't recognise people walking down them. They still see it as their space. And that's going to come down to also the charge that we put on that kind of land use as well. The idea that one can park the most polluting, the most dangerous, the most expensive and the most inefficient form of urban transport on a finite piece of land for free is nuts. You know, if you had a Martian who landed here and you tried to explain that to them, and then you explain that the really efficient piece of transport that runs up and down the rail costs you money, they'd look at you like you had three heads and say, I might just go back to where I came from. Thanks. This doesn't make any sense. You park the thing that sits still for 97% of the time and that depreciates in value 30% every year. And you do that for free.
[00:46:55 - 00:47:02] Ilana Razbash: And you could only do that for part of your Life. Yeah, over 18. If you can afford to own the car in this economy.
[00:47:03 - 00:47:05] Damien William: That's right, yeah.
[00:47:05 - 00:47:15] Ilana Razbash: Or your parents car. If you can beg to borrow it and not scratch it up. Or for as long as you're able to drive, which for many people comes earlier than they expected.
[00:47:15 - 00:47:16] Damien William: Or if you don't choose to.
[00:47:16 - 00:47:22] Ilana Razbash: If you don't choose to. Exactly. You should be able to stay in your community and stay connected.
[00:47:23 - 00:48:42] Damien William: Yeah, yeah. And look, and that's where I think in that process of making a lot of these familiar things unfamiliar, that's where I get a lot of consolation from history. Because, you know, historically you can find good evidence, even just in photographs of this area where you can see that streets were for people. And really until that period of the 1960s when a car became affordable for people on a working class wage, the price dropped to the point where it was equivalent to about a quarter of the yearly income of a working male in Australia. That's when car ownership becomes normalised and then we start to design, or we planning authorities design streets around those cars. Now that's in the history of cities, that's a relatively short space of time. But of course in living memory for people that perhaps born at that time, it's completely normal. So there's a job to do in sort of making the familiar unfamiliar. But I think that's possible. We've done it before with things like smoking, the introduction of seat belts and a range of other things that we sort of, we take as being normal. So I think it's possible, possible here too.
[00:48:43 - 00:49:00] Ilana Razbash: And those examples you brought are actually brought in for the Benefit for the well being of the public, for the health of the public, which a cleaner, fresher, greener, safer, more walkable city, arguably is a massive public health issue.
[00:49:01 - 00:49:49] Damien William: Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, perhaps someone would say that the. The major difference with, with cars is that car culture successfully sells the idea of individual freedom. And that's really what you're buying with that. And I think it's going to be sort of turning the notion of freedom around and, you know, considering Sol Griffith's work that we've got here in front of us, it's going to be freedom from the increasing costs that will come from running those things, whether they are electric or whether they are internal combustion and a way of, you know, talking about electric vehicles in particular as being public or, you know, in the Dutch style.
[00:49:49 - 00:49:50] Ilana Razbash: Car shares.
[00:49:50 - 00:50:07] Damien William: Car shares, exactly right, Yep. So more of that sharing economy. Or even, you know, those wonderful cargo bikes, which, you know, probably the most efficient form of urban transport and an entirely possible option in an area that, I mean, where's the nearest mountain?
[00:50:08 - 00:50:09] Ilana Razbash: Oliver's Hill, if you can count it.
[00:50:10 - 00:50:12] Damien William: There you go. So it's a very flat. It's a very bikable place.
[00:50:13 - 00:50:14] Ilana Razbash: Very, very bikable.
[00:50:14 - 00:50:15] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:50:15 - 00:50:19] Ilana Razbash: We're lucky to have walking trails, but in a way that they don't necessarily connect.
[00:50:19 - 00:50:20] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:50:21 - 00:51:29] Ilana Razbash: When you said there was freedom, it's really interesting, powerful imagery. I think for most people, in many ways it can really galvanize a movement, a community. And you said that word in my mind instantly, I thought of a forest. I don't think of a car as my freedom. I joke that my bike is my freedom machine, but I thought of a forest. I thought of going for a hike, being in nature, having the time to immerse myself in green space and that I work in the city, I studied in the city. And in those university years, when we got a moment for a break, we would go outside, lie down on the green lawn of the state library, look up, have the sun on us, especially in the middle of winter. And it was connecting to that green space that made us feel that we were on country, that we were part of something bigger than just a building or a university gave us that air. So it's very interesting bit of imagery. I think people don't consider that something they think frees them may actually entrap them.
[00:51:30 - 00:51:52] Damien William: True. I mean, I've heard that part of the appeal of manicured lawns is that it taps into our ancestral practice of domesticating animals and that it's the presence of Grazing animals, that gives us comfort because of course, there's a source of protein for us from that period.
[00:51:54 - 00:51:56] Ilana Razbash: We haven't changed much, have we? Goodness.
[00:51:59 - 00:53:11] Damien William: When I think about my late paternal grandfather who was a sometime farmer and kept an incredibly neat lawn, I do sometimes wonder whether that theory perhaps holds true. Although he didn't raise animals, he grew crops. There is something very neat about places that you see in rural communities. For whatever reason, but to return to the theme about trees and open space, there's often an assumption made about people that live in ordinary communities. And this historically is an ordinary community. You know, I've myself heard, you know, advisors to some very senior government ministers, for example, refer disparagingly to places like this, this far from the cbd as being places of, quote, low information people. And it betrays a kind of mindset, I think, that plays into the notion that working class people, ordinary people, don't appreciate greenery. You know, it assumes that what they want is a car park.
[00:53:11 - 00:53:13] Ilana Razbash: Deeply unjust statement.
[00:53:13 - 00:55:18] Damien William: It is, and it's, it's evident, I think, or I should say sorry, that the assumption is reinforced whenever these sorts of issues get raised in public forums or these days, usually on social media. And if you, you know, if you want to really rile people up, it will be to make a suggestion to remove car parking. Because like we talked about, people associate that with freedom. And also a driver has a perception that is very narrow, very limited to them wanting to get that spot by the front door. And if they don't get the spot by the front door, then they reach the conclusion that there's a shortage of car parks. There's not a shortage of car parks. There was just a high demand at the time you wanted to get to the front door. Right. And so the way that it begins to sort of become a self perpetuating conclusion in communities like this is because the response reinforces the assumption. And the assumption is often what political actors carry into office. But what changes that is when you sit down with people and start to have a conversation with them that begins with a question such as, how do you feel when you walk down the street? And I've done this with people around here and they will tell you when they're given that opportunity to say, I feel agitated, I feel stressed, I feel like I'm on alert all the time, I don't want to stay here. It gets treated like a drive through, therefore you behave like a drive through. And then when you show them a picture, say of St Kilda Boulevard or, you know, an Area of the gardens. How do you feel when you're in an environment like this? I feel calm. I want to bring my friends here, you know, so that's where perhaps a more deliberative engagement on these sorts of questions can be very useful. But that, that threatens people that come through into office, into political positions with a range of assumptions like we just discussed. So there's.
[00:55:20 - 00:55:42] Ilana Razbash: You've recently been providing feedback on the 20 minute city, the 20 minute walkable city plan for Kingston. And really what that means is you can work, you can live, you can play, you can meet all your basic needs in a 20 minute round trip by foot. How incredible would that be for it to come to fruition here?
[00:55:42 - 00:56:37] Damien William: Oh, it'd be great. I mean, I mean to clarify, I wasn't actually providing feedback on that. Is it the walking and cycling strategy you're talking about? But I did sort of talk to it in that submission on housing and that that might be the one you're referring to. I agree. I think it would be great. I mean, in some ways I think it's unfortunate that 20 Minute City has become pejorative because of the criticisms and backlash that there's been getting, famously from places like Oxford where they sort of refer to as a 15 minute city. And then it's become an issue in places like Alberta, Canada, which has just had recent provincial elections. They've returned a very conservative premier there who's, who's very, very much opposed to these sorts of interventions and is a drill baby, drill kind of politician.
[00:56:37 - 00:56:45] Ilana Razbash: To clarify, the majority of this intervention is really to let people walk places comfortably and have mixed use development and.
[00:56:45 - 00:57:26] Damien William: That threatens people who have a conspiratorial view that's been, that's been massaged and exacerbated by their experience of the COVID lockdowns. So look, personally I would tend to avoid the use of the term 20 minute city. Although the philosophy I think of walkability is what I prefer. I mean, look, really if I was pushed, I think the idea that I really love the most is the concept of designing streets for people. I think that borrows more from perhaps the Dutch example. You know, that didn't come about naturally. There's people here you can mention that to and they'll say, oh, but they're a different culture over there. No they're not. They just made different planning choices.
[00:57:27 - 00:57:27] Ilana Razbash: Everything's a decision.
[00:57:28 - 00:57:28] Damien William: Everything's a decision.
[00:57:28 - 00:57:29] Ilana Razbash: It's about priorities.
[00:57:29 - 00:58:24] Damien William: Yep. And it also took activism because you know, in the 70s when they had those terrible cases of kids Being hit by cars on the road, it was, it galvanised the political movement. They did the car free Sundays, it rolled up. There was also the oil crisis too, which I guess similar to our experience, pushed energy prices right up. But their response to it in designing streets for people is based around the idea that you still have car traffic and car transport. It's just that cars are treated as guests. And I think for me that's the sort of philosophy I'd like to roll with here where, yes, there's a need because, you know, particularly when you think about it from an all abilities perspective, there's people who just physically can't get out by foot or by bike or wheelchairs. They need a car and that's fine, but it's just that we start treating them as guests and put people of all ages and abilities first and then I think we'll have a really lovely place to live.
[00:58:25 - 00:58:28] Ilana Razbash: Absolutely. So what gives you hope for the future?
[00:58:30 - 00:59:34] Damien William: Well, when I see places like Park Life, see what is being done with the built environment there, and reading Sol Griffith's work, I think he clearly sets out how you can achieve a zero emissions future for Australia with technology that's already here. And I think the other thing that gives me a sense of hope is the prospect of us being able to jettison some of the elements of our economics and our political systems that have got us to this point in time. It's not necessarily going to take much. I think there's a great amount of fear amongst some people about the prospect of change. But I think we can do that without a great deal of disruption and come up with something that will be much better than doing nothing at all.
[00:59:35 - 00:59:41] Ilana Razbash: It's imagining our future with the tools we already have, the simple things we already know.
[00:59:41 - 00:59:42] Damien William: Really very much so, yeah.
[00:59:42 - 00:59:45] Ilana Razbash: Thank you so much for joining me tonight, Damien, it's been a pleasure.
[00:59:45 - 00:59:47] Damien William: It's been fantastic. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
[00:59:52 - 01:00:11] Radio Architecture Closing Theme
[01:00:27 - 01:00:38] Station ID
[00:00:40 - 00:02:41] Ilana Razbash: I'm Ilana Razbash and this is Radio Architecture. Good evening from beautiful Bunurong country. I'm so grateful to live work, play and broadcast live to you on Radio Carom from this very special part of the world. Welcome to the first ever show of Radio Architecture with Ilana Razbash. Every week I'll be joined by a new guest to talk about public places and spaces, interesting buildings, their people and their stories. We'll discuss issues important to the Kingston community as well as those playing out at state and national level. As I embark upon this new adventure in radio, I'd love to read and share our listeners thoughts as well. You can text the Carrum Radio Studio on 04-932-13831 whilst we're on air or write to me via Instagram @radioarchitecture if you're catching up on podcast. Thank you so much for joining me this evening. My name is Ilana Razbash. I'm a practicing architect and local Kingston resident. I'm passionate about public buildings and our civic life together. I'm really excited to introduce my first conversation partner, Dr. Damian Williams, a prize winning historian, writer, producer and community organizer. He was born on Bunurong country where he continues to live and work today. Dr. Williams was educated at the University of Melbourne and graduated with a PhD in history in 2010. His interest in walkability and designing streets for people was heightened after being diagnosed a few years ago with a functional neurological disorder and type 1 narcolepsy. These days he runs a woodworking school in Chelsea and is president of Zero Kingston 2030. Welcome Damien. Thank you for joining me.
[00:02:41 - 00:02:52] Damien William: Thanks very much, Ilana. It's great to be here on your first show. I feel like I should have brought some champagne to Chris and this as the Champagne radio program and I'm really looking forward to the conversation.
[00:02:52 - 00:02:55] Ilana Razbash: Thank you so much. Like a ship on a voyage.
[00:02:55 - 00:02:56] Damien William: Yes, very much.
[00:02:56 - 00:03:04] Ilana Razbash: Well, I have a first question that I want to ask all my guests. So you're first up. What's your earliest memory of a building or a place?
[00:03:06 - 00:04:04] Damien William: It would be the home that we lived in. When my family were in the Western District we lived in Hamilton, which was a major centre there in the west of Victoria. And my dad was a manager with Telstra or Telecom Australia as it was when it was still a wholly owned government entity. And we drove around in a Commonwealth car with a red Z on the number plate, which I don't think they have anymore. And I had two sisters born there when we lived there in the 80s. And the house that I probably have my first memories of was, I think, the first house that Mum and Dad actually had a mortgage on. They'd lived in several rentals and we'd moved around a lot in that area before they settled on this particular place. And I guess it was either very early 20th century or late 19th century place with a bullnose veranda. And I think it had a corrugated tin roof.
[00:04:06 - 00:04:07] Ilana Razbash: Do you remember the colour?
[00:04:07 - 00:04:41] Damien William: I do, actually, because my dad, who's someone who'd grown up on the farm and was very much used to doing everything himself and prided himself on that, undertook the task of stripping the bullnose veranda back and replacing the paint with the heritage stripes, so they were cream and red. And I remember him saying to me, or saying to some people I was in the presence of sometime after that, that if you didn't know how to swear beforehand, you would certainly know how to swear after restoring a bullnose veranda.
[00:04:42 - 00:04:49] Ilana Razbash: What a project. And that probably started your interest perhaps in so many different fields.
[00:04:49 - 00:05:50] Damien William: Yeah, I mean, he was someone who had done quite well academically, but I think growing up in. In rural Victoria at the time, when he and his twin brother, who was also is very academically talented, they just didn't have the same sort of opportunities that certainly kids in the city would have had. And also I think that they. They both. They both trained as engineers, one in mechanical, the other in civil. And so even though dad ended up sort of going down that sort of managerial, corporate route, both of them, I think, were happiest, say, under the hood of a car or, you know, pulling something apart and putting it back together again, whether it was a house or an engine or, you know, anything of that type. And when you, I guess, are growing up in a family like that, there's a sort of, I would say, involuntary apprenticeship that you, you know, dragged into by virtue of being the assistant and.
[00:05:50 - 00:05:54] Ilana Razbash: Probably an attention and a care to where you are, to the land that you're on.
[00:05:54 - 00:08:07] Damien William: Yeah, and that certainly came through from my mum. I mean, the Hamilton Art Gallery, for example, has actually got a really wonderful collection. I mean, in the 19th century, there were some directors of that gallery who were quite renowned antiquarians and so they were really into, you know, collecting stories and also objects from indigenous people in that Area that's. That's Gunditjmara country there. But it's. It's not far from Djaburong country, which is sort of to the north around the Grampians. And then there's other groups and clans which traditionally would, you know, congregate in areas such as Lake Bolak, where there's a. Where there's an eel festival today. And it's a kind of confluence of various different nations. And today, you know, you might be aware, there's the World Heritage Site to the south of there at Budjpim, which is where the Mount Eccles, as the Europeans called it, or Budj Bim. The volcano erupted several thousand years ago. It cut off the creek, it formed this lake network, and then mobbed there about. It's been dated to at least 7,000 years ago. Started engineering the channels, using the volcanic rocks and also building stone houses. And if you do the walk out there at Budjboom today, where I used to take students when I was teaching at Monash, you can see the round shapes of the bases of those houses. And they're quite nifty because although they're small, they're very, very strong. So when Europeans first came through on horseback, they could famously put a horse on top of the structure and it would still stay up. But what's interesting is where the prevailing winds come through from the southwest and obviously quite cold in that part of the world. The entrances to the buildings all faced the northeast, so you could still have a fire in there. You could still have animals and people and stuff congregating, but there was that level of protection. And I think. I mean, it's interesting going back to those sorts of places as an adult and. And looking at them afresh, seeing the.
[00:08:07 - 00:08:11] Ilana Razbash: Ancient wisdom, the ancient sustainability by default.
[00:08:11 - 00:08:57] Damien William: Yeah, very much so. But I think also it repositions the history of vernacular housing in this country. It takes it back much, much further than perhaps just thinking about a sort of a zero point between, you know, indigenous history to a point and then European history beginning. And it provides us with a sense of continuity, I think. And maybe this would be something we could look at in conversation later, but maybe a basis for a more vernacular type of architecture that's more strongly rooted in the country that we're actually living on in combination with some of those ideas that if they come from elsewhere.
[00:08:58 - 00:09:36] Ilana Razbash: Definitely just for our listeners, vernacular really means something that's representative and shows off where you are as being true to place. And there's a very interesting kind of belief theory position that true sustainability, more than just solar panels and at least tech things that we need to get right anyway. But more than that is feeling connected to where you are and having a connection to place so that you care about it and you love it. And I feel that you really love Kingston. You're incredibly passionate about this community. So I'm interested. How did Zero Kingston 2030 start up?
[00:09:38 - 00:14:24] Damien William: It really started towards the end of 2019 when I had been in Ireland, actually, and I'd been traveling around the island of Ireland. It was about August, September. I'd been in Galway on a day of. It was one of the worldwide school strikes, and there were a whole bunch of kids and local people there. And we got talking to some of the people who'd assembled who were from the labor movement, and they were just appalled, I think would be the best way to describe it, about the news reports that they'd seen coming out of northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland about the fires that were taking place. And I remember one turning to me and saying, isn't this the end of your winter? And I think it was the way that that person posed the question that made it suddenly seem a whole lot less familiar to me, because there's a sense, I think, living in Australia today, in which the. These growing sorts of extreme events are kind of becoming the background static to our lives, particularly those of us who live in urban areas. And they had, I think, been receiving probably a greater volume and possibly better reports of what was happening than Australians were in their own media. And so on returning to Australia, I started to look into, you know, just what were the current sort of plans that we had locally for this sort of stuff. And it was clear that there were elements that needed updating. And so over that summer began to sort of agitate a bit more with local councilors and others about, you know, what was the plan? What were you doing? And then basically just, you know, with the help of friends and others who we knew in the area, we. We started to gain more traction as that summer became much more of a. Of a horror show, really. That was what shifted the politics. I think before Christmas that year, there was sort of a view that, oh, well, look, the settings we've got were pretty right. This is probably only concerning a niche group of people. And then, if you recall the scenes on the beach at Mallacoota and those sorts of places, that was that summer. In hindsight, also, what makes it even more extraordinary is that it was really only about six or seven weeks after the Mallacoota incident. That Covid arrived on our shores. And it's interesting, I think would be one way to put it, to consider what would have happened if there had been overlap. I mean, in that sense, I think a national leader like Scott Morrison was a very lucky man in not having to try and deal with a situation like that. But, you know, famously he had been approached by emergency leaders from New South Wales three times, you know, over that preceding year, saying, listen, Prime Minister, you know, there's a need to upgrade the aircraft fleet, we need to do this, we need to do that. And they were rebuffed every time. So once those stories of those people's experiences started to come out, I think there was a greater urgency locally. And yeah, I mean, it was a. It was an extraordinary effort really, from a lot of people to, to petition council to. To do what it did. Interesting though, what was the petition? It was to declare a climate emergency. Yeah. So that had started at what was Moreland now, Merribeck Council, and then other councils in Melbourne started to do it. And when you looked at what had been done around the Bay, Bayside Council had done it in late 2019. And then I think what also sort of spurred things along was that Dandenong was preparing to announce on the Same Night in January 2020. And so what I've come to appreciate is that councils are in some ways quite risk averse, but at the same time, no one wants to be left behind. So you don't want to be seen to be the last ones to move, nor do you necessarily want to be seen to be the first ones to move. So when your neighbor starts to move and everybody else start to move, then you join in. And that's indeed what happened. And with a bit of work afterwards during that consultation process, we got a really good plan put together and to their credit, they have invested in staff to see this plan through. And so it includes a net zero target for council itself by 2025 and then for the community by 2030.
[00:14:26 - 00:14:31] Ilana Razbash: Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Really leading the way in local governments.
[00:14:31 - 00:14:42] Damien William: Yeah, they are now. Yeah, yeah. And that was part of the sell. You know, we said to them, look, you should be developing something that other communities which are similar can take off the shelf and say, we want to adopt this as the Kingston model.
[00:14:42 - 00:14:49] Ilana Razbash: And how is your committee going now? How's your group going now? After a very difficult few years for any organization, really.
[00:14:49 - 00:15:47] Damien William: Yeah, Look, I think the impression I get from talking to other people who do this kind of work is that is that Covid really stripped out people's personnel and their energy and anybody in a voluntary organization of whatever shape or form that was able to do those two first years of the pandemic where, you know, sitting through those boring zoom meetings and having those issues with disconnection and isolation and all those sorts of things. Plus, I'm sure, you know, for larger organisations there were financial considerations around just not getting people through the gate anymore. We're all live questions. And I've said to people several times, you know, at our meetings and other meetups and things that we shouldn't forget to give ourselves credit for just surviving, I think. So I try not to put too much pressure on myself for, you know, things that are late, delayed, you know.
[00:15:48 - 00:15:54] Ilana Razbash: It's radical and important in many ways. Right. You have to remember your own sustainability while fighting.
[00:15:54 - 00:16:58] Damien William: Oh, yeah, yeah, very much so. And I mean, we could return to that theme, actually, about, you know, whether sustainability is sustainable. But there's. There's an important need, as you say, to just make sure that you can carry on personally. But also, I think when you're involved with a committee of people that's still relatively small about how you work as a group and look, honestly, I find that to be a challenge. But then again, when I talk to other groups, like, for example, our sister organisation in Bayside is bcag, which is the Bayside Climate Crisis Action Group. They've been going for about a decade, longer. They've probably got about 1,000 people on their email list, which is extraordinary. But it's really the same story. It's about half a dozen people on the committee that turn up, do the work. Everything from putting out the chairs to the PR to, you know, it might be similar to running this station. I think any small organisation has a very similar story and that's just the way it goes.
[00:16:58 - 00:17:14] Ilana Razbash: Absolutely. And you do a lot of work. You've been incredibly busy. You've been on a recent tour of Austin Maynard Architects developments up north at Park Life and Terrace House. What are your first impressions of those projects?
[00:17:16 - 00:19:31] Damien William: Look, the first impression was the warmth. I mean, we went up to. In Park Life, we went up to the third or fourth floor where the architect Ray Dinn has a place there that he and his family live in and he was kind enough to show us through. And it was a day a bit like today. It was quite chilly and there was a bit of a breeze and we walked into this apartment and it was just like T shirt weather. It was. And it was such a lovely warmth too. Not a. Not a dry warmth like you get with, say, central heating. And besides being taken by the book, matched recycled timber floorboards. That caught my eye. He raced over to the back door and said, oh look, the door's still open. And it was. It was open about 15 centimeters. And the front door obviously had been opened to let us through. So even in that moment where I assumed there was a breeze that had come through, when he opened the front door, the warmth was still there. And then someone said to him, so what's the heating in here? And just said, there is none. It's a 9.1 star building. There's no heating and no cooling and no bills. No bills, no fossil fuel emissions. They don't do that sort of waste of space in terms of individual laundries in each dwelling. So there's a communal laundry, same with Terrett House. And that they stressed was something that was done in consultation with those that had formed the community to want to be the residents. And, you know, it's just a very smart use of space. And obviously the technology involved in the heat exchange, you know how these things work. I don't, but the fact that it is possible to demonstrate these things now and then watch as other commercial developers that do involve real estate agents and others are now using the same sorts of things as selling points, which before, I think they sort of just perhaps dismissed or looked down their nose at or thought it was an extra that perhaps wouldn't necessarily meet the market's needs.
[00:19:32 - 00:20:03] Ilana Razbash: And it was very brave of first Breathe, really to test the market with the Nightingale development model. And then many others joined. And those developments are by Austin Maynard as also a developer and architect. That's why they had so much yellow. I can't imagine a commercial developer letting you have so much joyous color everywhere. But it's amazing. The aesthetic is amazing as well. Many ways. It's a big building, it's a tall building. Remind me, how many stories was it from your visit?
[00:20:04 - 00:20:05] Damien William: That's a good question.
[00:20:05 - 00:20:07] Ilana Razbash: It looks around 5 in the.
[00:20:07 - 00:20:22] Damien William: The Park Life building must be about. Maybe that's higher. I think they might have been able to go a bit higher. They had to knock one story off, which became the sort of rooftop terrace. And that's pretty good too, sitting out there.
[00:20:22 - 00:20:23] Ilana Razbash: Stunning views.
[00:20:23 - 00:20:35] Damien William: Yeah, just incredible views, really. And. And that was. They were saying, actually that was where Ray and his wife had their wedding. And so there's some lovely photos of all the guests, you know, seated on there.
[00:20:35 - 00:21:01] Ilana Razbash: Those photos are on the Austin Maynard website as well. And all the tech, tech data and all the details and what, what really makes that building function is so amazing. So I really encourage people to actually jump on and have a look at that. But that, that moment that you described in the building, both doors are open, front and back, breathing through, breezing through. You've got air, but it's warm and nobody's paying for it.
[00:21:01 - 00:21:31] Damien William: No. And, and it's, it's winter time and it's. As I was describing, it was a, it was a very gentle warmth and I can only liken it to, excuse me, being in a building, for example, where the, the sun, you know, has a nice aspect during the wintertime. The sort of place that you imagine a cat would want to call up, crawl into a ball and just, you know, go to sleep. That was, it was that kind of cozy warmth.
[00:21:31 - 00:21:35] Ilana Razbash: I'm not a cat person, but I, I hear they're very good judges of character.
[00:21:35 - 00:21:37] Damien William: I think so. Yeah. And aspect, evidently.
[00:21:39 - 00:22:13] Ilana Razbash: Exactly right. It's. And it's, it's part of that joy. It's not just the color that they use, but also some of the shapes to break up the overall mass of the building. They, they bring in these little pointed roof elements and they dissolve how big the form is. And that's, I think, what people are really worried about sometimes when they're here for five story development is going up, but that building mass. But they've added something that we call fine grain, which basically just means adding enough detail that you don't have this massive wall up against you.
[00:22:13 - 00:22:39] Damien William: Yeah, very much so. And I mean, I guess perhaps further to what we were talking about earlier about vernacular style, it's color bond and that to me evokes, you know, things like the corrugated iron veranda. Colourbond would have to be one of the most well used products in building in Australia ever. Perhaps only rival by Hardy's.
[00:22:40 - 00:22:43] Ilana Razbash: And it's home to you, as I'm sure it's home to many people.
[00:22:43 - 00:23:19] Damien William: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And also, I mean, you think about the sort of the legendary stories of, you know, Bradman, for example, practicing his art underneath a tank stand. And it's a corrugated iron tank stand. So there's those sorts of functional elements which are brought into it too, because there are actually a few of those corrugated iron water tanks on the roof in both places, I think in both places, definitely in Terrace House. And you know, to me that's, that's evocative of seeing those sorts of objects, you know, in other places at earlier times in my life. And I'm sure for Others as well.
[00:23:20 - 00:23:30] Ilana Razbash: And you can have that, you can have those feelings of home in an apartment building in a community where everyone knows each other, everyone knows their neighbours and they live near where they want to be.
[00:23:30 - 00:23:31] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:23:32 - 00:23:34] Ilana Razbash: So you had some members from council join you on that tour?
[00:23:35 - 00:24:28] Damien William: I did, yes. We really just sort of played matchmaker. I was describing it yesterday. And so, yeah, the mayor, Hardy Saab came along, Councillor Chris Hill, the deputy came too, and Councillor Steve Stacos, who's been mayor three times and has experience working in the Housing association area, as does Chris. And so we also had the general manager for Planning and development, Jonathan Goodman coming along too. And it was a really good sized group to go through with a couple of other people from Zero Kingston as well and to be shown, you know, those places from people who live there. So Sophie Whitakers, who's the general manager for ama, she lives in Terrace House and was kind enough to show us through her apartment too. And that had a very similar sort of warmth to it.
[00:24:30 - 00:25:04] Ilana Razbash: It's very telling, isn't it, when people who worked on the project, and there's a number of architects who live inside these buildings, who worked on the project, who have run the project, choose to live in there. So not just something they've fobbed off to the market. I don't know many other buildings. I have heard of a Mirvac development from the 90s in South Yarra that many of the employees bought up early on, but these developments under the Nightingale model as well, and ama, very, very popular amongst the people that work on it. So it's really a testament to the quality of life you get in such a place.
[00:25:05 - 00:27:05] Damien William: Yeah, that's right. And look, I mean, I think the reason for doing that is obviously to just, you know, you get such a wonderful feel for a place as well as a look at it when you do a walkthrough. Right. And I think that's a terrific way to experience, you know, built space, built environment and it sort of, I think, offers an opportunity to, for people to sort of anchor their understanding of what's possible locally in that experience that they've had elsewhere, which, given the distance we are from those sort of centers of development at the moment, is not really achievable here at the moment you can't do a walkthrough of a similar type building. But I think where this area will start to change and where, I hope, I hope that the quality of building stock improves so that for residents here, you know, their long term running costs, for example, will start to be decreased. I think it will be in whoever does it, that one development that can at least achieve that same, you know, type of level or maybe even go to 10 stars. Right. That would be, I think, achievable at the moment. And once people here can walk through and experience what I was describing to you earlier, then I think they'll go home, they'll do their sums and they'll look more readily at that type of thing and perhaps have less of that knee jerk reaction against, oh, five stories. You know, there's a height-ist kind of approach to, you know, thinking about, thinking about building character and that sort of thing at the moment. But I think that that might start to change and ideally will start to change pretty quickly.
[00:27:05 - 00:27:16] Ilana Razbash: You raise an interesting question on neighbourhood character. What are some of the positions? What does your group think about neighbourhood character as a planning mechanism, as something council often gets worried about?
[00:27:17 - 00:29:17] Damien William: I mean, individually, there's a variation. Some people would see that there is great value in, you know, being able to retain, say, detached dwellings on suburban blocks in order to preserve vegetation cover, which obviously is a big concern at the moment because like a lot of places, you know, this area is seeing less and less cover. And then I think there's others who would perhaps like to see a greater amount of focus on the public and the private in thinking about character. I mean, my assessment of the way that people discuss and think about character at the moment is it's very much on the private side of the fence as opposed to the public side. The public side is taken, I think, as a given, as a space where, you know, there's nature strips and there's places for cars. And I think that if we are to move to a more walkable community, then there's a need for us to think about the urban environment and character in a more total sense, in a more holistic sense. And that's going to involve, you know, some new discussions, I think, about the, the kind of strategic land use that we currently undertake and the sort of value that we put on land at the moment. You know, we, we have, we have a strange situation here where really not, not just locally, I should say, but really in Australia, generally land is spoken about as land and then we have other commodities. So maybe when land gets started to be seen as something with a value like we'd value a commodity, then maybe we can have a smarter discussion about.
[00:29:17 - 00:29:22] Ilana Razbash: What's used when you start caring about land and place and country. Like gold.
[00:29:22 - 00:29:24] Damien William: Yep, that's right.
[00:29:24 - 00:29:32] Ilana Razbash: And look after it and repair it. And restore it to a neighborhood character that was before the colonized neighborhood.
[00:29:32 - 00:29:32] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:29:34 - 00:29:54] Ilana Razbash: I believe often historians grapple with this question, particularly in cities or civilizations with lots of layers of history where you choose how far to go back. And if you were really pushing the neighborhood character question, wouldn't you repair critical ecosystems which we're so lucky to have? Beautiful wetlands and the Karam Karom Swamp?
[00:29:54 - 00:33:21] Damien William: Yes, very much so. And also areas that have been built on that existing swamp. I mean, you know, you've got one in four houses in Kingston that are built on the historic swamp. And at the moment that's subject to an 80 centimeter flood overlay, which is the state government standard. But in other places like Moyn Shire in southwest of Victoria, where Port Fairy sits today, they've voluntarily undergone a new assessment that's using a 1.2 meter assessment. I believe that Queenscliff has been, you know, considering a similar sort of move that's in a similarly very low lying area. And it wouldn't surprise me if Kingston looks at that as well. I mean, interestingly, to come back to the question of character, there are people who would generally be opposed to greater amounts of development who are starting to use some of the flood arguments as a reason for trying to restrict supply in that sense of restricting heights. I hesitate about going down that path though, because I think that if you're going to make those sorts of claims, you need good evidence to back it. And although, you know, we're aware of the general threats and the differing likelihoods of change under certain, you know, climate change scenarios, it is important to note that in local instances there is variation. I mean, for example, in this area here, we're talking about areas that are essentially flooding behind the sea in the sense that, you know, the sea level rise that we're talking about, the risk of it is about water coming up the creeks and the tributaries and then flooding the areas behind. And then you've got the problem of the historic flow from the Dandenong and Memorin creeks, you know, going in the opposite direction towards the bay. So that raises situations that can't necessarily be mapped from other places onto here. And it just requires a bit of nuance and careful consideration because, you know, as you're aware, we are talking about nationally trillions of dollars worth of housing stock. We're talking about a situation where obviously private insurers and reinsurers are doing their calculations as well. And I'm not sure whether you and I discussed this earlier, but there are people here who last year were contacting Council saying I've received an assessment for my house insurance, it's $10,000, another person saying it's $6,000. And these are standard sized properties. And the view that was expressed to me from people who know more about this stuff was that it's likely that their reinsurers have put red lines through this part of the the world. And then it does become a live question about, well, in the event that there is an extreme weather event that damages people's property or makes them homeless, who pays? At the moment we have a situation where we assume that insurers are going to cover part of it, but when you've got a situation nationally where they're still profitable, still returning money to the shareholders, but their costs are getting higher and they have their own in house experts now, I mean, follow the actuaries. That's right.
[00:33:21 - 00:33:23] Ilana Razbash: See where the risk sits. Follow the actuaries.
[00:33:23 - 00:33:28] Damien William: AIG employs climatologists and meteorologists now, you know, they're providing expert advice to them.
[00:33:28 - 00:34:07] Ilana Razbash: So, you know, it's a massive matter of equity really. And I think about all my wonderful neighbours that I've had the pleasure of meeting in the almost a year now that I think about it, that we've lived in this area and I think about them being able to age in place and stay in their community or their home for reasons of, insurance for reasons of. Is their city safe for them, Are their streets safe for them? Can they comfortably walk? And that's really a question, right? If we can make a street, a town, a place safe for both elderly and children, we're really covering people, we're.
[00:34:07 - 00:36:16] Damien William: Covering very much so. And I think that's where, you know, we're also going a long way towards meeting those targets that we, that we need to meet as far as reducing our emissions to zero as quickly as possible. But in doing so, to borrow a phrase from Kim Stanley Robinson that he uses in his newish novel the Ministry of the Future, he talks about a good Anthropocene. And I think we're at a moment where we can plan for a good Anthropocene or we can do nothing and watch it roll out as a shit show. And when it comes to, you know, returning to that theme of equity, I think it's really beholden on us when we have a very good idea with a high level of confidence about what the likely effects of doing nothing are going to be on people who are born today or who are too young to participate in the political process or don't have the capital to participate in the process as ratepayers, right, as owner occupiers, then equity demands that an equal weight be given to their needs. So for instance, if you have a child who's in prep this year, might be 4 or 5 years old, they'll be 31 or 32 years old in 2050, and that's probably an age at which we can say with some confidence they're probably going to be looking for a place to start a family if they want to do that. Now, I think there's a question mark that there's a question that we should be asking ourselves, which is that if we know with the level of confidence that their chances of being able to find shelter here are going to be harder, or their ability to walk the streets is going to be more difficult because of extreme weather, or that their parents will be elderly by that time will also be finding it more difficult, then if the choices we're making now are likely to result in those things, we should probably be reconsidering the choices we're making now.
[00:36:17 - 00:37:05] Ilana Razbash: That's why I'm really interested in the priorities of Zero Kingston 2030. When I first learned about them, in many ways I was a bit surprised because it's not. Many environmental groups identify urban forestry as a main strategy, identify the importance of housing as a main strategy, identify the walking city is going to be these big ideas. And architecture is very much about ideas. So I'm really loving this, this thread that it underpins everything else we're going to do because if we can get those three things right. Correct me if I've misunderstood your strategies, but if we can get those three things right, we will have a sustainable Kingston that will be adapted and adaptive for whatever's to come.
[00:37:06 - 00:39:34] Damien William: Very much so, no, that's hitting the nail right on the head. I mean, I think it's an opportunity for us to be able to plan in a way that actually makes the community healthier and wealthier by saving money from long term household running costs, and that also can at the same time overcome some of those persistent problems that we have throughout the community to do with social isolation. For example, I mean, I've not driven a car here for about the past seven years and truth be told, it's pretty shit when you don't drive a car in a place that's very much car centric and you're this far from town, there are times when you have that kind of FML moment. But the other flip side to that is that in walking around everywhere, I've made more Friends locally, just from bumping into people. And this is one of the things that, of course, urbanists have been saying for years, that one of the things that makes good cities function is the fact that you can bump into one another and that cities bring together people of diverse backgrounds and skills. And that's where you see innovation, because people have discussions like this and we come to new conclusions about things and new ideas and business opportunities and friendships start to emerge. So that's where, you know, I'm. I'm still hopeful enough to think that something better can come from this, even with the knowledge that, at least for, you know, our generation and likely for the next, that things are going to get pretty tough. So I think we can plan to mitigate against those likelihoods, even though, you know, none of us know 100% for certain what the future is going to hold. But we can say that based on the best available evidence that we can be planning for this sort of scenario and trying to create something better out of it. And without laboring the point too much. I mean, that's why I sort of prefer these days to use that phrase planning for good Anthropocene, rather than something like responding to climate change, because I think it's got to the point where that phrase now is sort of so empty or people kind of roll their eyes at it and it becomes part of that again, that background static.
[00:39:34 - 00:39:37] Ilana Razbash: Where's the tangible hope in that as well?
[00:39:37 - 00:39:38] Damien William: Yeah, yeah.
[00:39:38 - 00:40:02] Ilana Razbash: Because I think my neighbors and I can all visualize a greener street with beautiful leafy canopies when it's too hot to walk the dog along the beach, which is where I meet up with everyone and chat and say hi. So necessary, those interactions of community, because we are inextricably interconnected, we can't be separated from each other for that good future Anthropocene.
[00:40:02 - 00:40:03] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:40:03 - 00:40:18] Ilana Razbash: So how do you imagine Kingston if you closed your eyes and thought about the ideal that council adopts, the projects, the policies, the hopes. How do you see the main street? Probably Nepean Highway, I guess, is our main street.
[00:40:18 - 00:40:53] Damien William: Well, I really love what they've done in places like Lancaster, California, where they had a very similar five lane, what would you call it, four and a half, five lane thoroughfare going through the middle of town there. And a few years ago they decided to talk to the community about doing something new. And they did that in a deliberative process and spoke to some designers. And to their credit, they chose really the most daring design. And the most daring design was to put what they Call a round blast. Sort of Barcelona style ramblas down the middle, which is treed. They've moved most of the parking.
[00:40:53 - 00:41:03] Ilana Razbash: That's a big promenade. Beautiful, big open promenade with lots of people can just walk through and stalls and carts and shop vendors and skateboarders. I think they've let the skateboarders stay.
[00:41:03 - 00:42:14] Damien William: Yeah, I. I think they probably have roller skaters. It's been. They've reduced the speed limit to. I'm not quite sure the conversion, because it's American, but I think it might be 15 miles an hour or 25 miles an hour. Anyway, it's a speed that's low enough for cyclists to use it safely without the need for protected lanes. And they reduce the traffic to one lane each way. So that means that there's a slowing. When you narrow the lanes, there's a slowing effect on the traffic. And each Thursday, instead of having the parking, there's a weekly market. And so the run blast is used for stall holders. Now, that is entirely possible here. And to my surprise and also joy, I saw the other week that there's a proposal to do just that at the Frankston end of Nepean Highway. So there's a proposal to do it, I think, between where Davies Hotel is and Oliver's Hill, along that bit that kind of bends around as you head towards the peninsula. Now, if they're going to kick it off, all well and good. It's the same road. We just continue the project until it moves up to Morde Elich Creek and then hopefully beyond.
[00:42:14 - 00:42:16] Ilana Razbash: Exactly. They have their case study.
[00:42:16 - 00:42:17] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:42:17 - 00:42:25] Ilana Razbash: And Kingston actually has an open application at the moment for parklets, so hospitality businesses can get on board.
[00:42:25 - 00:42:29] Damien William: I have. Look, I have mixed feelings about parklets.
[00:42:29 - 00:42:29] Ilana Razbash: Me too.
[00:42:30 - 00:42:31] Damien William: Why do you have mixed feelings about parklets?
[00:42:32 - 00:43:08] Ilana Razbash: I'm concerned about the privatization of public space. I support the idea of parklets generally. I think there's so many businesses around where I live that would really benefit from all that space, especially in our ongoing pandemic. Outdoor dining is great options for people and it's good for business, it's good for people, it's good for the activation of the street. But I don't want to see the privatization of beaches like they have all across most of the Mediterranean in Europe happening here. So when I see that in Elwood cropping up on the beach, that makes me a bit nervous.
[00:43:09 - 00:43:10] Damien William: Well, for like beachside bars or something.
[00:43:10 - 00:43:29] Ilana Razbash: Yeah. There's beachside kiosks, beachside. And the restaurants and bars take up sand space and put up there and St Kilda too. Elbert and St Kilda have it right with marquees and umbrellas and sun chairs and lounges, but you have to buy a drink to sit at the table. So I wouldn't want to see that on the shore.
[00:43:29 - 00:44:54] Damien William: But no, no, it's something that's actually been underpinned by some research at UNSW. They were looking at this issue of transforming car parking. And in this particular project the team there decided to essentially sit some officers or bureaucrats of some kind on the car park and see what people's responses to it were. And to their surprise, rather than, I don't know what the hypothesis was, but it was something along the lines that the researchers hypothesized that people would respond well to this idea of them moving people out of buildings, in other words, that could be repurposed and then out into the open, essentially just working outside. And it was not liked and for exactly the reason that you talk about it was perceived as being the privatization of space. But then when they did the follow up and instead converted it just to green open space that anybody could use, like for example, the pop up outside the Sun Theatre in Yarraville, it was much more widely accepted. And I mean, to return to that thing we talked about earlier about, you know, strategic land use, when you look at the parklets in town, for example, after closing time, they're just strewn with leaves. No one uses them because they're perceived as private space.
[00:44:56 - 00:44:58] Ilana Razbash: People don't feel invited to come there.
[00:44:58 - 00:45:00] Damien William: Yeah, they put a picket fence around it.
[00:45:00 - 00:45:04] Ilana Razbash: And if it was public space, you could get your coffee take away and sit there.
[00:45:04 - 00:45:04] Damien William: That's it.
[00:45:04 - 00:45:23] Ilana Razbash: You could get a meal takeaway and sit there and still use it. Yeah, around the clock, 24 hours. Yeah, but it's an interesting conversation, interesting question about what is it that we do give space to in a city and how much space we give to one car usually occupied by one person versus me and 20 of my friends in the parklet.
[00:45:24 - 00:46:54] Damien William: Well, I mean, in that bit of public green, maybe there is, maybe it is time to offer a more critical response to parklets because, I mean, it occurs to me that in one sense they could be interpreted as ring fencing space for cars. It's not actually about ring fencing space for people. I think if we were serious about streets for people, then we wouldn't kind of go halfway. Like City of Melbourne's been having trouble with some of its one way streets, as I'm sure you're aware, where they've been designated shared spaces. But the drivers don't recognise people walking down them. They still see it as their space. And that's going to come down to also the charge that we put on that kind of land use as well. The idea that one can park the most polluting, the most dangerous, the most expensive and the most inefficient form of urban transport on a finite piece of land for free is nuts. You know, if you had a Martian who landed here and you tried to explain that to them, and then you explain that the really efficient piece of transport that runs up and down the rail costs you money, they'd look at you like you had three heads and say, I might just go back to where I came from. Thanks. This doesn't make any sense. You park the thing that sits still for 97% of the time and that depreciates in value 30% every year. And you do that for free.
[00:46:55 - 00:47:02] Ilana Razbash: And you could only do that for part of your Life. Yeah, over 18. If you can afford to own the car in this economy.
[00:47:03 - 00:47:05] Damien William: That's right, yeah.
[00:47:05 - 00:47:15] Ilana Razbash: Or your parents car. If you can beg to borrow it and not scratch it up. Or for as long as you're able to drive, which for many people comes earlier than they expected.
[00:47:15 - 00:47:16] Damien William: Or if you don't choose to.
[00:47:16 - 00:47:22] Ilana Razbash: If you don't choose to. Exactly. You should be able to stay in your community and stay connected.
[00:47:23 - 00:48:42] Damien William: Yeah, yeah. And look, and that's where I think in that process of making a lot of these familiar things unfamiliar, that's where I get a lot of consolation from history. Because, you know, historically you can find good evidence, even just in photographs of this area where you can see that streets were for people. And really until that period of the 1960s when a car became affordable for people on a working class wage, the price dropped to the point where it was equivalent to about a quarter of the yearly income of a working male in Australia. That's when car ownership becomes normalised and then we start to design, or we planning authorities design streets around those cars. Now that's in the history of cities, that's a relatively short space of time. But of course in living memory for people that perhaps born at that time, it's completely normal. So there's a job to do in sort of making the familiar unfamiliar. But I think that's possible. We've done it before with things like smoking, the introduction of seat belts and a range of other things that we sort of, we take as being normal. So I think it's possible, possible here too.
[00:48:43 - 00:49:00] Ilana Razbash: And those examples you brought are actually brought in for the Benefit for the well being of the public, for the health of the public, which a cleaner, fresher, greener, safer, more walkable city, arguably is a massive public health issue.
[00:49:01 - 00:49:49] Damien William: Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, perhaps someone would say that the. The major difference with, with cars is that car culture successfully sells the idea of individual freedom. And that's really what you're buying with that. And I think it's going to be sort of turning the notion of freedom around and, you know, considering Sol Griffith's work that we've got here in front of us, it's going to be freedom from the increasing costs that will come from running those things, whether they are electric or whether they are internal combustion and a way of, you know, talking about electric vehicles in particular as being public or, you know, in the Dutch style.
[00:49:49 - 00:49:50] Ilana Razbash: Car shares.
[00:49:50 - 00:50:07] Damien William: Car shares, exactly right, Yep. So more of that sharing economy. Or even, you know, those wonderful cargo bikes, which, you know, probably the most efficient form of urban transport and an entirely possible option in an area that, I mean, where's the nearest mountain?
[00:50:08 - 00:50:09] Ilana Razbash: Oliver's Hill, if you can count it.
[00:50:10 - 00:50:12] Damien William: There you go. So it's a very flat. It's a very bikable place.
[00:50:13 - 00:50:14] Ilana Razbash: Very, very bikable.
[00:50:14 - 00:50:15] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:50:15 - 00:50:19] Ilana Razbash: We're lucky to have walking trails, but in a way that they don't necessarily connect.
[00:50:19 - 00:50:20] Damien William: Yeah.
[00:50:21 - 00:51:29] Ilana Razbash: When you said there was freedom, it's really interesting, powerful imagery. I think for most people, in many ways it can really galvanize a movement, a community. And you said that word in my mind instantly, I thought of a forest. I don't think of a car as my freedom. I joke that my bike is my freedom machine, but I thought of a forest. I thought of going for a hike, being in nature, having the time to immerse myself in green space and that I work in the city, I studied in the city. And in those university years, when we got a moment for a break, we would go outside, lie down on the green lawn of the state library, look up, have the sun on us, especially in the middle of winter. And it was connecting to that green space that made us feel that we were on country, that we were part of something bigger than just a building or a university gave us that air. So it's very interesting bit of imagery. I think people don't consider that something they think frees them may actually entrap them.
[00:51:30 - 00:51:52] Damien William: True. I mean, I've heard that part of the appeal of manicured lawns is that it taps into our ancestral practice of domesticating animals and that it's the presence of Grazing animals, that gives us comfort because of course, there's a source of protein for us from that period.
[00:51:54 - 00:51:56] Ilana Razbash: We haven't changed much, have we? Goodness.
[00:51:59 - 00:53:11] Damien William: When I think about my late paternal grandfather who was a sometime farmer and kept an incredibly neat lawn, I do sometimes wonder whether that theory perhaps holds true. Although he didn't raise animals, he grew crops. There is something very neat about places that you see in rural communities. For whatever reason, but to return to the theme about trees and open space, there's often an assumption made about people that live in ordinary communities. And this historically is an ordinary community. You know, I've myself heard, you know, advisors to some very senior government ministers, for example, refer disparagingly to places like this, this far from the cbd as being places of, quote, low information people. And it betrays a kind of mindset, I think, that plays into the notion that working class people, ordinary people, don't appreciate greenery. You know, it assumes that what they want is a car park.
[00:53:11 - 00:53:13] Ilana Razbash: Deeply unjust statement.
[00:53:13 - 00:55:18] Damien William: It is, and it's, it's evident, I think, or I should say sorry, that the assumption is reinforced whenever these sorts of issues get raised in public forums or these days, usually on social media. And if you, you know, if you want to really rile people up, it will be to make a suggestion to remove car parking. Because like we talked about, people associate that with freedom. And also a driver has a perception that is very narrow, very limited to them wanting to get that spot by the front door. And if they don't get the spot by the front door, then they reach the conclusion that there's a shortage of car parks. There's not a shortage of car parks. There was just a high demand at the time you wanted to get to the front door. Right. And so the way that it begins to sort of become a self perpetuating conclusion in communities like this is because the response reinforces the assumption. And the assumption is often what political actors carry into office. But what changes that is when you sit down with people and start to have a conversation with them that begins with a question such as, how do you feel when you walk down the street? And I've done this with people around here and they will tell you when they're given that opportunity to say, I feel agitated, I feel stressed, I feel like I'm on alert all the time, I don't want to stay here. It gets treated like a drive through, therefore you behave like a drive through. And then when you show them a picture, say of St Kilda Boulevard or, you know, an Area of the gardens. How do you feel when you're in an environment like this? I feel calm. I want to bring my friends here, you know, so that's where perhaps a more deliberative engagement on these sorts of questions can be very useful. But that, that threatens people that come through into office, into political positions with a range of assumptions like we just discussed. So there's.
[00:55:20 - 00:55:42] Ilana Razbash: You've recently been providing feedback on the 20 minute city, the 20 minute walkable city plan for Kingston. And really what that means is you can work, you can live, you can play, you can meet all your basic needs in a 20 minute round trip by foot. How incredible would that be for it to come to fruition here?
[00:55:42 - 00:56:37] Damien William: Oh, it'd be great. I mean, I mean to clarify, I wasn't actually providing feedback on that. Is it the walking and cycling strategy you're talking about? But I did sort of talk to it in that submission on housing and that that might be the one you're referring to. I agree. I think it would be great. I mean, in some ways I think it's unfortunate that 20 Minute City has become pejorative because of the criticisms and backlash that there's been getting, famously from places like Oxford where they sort of refer to as a 15 minute city. And then it's become an issue in places like Alberta, Canada, which has just had recent provincial elections. They've returned a very conservative premier there who's, who's very, very much opposed to these sorts of interventions and is a drill baby, drill kind of politician.
[00:56:37 - 00:56:45] Ilana Razbash: To clarify, the majority of this intervention is really to let people walk places comfortably and have mixed use development and.
[00:56:45 - 00:57:26] Damien William: That threatens people who have a conspiratorial view that's been, that's been massaged and exacerbated by their experience of the COVID lockdowns. So look, personally I would tend to avoid the use of the term 20 minute city. Although the philosophy I think of walkability is what I prefer. I mean, look, really if I was pushed, I think the idea that I really love the most is the concept of designing streets for people. I think that borrows more from perhaps the Dutch example. You know, that didn't come about naturally. There's people here you can mention that to and they'll say, oh, but they're a different culture over there. No they're not. They just made different planning choices.
[00:57:27 - 00:57:27] Ilana Razbash: Everything's a decision.
[00:57:28 - 00:57:28] Damien William: Everything's a decision.
[00:57:28 - 00:57:29] Ilana Razbash: It's about priorities.
[00:57:29 - 00:58:24] Damien William: Yep. And it also took activism because you know, in the 70s when they had those terrible cases of kids Being hit by cars on the road, it was, it galvanised the political movement. They did the car free Sundays, it rolled up. There was also the oil crisis too, which I guess similar to our experience, pushed energy prices right up. But their response to it in designing streets for people is based around the idea that you still have car traffic and car transport. It's just that cars are treated as guests. And I think for me that's the sort of philosophy I'd like to roll with here where, yes, there's a need because, you know, particularly when you think about it from an all abilities perspective, there's people who just physically can't get out by foot or by bike or wheelchairs. They need a car and that's fine, but it's just that we start treating them as guests and put people of all ages and abilities first and then I think we'll have a really lovely place to live.
[00:58:25 - 00:58:28] Ilana Razbash: Absolutely. So what gives you hope for the future?
[00:58:30 - 00:59:34] Damien William: Well, when I see places like Park Life, see what is being done with the built environment there, and reading Sol Griffith's work, I think he clearly sets out how you can achieve a zero emissions future for Australia with technology that's already here. And I think the other thing that gives me a sense of hope is the prospect of us being able to jettison some of the elements of our economics and our political systems that have got us to this point in time. It's not necessarily going to take much. I think there's a great amount of fear amongst some people about the prospect of change. But I think we can do that without a great deal of disruption and come up with something that will be much better than doing nothing at all.
[00:59:35 - 00:59:41] Ilana Razbash: It's imagining our future with the tools we already have, the simple things we already know.
[00:59:41 - 00:59:42] Damien William: Really very much so, yeah.
[00:59:42 - 00:59:45] Ilana Razbash: Thank you so much for joining me tonight, Damien, it's been a pleasure.
[00:59:45 - 00:59:47] Damien William: It's been fantastic. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
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2 | June 14, 2023
Rachel Iampolski on placemaking, tactical urbanism & running for government
Rachel Iampolski is a researcher, creative producer and higher education professional interested in the design and governance of more spatially just cities. Rachel is completing a PhD in urban geography at the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University where she also teaches in the Planning faculty.
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Rachel Iampolski on placemaking, tactical urbanism & running for government
[00:00:07 - 00:00:54] Radio Carrum Sponsor Announcement
[00:01:09 - 00:03:20] Ilana Razbash: I'm Ilana Razbash and this is Radio Architecture.
[00:01:09 - 00:03:20] Ilana Razbash: I'm Ilana Razbash and this is Radio Architecture.
Good evening from beautiful Bunurong country and welcome back for another episode of Radio Architecture with Ilana Razbash. We are broadcasting to you live from the Karrum Karrum Swamp on Beautiful Bunurong country tonight. My guest this evening is Rachel Iampolski and I'd also like to acknowledge the traditional lands on which she does most of her research. That's the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country of the Eastern Kulin Nations. Rachel is a researcher, creative producer and higher education professional interested in the design and governance of more spatially just cities. Rachel is completing a PhD in urban geography at the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University where she also teaches in the Planning faculty. She recently contributed writing and commentary to key publications and forums including the Conversation, ABC Radio Planning News and the Festival of Urbanism. Rachel presently works in the Community Engaged Learning in Community Engaged Learning and Research space while also running her own tactical placemaking platform Public Street. She is a representative for the Australian Cities Research Network, an early career Advisor of Public Space for the UNESCO partner organization City Space Architecture and a founding member of the alliance for Praxis Research. She is experienced in both bottom up and top down styles of governance, but believes in the power of a mode that sits between both these approaches with a focus on evidence based future, future focused and socially just policy making. Rachel was the Greens candidate For the Victorian 2022 state elections for the District of Caulfield. Welcome Rachel, thanks so much for joining me.
[00:03:20 - 00:03:21] Rachel Iampolski: Thank you. Looking forward to it.
[00:03:22 - 00:03:29] Ilana Razbash: Well, the first question I ask all my guests is what's your earliest memory of a building or place?
[00:03:29 - 00:04:31] Rachel Iampolski: Yep, I think my earliest memory would be the stairwell of the apartment that I was born in or grew up in, which was a classic 60s brick three story apartment block in Caulfield. It was one bedroom and I we lived there. It was me, my parents and then later my brother and my mom's students because she was a tutor. All in one bedroom apartment anyway. But I don't remember the apartment that well but I remember the stairwell vividly to the apartment. It was terrazzo marble. I would assume faux. Looking back at it now, but I didn't know the difference of time. I remember it was, you know, had all these specks in it, and I just. Yeah, it was white with orange and red and brown terrazzo specks. And I remember sometimes pretending to have fallen asleep in the car because I didn't want to walk the three flights up. So, like, if I pretend I'm asleep, my dad would carry me into the house. It was the apartment. And so I remember pretending to be asleep as he's carrying me. Looking down and seeing the terrazzo marble.
[00:04:31 - 00:04:34] Ilana Razbash: Stairs out of the corner of your eye. Just jiggly.
[00:04:34 - 00:04:38] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. So I would assume somewhere, like somewhere around 2 or 3. Yep.
[00:04:38 - 00:04:42] Ilana Razbash: It's super popular now as well. People would die for that. Terrazzo.
[00:04:42 - 00:04:43] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly. Yep.
[00:04:44 - 00:04:47] Ilana Razbash: So, interesting you mentioned the stair is your first memory.
[00:04:47 - 00:04:48] Rachel Iampolski: Yep.
[00:04:48 - 00:04:53] Ilana Razbash: Because you do research and your PhD at the moment is largely on liminal spaces.
[00:04:53 - 00:04:55] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Didn't even make that connection. That's a good point. Point.
[00:04:55 - 00:05:03] Ilana Razbash: And the staircase. Yeah, it's a liminal space. What does liminality mean? What is a liminal space?
[00:05:03 - 00:06:19] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, great question. So liminality is just basically a concept that refers to something that is in between things. So, you know, people talk about the liminal space as a concept. You know, people be like, oh, I'm. Maybe I'm sitting in this kind of liminal space while I'm waiting to find out whether my visa got approved or something like that. We're not quite in one country or another. And then, of course, it can also refer to physical spaces, so stairwells as being the in between in an apartment block as being the in between space. If you have your apartment and your private sphere as one space and the outside world, the street, as another. Kind of very obviously understood registered space. The liminal space was. Would be the one in between, I. E. The stairwell or, you know, the entryway, et cetera. So I think these are these kind of. When you start paying attention, they're all around us, but they only really exist conceptually if we have an idea of what is considered space and what isn't considered space. And so if we have this, you know, if we can register the street as a space, we can register our apartment as a space. But for some reason, we don't register the stairwell as a space. It therefore falls into this liminal category. But if you viewed the stairwell as a space, it wouldn't technically be a liminal space, would it?
[00:06:19 - 00:06:28] Ilana Razbash: So we have a couple More definitions to tease out there, I think, for tonight's listeners as well. But a balcony is also a liminal space, right?
[00:06:28 - 00:06:52] Rachel Iampolski: Well, no, so that's an interesting one. I would consider personally a balcony, a threshold space because it sits halfway between the public realm and the private realm, which is that it sits between your apartment and the street. However, if you're viewing it from the street, the balcony, you might view that as a liminal space because you're not quite looking into someone's apartment, but you're not quite looking at the street either. I think that makes sense.
[00:06:52 - 00:07:00] Ilana Razbash: Oh, totally. I think in the last few years we definitely all felt and learned the importance of these in between spaces.
[00:07:00 - 00:07:00] Rachel Iampolski: Yes.
[00:07:00 - 00:07:20] Ilana Razbash: Half inside, half outside. Where can I get fresh air when I can't leave my house? Where can I sit when I'm not feeling well? These inside, outside moments. So then what constitutes the difference between a space and a place? And often, particularly in your research circles. I know it's quite a complicated question.
[00:07:20 - 00:07:20] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:07:21 - 00:07:28] Ilana Razbash: Maybe I might offer my, my thought on it and you tell me how that, how that sits in your, in your research.
[00:07:28 - 00:08:16] Rachel Iampolski: Yep, I think so. A space. You know, the commonly accepted definition of how of a space versus place is that a space is purely the physical constraints. Like it's, it's purely the physical four walls of a room or a physical landscape or. Etc. Whereas a place is what happens when that space, a physical space is activated by people, by memories or by associations you hold. And that's when it sort of transitions from a space into place. So really spaces, you know, with. Sans people, with our people, or the impact that people have had, the legacy, even if they're not physically in the space at the time. So, yeah, that. I think that would probably be the most common working definition, if you will.
[00:08:16 - 00:08:22] Ilana Razbash: That's definitely how I've always thought about A space becomes a place when people bring their life.
[00:08:23 - 00:08:23] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:08:23 - 00:08:34] Ilana Razbash: And their energy and their passions and their activation. And maybe this idea of. Then these places have memories and an intangible cultural heritage.
[00:08:35 - 00:09:00] Rachel Iampolski: Absolutely. And, and those things don't have to be positive. Right. It could be, you know, you can, you can have a negative memory of a place, of a space, of a building, for example, and in your mind it's therefore now a place because you've associated negative memory, even if it's derelict, like it feels like there's no people around, but there's a feeling that you as a person have now assigned to it. It's sort of turned into a place, if you will.
[00:09:00 - 00:09:02] Ilana Razbash: It transforms with our Memories, Exactly.
[00:09:02 - 00:09:27] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. With our memories. Associations. Exactly. So some people, some, if you like, not to get too academic about it, but there are some academic theories that would like some of the foundational theories in research that look at this topic that would say place is purely space, just viewed through the lens of a person, if that makes sense. So when you put it through a human lens, that's when it becomes a place.
[00:09:27 - 00:09:47] Ilana Razbash: I think I really felt that when I went traveling before the pandemic and I was in Japan and I went into those tiny little bars in Kabukicho that like only five people. And I truly experienced that definition because as an architect, I walk around cities and buildings, constantly looking at it.
[00:09:47 - 00:09:47] Rachel Iampolski: Yes.
[00:09:47 - 00:09:49] Ilana Razbash: Constantly looking at. As a building, as an object.
[00:09:50 - 00:09:51] Rachel Iampolski: As design.
[00:09:51 - 00:10:17] Ilana Razbash: As design. Yep. And then sometimes when you travel and you change your mindset, you say, oh, today I'm not looking at the greatest building in the world today. I want to feel what it's like to be in one of the most famous rooms in the world. And I had that moment and I was in one of these bars, very fortunately, because I was with a Japanese language speaker where it was members only, basically.
[00:10:17 - 00:10:18] Rachel Iampolski: Yep.
[00:10:18 - 00:10:46] Ilana Razbash: And I got to feel what it was like in one of those really unique rooms where everyone knew each other and they were there because of their cultural interests. They were all music musicians and writers and poets. And that's when that definition became so. So black and white for me. So then part of your work is Praxis, alliance for Praxis Research. And Praxis is the. The practical manifestation of theories and ideas.
[00:10:46 - 00:10:47] Rachel Iampolski: Yep.
[00:10:48 - 00:11:09] Ilana Razbash: Along with that and your work with Public street, your organization, you're really interested in place making, and you've had some really fantastic installations and activations, most recently at the Queen Victorian Market, if anyone was lucky to pop by and see it. Biorhythm. Yeah, biorhythm. With beautiful light and sound.
[00:11:10 - 00:11:12] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Immersive plant sculpture.
[00:11:12 - 00:11:51] Ilana Razbash: Yep, exactly right. So I wanted to ask about what is the importance of actively doing place making work and deciding that that is necessary. And I also am curious as to where does that come for you in the process? Is that placemaking that happens before a building is built? Do you think that's important or do you think placemaking is, in many ways, has been a remedial effort for you, that there's been a situation in a city and you've. And it's not quite right or in a suburb or a local area, and you had to come in and fix it up. So tell us, tell us about place making.
[00:11:51 - 00:12:26] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, great question. I think for me, definitely the way I view it anyway, and that's just from my personal, professional lens. But there's. That's not to say it's the only way you can approach placemaking, certainly, but for me, definitely does come from the remedial lens. I think when it is used as a tool in the design phase, it's more in that sense, it's more just about human informed design principles rather than specifically place making. And that should be the goal in general. Like, that should be the golden standard we're aiming for.
[00:12:26 - 00:12:28] Ilana Razbash: I certainly think so. I believe buildings are for people.
[00:12:28 - 00:12:39] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly. And so that's like when people talk about place making being built from the ground up, I'm like, well, I don't know if that's really place making or that's just good design at that point. Do you know what I mean?
[00:12:39 - 00:12:41] Ilana Razbash: That's a really interesting critique.
[00:12:41 - 00:14:26] Rachel Iampolski: So for me, I'm more interested in it as in that remedial sense. Okay. We've got the built forms that we have, and they're not serving us the way that they should be. So that's when I think place making is a really interesting tool to come in and play around with that and find ways to improve it. And I'm also really interested in it as an advocacy tool as well. So I think, to me, it's hugely important. I think placemaking has sort of where, you know, the origins of placemaking are contentious because some people say, well, what, you're just describing good design, or you're just describing landscape architecture, or you're just describing human informed design thinking. Like, what. What about this is placement? Like, where's that delineation? And that's, you know, that's valid critique. I'm not arguing, but I think for me, placemaking has come about as a prominent movement now distinctly as a result of gaps in design thinking and design outcomes. And I say design in the broader sense. I don't just mean architectural policy as well. Policy, policy, governance. Exactly right. Urban planning, design, landscape infrastructure. Exactly. All of it. Just generally how we design the environments that we live in, in the broader sense of the word, from all facets. And so there's so many holes in that process and there's so many conflicting forces that have other agendas than just good livable outcomes for people. And as a result, I think. And people feel that. People feel the impacts of that. And place making, I think, has come around so prominently as a result of that. Are people trying to be like, okay, how can we remedy These, what are other things, things we can be doing. It's almost like an instinct, you know, it's almost like a instinctual sort of knee jerk reaction to that outcome.
[00:14:26 - 00:14:37] Ilana Razbash: Well, it's sort of like when the. If the instinct hasn't quite worked, if the creation of the space hasn't been intuitive enough to. Or consultative enough.
[00:14:37 - 00:14:37] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:14:37 - 00:14:44] Ilana Razbash: Co designed enough to lead and spur on the use and enjoyment and life in that space.
[00:14:44 - 00:14:45] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, place.
[00:14:45 - 00:14:50] Ilana Razbash: Place making helps reinject it. You're like, yeah, you're the kombucha starter.
[00:14:50 - 00:16:14] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly, absolutely. And so that's why for me I do see it and where the space I'm interested in is that remedial space. However, I think, you know, the principles that can be learned from how it's used remedially should absolutely then be used for when it's ground up design. You know, we can learn a lot of lessons from placemaking and also from tactical urbanism, which is essentially place making but led by citizens. So really informally, very lo fi interventions largely out of necessity, like people painting, you know, pedestrian crossings onto the road where there isn't one, for example. That's usually what tactical urbanism is. And so I think the instinct for why we want it and the kind of design principles that people play around with when they do it I think are really useful learnings for improving design when you're doing from the ground up. But yeah, largely I see it as remedial and, and I'm also really interested in it as an advocacy tool because if you're only ever doing it at the citizen level or at this sort of filling in the gaps level, you're not really achieving structural change. And so I think any place making you do, not any, but when you do successful placemaking projects, you should be trying to push those as examples, as case studies to advocate for those better design principles in the first place, including through to government, which is sort of how I ended up increasingly in the political space, because I was like, well, it needs to come from both ends.
[00:16:14 - 00:16:49] Ilana Razbash: But yeah, so you ran for local government and for state government. And I really, I really admire that because I listened. It was a conversation many moons ago I had heard and a prominent scientist and science communicator was being interviewed on the radio, I think, and they were saying, oh, why'd you do this? Why'd you run for the Senate? He didn't get in. And he said, because good people with expertise in this field that we care about have to go in and have to go forward and put our hat in the ring. So congratulations on putting your hand in the ring. And you had a bit of an upswing actually, didn't you?
[00:16:49 - 00:17:47] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, I think, yeah, I got a little increase from the previous one from, you know, previous election, which was great and you know, was running in a seat that's been held by the Liberals for all 70 years since its inception. So I knew it's. Realistically, you know, it's. I'm not. We knew we're not going to win, but that's not why we were running. We were running exactly for the reasons you were saying and that, you know, it's about spotlighting the issues that you care about and sort of creating very slow groundswell with sort of this longer vision in mind. Many, many elections away, realistically, until we're seeing the kind of change we want to see. But, but you know, you have to start somewhere and. Yeah, exactly. Right. I kind of would describe myself as a reluctant candidate in that I never wanted to run, I still don't wanna run, but I felt like I had no choice, you know, so like, if you, if you wanna see the kind of stuff you wanna see being talked about and spotlighted and people have an option to tick it on a ballot, you need to put that onto a ballot.
[00:17:48 - 00:17:55] Ilana Razbash: Absolutely. And you also contributed to policy writing, so you've been absolutely in the thick of the political process.
[00:17:55 - 00:19:08] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly. And so I think it's, it's not a place I ever saw myself. I saw myself very much as a behind the scenes person and a creative person. So this was a complete 180 for me. And I still don't quite understand how it happened or that it happened. I'm still shocked by it because it feels really unnatural to me, but at the same time, natural at the same time because I, you know, talk a lot about spatial justice, I talk a lot about the design of more equitable cities. And, and I've always thought about it from a bottom up perspective, from like a citizen led grassroots perspective. And that's only as important as that is. And I will always be fighting in that space. I think it just, the outcome is going to be when the top down and the bottom up meet in the middle. And I was like, I'm not seeing the sort of progress that I want to be seeing from the government sphere. So, you know, why not just get amongst it basically? Yeah. So I think, yeah, it was sort of. It was, it was. I never saw it coming. But looking back in hindsight, it makes sense how I've ended up here. Because if you're talking about justice, be it spatially or otherwise. You're talking about law, you're talking about policy, talking about government. So yeah, there's no way around it, unfortunately.
[00:19:08 - 00:19:17] Ilana Razbash: Design and architecture has so many intersections with all that. Yeah, architecture in many ways is everything. That's why we talk about these topics. That's why.
[00:19:17 - 00:19:18] Rachel Iampolski: Yes, absolutely.
[00:19:18 - 00:19:52] Ilana Razbash: Interesting multidisciplinary guests two weeks in a row so far. They're interested in many, many things. I do want to give out the text number tonight if any guests want to text in and have any questions for you. The number is 0493-21-3831. So give us a text in the studio. Don't call us, just text us if you'd like to ask Rachel or contribute anything to the conversation. I'm also wondering, someone's listening at home tonight and they're thinking about, I might run for government. I might go for council, might give it a go. What would you say to them?
[00:19:52 - 00:22:21] Rachel Iampolski: I say do it. I'd say absolutely do it. No, no. But all jokes aside, I would, I would say do it. I would really say do it. I think there's so many. I completely understand why it's intimidating, but people really get amongst you people, even if they don't necessarily align with your political beliefs, you know, etc, they're overall really supportive of people to put their hand up. And there is a lot of infrastructure in place, a lot of support in place for first time candidates. There's lots of programs specifically for women running, for young people running, people of color running. There's lots of, if you fit any of that criteria, there's lots of programs and there's also lots of programs through the Municipal association of Victoria, which is sort of the peak body for government, local government. They have lots of classes you can attend and they'll all be ramping up in the lead up to an election, which the local government is in October of next year. So there's still some time. So if you're anxious from that perspective, particularly if you're running as independent and don't have party backing, there's loads of infrastructure in place and even if you don't win, you learn so much, you get connected with your community, you have the most interesting conversations with people, you challenge yourself on a personal level obviously as well. So I think there's, there's immense value in running if you're running with the right intentions and you're running with passion in mind, with, with passion for your community mind and good outcomes in mind. As I said like winning is not the only metrics by which I think you can consider a campaign successful. It's about, like I said, starting that slow groundswell, having conversations with people and having an option for people on a ballot that's significant in itself. So even if you want to run just for that and for the experience of it, that's still really successful, even if you're not getting necessarily the votes you're after and you'll end up, I guarantee if you do it, so many opportunities will come from it as well because you're sort of now connected in the community and people know your face and your number now and you're going to get calls, I guarantee, for better or for worse. So I still have people sometimes emailing me asking about, you know, if I can do anything about the bins. The day the bins are being picked up from when I did local council elections in 2020. And I'm like, honey, I didn't get in. But they remember you and they're like, oh, you know, you're a candid. Can you do something about the bins? So anyway, God bless. But, but people will message for all kinds of things. So, you know, it's a really valuable experience.
[00:22:21 - 00:22:29] Ilana Razbash: That's really good advice and I hope somebody who's been sitting on the fence or, yeah, itchy on the edge of their chair just takes the plunge and goes for it.
[00:22:29 - 00:22:57] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. And I think I had the real. I really thought, oh, well, who am I to run? You know, I'm not sort of a middle aged white man with a background in law and small business, like the classic image you have in your mind of a politician. And then I looked up the rules of, you know, how to be eligible to run and you have to be over 18, register to vote, registered to vote in the municipality that you're running and not been to jail in the last five years. And essentially, if you've met those criteria, you're good to go.
[00:22:57 - 00:22:59] Ilana Razbash: Be the change you want to see.
[00:22:59 - 00:23:12] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. So there's really, there's no, like, you're, you're suitable if you think you're, if you want to do it, that's enough to be suitable to do it, basically. So, yeah, I would encourage anyone to do it that's listening.
[00:23:12 - 00:23:17] Ilana Razbash: Go for it. Yeah, go for it, dear listeners. Yeah, get on board or at least.
[00:23:18 - 00:23:35] Rachel Iampolski: Attend training and get, get a sense of what's involved. You know, look up the Municipal association of Victoria's training, go along to a workshop or webinar they host. You know, get a taste for it at least. So you see what you think before you commit, because you don't have to commit formally on paper till like the 11th hour before the election. So you got lots of time.
[00:23:35 - 00:23:41] Ilana Razbash: I think that's really important information as well, because people don't often know that. Is that accessible?
[00:23:41 - 00:23:43] Rachel Iampolski: Is it super accessible? Exactly.
[00:23:43 - 00:23:47] Ilana Razbash: That the political process is actually there for their participation.
[00:23:47 - 00:23:48] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:23:48 - 00:23:50] Ilana Razbash: Democracy is there for your participation.
[00:23:50 - 00:23:51] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:23:51 - 00:24:11] Ilana Razbash: And while we're on the topic, everyone should start gearing up to learn about and talk about the upcoming referendum for indigenous recognition in the Constitution. While we have touched on the topic of the democratic process because it is a privilege, but very much a right and got to be involved in it at the very least, please vote.
[00:24:11 - 00:24:11] Rachel Iampolski: Yep.
[00:24:12 - 00:24:51] Ilana Razbash: But there's so many people in our local community here in Kingston who are very passionate about this area, who are really passionate about their beachside suburbs and in more inland suburbs as well, who are getting involved in local community groups. My guest last week, Dr. Damien Williams, was the president of one of those groups. And not only would they be potentially interested in running in government and considering politics reluctantly, they also do a lot of their own grassroots place making work.
[00:24:51 - 00:24:52] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Great.
[00:24:52 - 00:25:01] Ilana Razbash: And I'm quite interested in. What's your favorite place making project or tactical urbanism project that you've recently done? Can you describe that a little bit for us?
[00:25:01 - 00:25:03] Rachel Iampolski: Oh, that I've personally recently done that.
[00:25:03 - 00:25:09] Ilana Razbash: You'Ve done either yourself with Public street or with your alliance for Practices Research Collective.
[00:25:09 - 00:26:08] Rachel Iampolski: That's a great question. I think. Well, probably the most recent one that I can think of that was really unexpectedly impactful. Like we. We sort of did it thinking it wouldn't be, you know, it was just sort of a small project we were doing on the side and it ended up being quite impactful, I guess. For. For us was. Was a project with. With the alliance of Praxis Research and Publisher was a collaboration and it was called Open Lab. It was for Melbourne Design Week of last year. And it was essentially a cupboard that we purchased off Facebook Marketplace. And it is designed to be sort of like a tactical mobile placemaking unit so people can move it around and set it up to kind of create their own sort of infrastructure for social engagement, whatever that looks like. You know, if you just.
[00:26:08 - 00:26:11] Ilana Razbash: What color was it? Can you describe the cupboard?
[00:26:11 - 00:29:30] Rachel Iampolski: The cupboard was gray and it was very old. Was very. No, so it was. Well, it was brown, but it was graying, I think from being out in the rain for so long. Someone was just throwing it away basically from. It was really easily from the 70s vinyl and. But on the inside we painted it essentially rainbow, but in waves. And we had hand tie dyed fabric that pulled out onto a hills hoist. So inside you open the cupboard and there's a hills hoist, a mobile hills hoist that you put out. It stands out and then you connect fabric across it so you kind of create shade. And there was like a pull out picnic table. There was, you know, soft furnishing, those rugs, cushions, etc. And lots of equipment to play with. And we also used it as a mobile podcasting studio. So we had people come and join us inside the space, if you will, for conversations around public space. And it was really fun because we put it in really so it looked so janky. I mean it really was very cheap. I think we did the whole thing for, I don't even know, no money at all. It was all op shopped or, or donated materials and it was very low fi. And we put it in places like Spring Street. We put a Spring street right opposite Parliament. We actually had to get a permit to put it in a parking bay which took months of negotiation with the city to get. And we put it on Gertrude Street. We put it in front of the art gallery. We put in these quiet, sophisticated spaces, if you will, and quite formal spaces. And it was, you know, it's a particularly great image looking at it opposite the treasury building on Spring street and people would walk past interested and confused what it was. And we had a sign saying, you know, this is for free to use. Like come on in. Like we had, we had an. A frame that sat to the side and you could, you know, but people, if we were in the space ourselves, people would come up and chat and would be so interested and would, you know, poke around and use the space. But if we left it on it attended, I. E. Left it for people to open and discover and play with. People would definitely stop and look but were really resistant to use it. Which was a super interesting learning experience about the kind of. There's sort of, I think in Australia there's. We're very good at following rules in Australia and we have a real respect of public and private space and that delineation and there's sort of this resistance of how to make spaces your own. We don't really play with, with our social infrastructure, sorry, our physical infrastructure, that much public infrastructure. And I think this was the extension of that. We were very physically, we're very. In terms of like yes, our embodied engagement with spaces were very reserved as a Culture, I think, for better or for worse. And so there was. Yeah, there was a real resistance from people. There was interest, but ultimately resistance to go ahead and use it. Because there was this perception, I guess, well, what if this is someone else's? Even though we had a big sign saying it's free to use, whereas when you saw other people using it, it sort of gave you the social license to come and engage. It was like, okay, well, this is clearly okay to use, because here are these other people using it. So it was. It was a really interesting experiment, in a way, like a playful sort of experiment in public space.
[00:29:30 - 00:29:32] Ilana Razbash: That's a very interesting observation.
[00:29:32 - 00:30:30] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. So it's on wheels, so we still have it in storage. It was recently used at Queen Vic Market, again for an event. Someone was hosting an event. There was a conference for people in the gig economy and he was interested, as a researcher from Monash, interested in using creating spaces in the city for gig workers to be able to come and rest or charge their phone or get, you know, get a hot drink. And he was. Wants to basically build a space and there's a hosting of a symposium to kick this project off and they use the open lab there as a place for people to sit. So, you know, it's. It's doing the rounds, it's getting some use, but it's. It's also very clunky and heavy to move. So we're going to try to prototype another version that's a lot smaller and lighter and can be more mobile, essentially. But, yeah, it was a very interesting experiment, but it was ironically, one of the cheapest, easiest. Most sort of didn't have much thought into it beyond just, oh, let's do this fun thing. And I think that's usually where the best outcomes come from anyway.
[00:30:30 - 00:30:32] Ilana Razbash: Yeah, there's really unexpected.
[00:30:32 - 00:30:37] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There's no pressure and that. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah.
[00:30:37 - 00:30:39] Ilana Razbash: You've done a lot of walking tours in the city as well.
[00:30:40 - 00:31:59] Rachel Iampolski: Yep. Love. I love walking tours. I just love them. I love doing derives, which is sort of this concept, this French concept of walking without purpose. I think it translates. There's no direct translation, but loosely translates to drifting. That's what I've been told. I don't speak French, but I've been told it sort of loosely translates to drifting in that you're walking with no destination in mind, no aim, you're just going for a walk and you're meant to. The concept sort of encourages you to get disorientated and walk, Walk without a destination or without Quite the geographic awareness of where you are. So that sort of allows you to disassociate from your expectations of what the city is or what the space that you're exploring is based on what you've known it to be. You can dissociate from that and sort of see it from this fresh lens, if you will. So we lead these sort of tours, we lead these derivatives where we go out with people. So that's always fun. And also, I used to. I haven't done it for a little while now. I think the pandemic slowed stuff down. But we used to do readings in public space. We used to collect to do reading groups on. On topics of public space in the public space that we're reading about. So that was always fun. But have to. Yeah, have to get back into that. I haven't done it in a little while, actually. If you want to go out reading in public space, let me know.
[00:31:59 - 00:32:05] Ilana Razbash: These. Interestingly, these are all things people in the local community can pick up themselves.
[00:32:05 - 00:32:06] Rachel Iampolski: Absolutely.
[00:32:06 - 00:32:10] Ilana Razbash: They can go for a deriv. Have you sometimes applied rules to your derivatives?
[00:32:10 - 00:34:31] Rachel Iampolski: Like. Yes, turn right every. Exactly. Because what happens is because we, the people that join in are so familiar with the city in that they're locals or have been here for a while. So we have to set rules to help with the disorientation. Right. So be like. Oh, yeah, exactly. Every time you get to an intersection, turn right if the street starts with a vowel, turn left if it starts with a consonant. Follow any smells, you know, like, follow the sound of clanging, whatever. We'd set some rules to help disorientate. And you actually end up in the weirdest spaces you've ever been. And I think so that kind of stuff is really fun. But I think in terms of place making projects that the community can get involved with, I think those kind of projects, like these walking tours or derives reading groups, are really fun for thinking about space from a new lens, exploring that topic. But if you're looking at projects that are making sort of more impact on your local community, then I. What I would really advise people to. To get their hands dirty with is tactical urbanism projects, which, like I said, are basically placemaking, but at a very low fi level and led by the community and very much with the idea of improving the outcomes of your local community and the public spaces around it. So a classic one is that people close off streets themselves. They just go out and buy. So involves the sort of infrastructure and symbols of formal sort of infrastructure building and used strategically tact you know, with, you know, specific tactics in mind by citizens. So, you know, classic ones would be high vis vests so you look formal in what you're doing. Traffic cones is a great one. Tape and paint. So really simple interventions that have that sort of credibility of big infrastructure projects. And so if you've always wanted to close off your street, for example, to car traffic, to put on a, you know, like, let's say a block party or something, and you can't be bothered going through all the permits and the whole rigmarole of going through council to do it formally, you can't just put out some witch cones.
[00:34:31 - 00:34:34] Ilana Razbash: I was going to say that is a little bit of a cheeky solution.
[00:34:34 - 00:36:56] Rachel Iampolski: It is a cheeky. And that's. And that's. But that's what tactical urbanism is, right? It is. Guerrilla urbanism is a tax. It's a cheeky and strategic intervention in place of like a very bureaucratic heavy system that limits citizens ability to actually cultivate their own local spaces. So it's like, okay, well, maybe we can go around the rules a little bit. But I guess the other caveat is that it's done in ways that have no permanent implications on spaces around them and infrastructure. Right. So you're not doing any kind of permanent damage or anything. That's not reversible. It's all temporary, it's all removable. So all it is is witches cones. You can move witches cones in a second. If someone comes along, a local laws officer, and asks you to move your witch's cones. So, you know, so you can, you can do that. Slightly more intense one is to paint onto the road if you want to paint. You know, I've seen these great ones where people are trying to slow down traffic on their local street because cars are coming down really fast, they've ridden to local council, it hasn't been actioned, etc. And people just paint circles or shapes onto this road, which naturally cause. Forces drivers to slow down because people will be like, oh, what is this? So they end up driving a bit slower. And so, so they've kind of taken making their street safer into their own hands. So there's lots of interventions you can do. And if it's something you're interested in and you're listening, I'd recommend googling tactical urbanism examples and seeing there's so many great ones from all over the world and they're just really simple and easy ways to do it. And I think if, yeah, if there's. If you've ever walked past this space and thought, oh, gee whiz, wouldn't it be better if it was like this? Or you could access this, or this was closed off or whatever. There's probably a way you can try and do it yourself, at least for the day. It won't be permanent, but you can get away with it for a day, maybe. And if you do it, I would recommend, depending on the legality of it, taking photos and sending it to your counselor, being like, look how great this outcome was. We closed the street and we had all this intervention, all this activation, so we had kids playing street, whatever. Can you think. Can you think about doing this in a more permanent way? And that's where I see place making and tackle urbanism as a. As an advocacy tool. If you're sort of, then taking these good examples, good outcome examples up to your relevant government authority. Yeah.
[00:36:56 - 00:36:59] Ilana Razbash: Is a test. A test scheme?
[00:36:59 - 00:37:02] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Just casually inviting your listeners to do crime.
[00:37:02 - 00:37:07] Ilana Razbash: But I should note that there are very much plenty of permits mechanisms.
[00:37:07 - 00:37:13] Rachel Iampolski: No, there are. And there are formal ways, of course, if you've got the time and energy there, do the formal route, of course, but if you don't.
[00:37:14 - 00:37:30] Ilana Razbash: And at the moment there's also. We touched on this last week with my guest, but there is an open application process with the City of Kingston for parklets. And the thing about this application in particular is that it's to hospitality businesses only.
[00:37:31 - 00:37:31] Rachel Iampolski: Gotcha.
[00:37:32 - 00:38:10] Ilana Razbash: So if you're a shopkeeper on the street and if you're not a hospitality business, you can't apply for it, that permit, as far as I understand it. So what are some recommendations you can make to hospitality businesses looking at designing their parklets to be a bit more open, to be a bit more inviting, a bit more democratic if. When the. When the store is closed to encourage people to use it or to encourage people to stay longer. Can. Can you make any suggestions to. To improve the. The civic quality of parklands? Because they're complicated. They can. They're definitely contentious, definitely.
[00:38:11 - 00:40:03] Rachel Iampolski: So I think greenery is a big one, particularly if you can get away, if you've got the budget for it, for real greenery. Like, if you can put. If you have the budget for inbuilt planters on the periphery of the parklet? I think it's really great just visually. And then likewise, I think I see a lot of parklets that have thought about the interior, but haven't really thought about the exterior, and it's just the exposed timber. So if you've got any capacity to offer any Kind of, you know, visual application to the outside, even if it's just a lick of paint, you know what I mean? And then likewise, I think to go to the topic of how to have to get the most function out of it, even when your business is closed. For example, if it's a cafe, you know, how. How can people use it after 4 o' clock when the cafe closes is I think, inbuilt furniture. So rather than the temporary, rather than the restaurant furniture that you pull out every morning and take away every afternoon, if you can have inbuilt furniture in the park, or at least some of it, like sort of bank seating on the periphery and then you bring out tables, that. That's a great one. And I think also visual diversity is. Is important like that there's. It's not just one homogenous design or shape play around with the heights of the seating or the colors of the seating or the fabric. You know, just some. Something visually to break it up and create a bit of intrigue when people walk past. And if there's again any capacity, I think also. And again, this obviously depends on permits and where you're on the street to basically reduce. To bring some kind of canopy or something that sort of sits overhead, even if that's just a row of fairy lights or just, you know, two sort of, I don't know the architectural terms, but two, you know, rows of timber that creates sort of a bit of a.
[00:40:03 - 00:40:04] Ilana Razbash: Like an arbori.
[00:40:04 - 00:40:44] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly, yeah. You know, something like that. This obviously has to be, you know, structurally, structurally sound and, and survive the elements. But something that creates a little bit of quasi ceiling, if you will, I think is really important for human scale people like that. The ceiling feels like it's there. Like it's there basically. Especially if you're in a street with really tall buildings either side, the human scale gets really warped and you feel really small and therefore not very comfortable on the street. So if you're particularly in a street with, you know, three, four, five plus story buildings, it would be great to have some kind of canopy overhead just from that sort of human experience. I think they're really useful.
[00:40:45 - 00:40:46] Ilana Razbash: Those are all really good tips.
[00:40:46 - 00:40:47] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, yeah.
[00:40:47 - 00:40:56] Ilana Razbash: Encouraging any listeners who are putting in parkland applications at the moment to see how can you open that up a bit more for your community.
[00:40:56 - 00:41:34] Rachel Iampolski: But it is a shame though that it is only open to hospitality, isn't it? Because imagine like a dry cleaner, I assume a dry cleaner business doesn't count as hospitality. Assume it's zoned as Retail or something, I'm not sure. But imagine if it had a. If it had a small. Even a small parklet out the front where you could wait. What? You know, with magazines or something from the inside while you wait for your dry cleaning. You know, like, I think just small things like that, I think help create a more social street, a more social high street. So it's a shame we can only really extend our imagination around what that could look like to hospitality only. Yeah.
[00:41:34 - 00:42:07] Ilana Razbash: That's my hope for the future, with parklands being taken up, that we can be a bit more discerning, maybe, with who we offer it to. And of course, you probably couldn't give a parklet to any business that applies, but if the application can demonstrate the value, add to the street, to the public, to the amenity of the service, that laundromat's a perfect example. I'd love to see council assessing that on its merits and helping streamline those processes and even streamlining block party applications.
[00:42:07 - 00:42:08] Rachel Iampolski: Absolutely.
[00:42:08 - 00:42:15] Ilana Razbash: I know once upon a time, a little cul de sac area used to do that and they're thinking of reinvigorating it. So.
[00:42:15 - 00:42:16] Rachel Iampolski: The block party.
[00:42:16 - 00:42:18] Ilana Razbash: Yeah, the block party experience. Yes.
[00:42:18 - 00:42:20] Rachel Iampolski: And why did they stop doing it?
[00:42:21 - 00:42:23] Ilana Razbash: I think it was the pandemic.
[00:42:23 - 00:42:24] Rachel Iampolski: Oh, sure. Yeah. Okay.
[00:42:24 - 00:42:24] Ilana Razbash: Perhaps.
[00:42:25 - 00:42:25] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:42:25 - 00:42:27] Ilana Razbash: Well, before my time in the local area.
[00:42:27 - 00:42:28] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:42:28 - 00:42:41] Ilana Razbash: With the street that I grew up in, in the city of Glenara area, they have an annual block party in the little park, actual park, at the end of the street.
[00:42:41 - 00:42:45] Rachel Iampolski: At the end of the cul de sac. Yeah. Because you got that infrastructure to do it in. Exactly.
[00:42:45 - 00:42:58] Ilana Razbash: So. So they already have the infrastructure to celebrate rather than having to occupy tactically, tactfully, to. To create those moments for. For interaction.
[00:42:58 - 00:43:31] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think. Yeah, There's. I think a lot of people want to do more, but find the process of doing it formally quite intimidating, even though most of it's, you know, if you want to find out the information, you will be able to find out the information, but it's taxing and it's intimidating and I think it turns a lot of people away. So, you know, I think it's. It would be great to see councils find ways to make that a lot more accessible to people. And in the interim, I think the other option is to do it guerrilla style.
[00:43:31 - 00:43:34] Ilana Razbash: Guerrilla Gardeners, that was a very popular show briefly.
[00:43:34 - 00:43:34] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:43:36 - 00:43:39] Ilana Razbash: Small run season on commercial television.
[00:43:39 - 00:44:47] Rachel Iampolski: Well, that's a great example. Also Verge Gardens. Guerrilla Verge Gardens, which is when people are transforming the nature strip in front of their own property. To, you know, a veggie garden or an edible garden or just planting non edible native plants. I'm not sure the rules of Kingston, but a lot of councils that I know of allow it. It is legal to do it. However, if anyone complains, if anyone has any issues with the verge garden, you will get a letter in the mail to remove it. So it depends. I mean, every council's got slightly different rules. I know some councils are a lot more supportive of it and others less so, but that's another great example of ways you can sort of reinvigorate the public realm in a way that's accessible and that, that's still, that's right in front of your house. So that's space you're allowed to occupy according to most council laws. I mean, probably look up Kingston specifically before you do it, but I would imagine it's okay. And that's another great one people are, because I think something like, I read a statistic that in suburban areas, about one third of open green space is nature strip, which is huge if you.
[00:44:47 - 00:44:49] Ilana Razbash: Think about it, like manicure lawn.
[00:44:49 - 00:45:41] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Massive. And it's doing that lawn is doing nothing for biodiversity, visually, it's doing nothing. Like it could be serving so much, serving people and insects and animals and biodiversity so much better than it is. And of course, I understand council does not have the infrastructure to turn every nature strip into a verge garden, but you have the right as a citizen to do it. And there's also community groups that go around and support you doing it. They share, you know, cultivated seeds and advice on how to do it. So that's another great example of tactical urbanism that has sort of come about as a response to a lack of, you know, appropriate biodiversity in your neighborhood. And people have come up with this solution and it's a great solution. And now it is being adopted by councils, which is great to see.
[00:45:42 - 00:45:44] Ilana Razbash: Is a nature strip a threshold space?
[00:45:44 - 00:46:06] Rachel Iampolski: Yes, I would say so, definitely. Oh, actually that's a great question, isn't it? I'd be curious to see what other people say. I would see it as a threshold space, but I would imagine there's people that just see it as the public realm and not the threshold space. So that's a curious one, isn't it? I wonder. I, I personally would, but I could imagine other people might see that as, as just part of the street, therefore public, not in between public or private.
[00:46:07 - 00:46:10] Ilana Razbash: Sometimes you get these moments where people have put down pavers.
[00:46:10 - 00:46:10] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:46:10 - 00:46:18] Ilana Razbash: Through their nature strips. They can go directly into their car and that, for me, is definitely a threshold moment.
[00:46:18 - 00:46:41] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Right, yeah. So it's. It's sort of. Because most street designs will have the footpath, the cemented footpath and then the nature strip and then the gutter. And so I could imagine, if you're. For some people, it is. The nature strip is the threshold space between the footpath and the road, and for other people, it's all part of the street, so it'd be interesting to see how people view it.
[00:46:41 - 00:46:54] Ilana Razbash: Last week we touched on the topic of fine grain and these threshold spaces, these liminal spaces, they also. The phenomena that enhance and contribute to the fine grain.
[00:46:54 - 00:48:13] Rachel Iampolski: Absolutely, yeah. And it's. I think, for me also, fine grain is the stuff you don't even necessarily think about. Like, it's just sort of there. And it's only when you're forced to stop and think about it that you realize how much quote unquote, liminal or threshold spaces exist around you. And there this sort of cowboy space in that it's not quite clear who owns it and who's responsible for it. And even if there is a formal owner. Right. But I just mean when you walk past, there's a sort of feeling that it's not quite clear whose it is. And so sometimes I think it feels neglected for that reason, because no one quite takes ownership over it. Which is why I think verge gardening is great, because maybe previously thought, oh, well, this is just this place that the council owns. However, it's your responsibility to mow it. Right. Because it's the nature. The nature strip in front of your property is owned by the council. It's not your property, but it is your responsibility to mow it. So you have a responsibility to it. And so I think it's great to see that sort of dynamic being flipped when people are activating it in a way that they want to activate it through. Through plants or through planting in general. So, yeah, it's. It, yeah. Threshold and liminal spaces are almost what you make of it. Right. It almost comes down to personal perception of what is and isn't. Yeah.
[00:48:14 - 00:48:16] Ilana Razbash: But they're very important for a quality of life.
[00:48:17 - 00:48:55] Rachel Iampolski: Oh, hugely, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's mostly what you're experiencing when you're in the public realm. You know, not so much of what you experience when you're out walking about is a liminal spaces and threshold spaces, and there's so much untapped potential in them as well. I think they're really neglected, often from. From a government lens, from a design lens, and from a civic lens, from citizen lens. And so that's what I'm saying. It's great to see when citizens respond to that lack of thought by, by, you know, just claiming it and doing something with it, I. E. A verge garden. So yeah, I think there's loads of potential there from all actors to do more with them. Yeah.
[00:48:56 - 00:49:03] Ilana Razbash: And sometimes doing something joyous and exciting and a bit silly. I remember during the lockdowns, the wooden spoons.
[00:49:03 - 00:49:04] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly.
[00:49:04 - 00:49:05] Ilana Razbash: Villages everywhere.
[00:49:05 - 00:49:44] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly. And it's sort, it's sort of like people like, oh wait, we can do fun things, we can play with space. We don't play with space here. It's a bit of a shame actually. But you're allowed to. And even if you're not, what's the worst that will happen? They'll take you, make you remove your spoons. I mean, do you know what I mean? So I think I would, yeah, if you, I would encourage anyone listening to think about ways you can play with space and, and, and, and, and, but, but I, I understand the resistance. I understand people think, oh well, I don't have authority over this space, I don't own it, et cetera, or I don't have permission, therefore I won't do anything. But I'm here to tell you, you probably have more permission than you realize and if you don't, no, nothing's gonna happen.
[00:49:44 - 00:49:45] Ilana Razbash: Or you can apply for it.
[00:49:45 - 00:50:17] Rachel Iampolski: Well, you can apply, yeah. If you're, if you're really, you know, litigious, you can apply or you can talk to the owner of the property. If it's a private property, you know, this ways around it, but it just needs, there needs to be, you know, it needs to be led by someone. It's not going to happen on its own. So if you see something you want to do, something you want to play with space, just go for it. There's, there's, there's a, there's a means and if not that space, there'll be another space. But it has to be self driven, I think is what I'm trying to say. There's not going to be, it's, it's.
[00:50:17 - 00:50:19] Ilana Razbash: It'S not going to come to you.
[00:50:19 - 00:50:54] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly. Yeah. And the more it's self driven and the more we see examples of that, positive examples and case studies, etc. And that then sort of ends up, goes up the chains and is seen by the local officers or the local government or state government, whoever it is, powers that be, developers, etc. The more that they see that it's being done and that there's a desire for it and the people responding positive to it, the more they are likely to do it from the bottom down. And then it might eventually come to you, but nonetheless it will only come to you once. There is, I think, a citizen push for it. Yeah. So we have to mobilize.
[00:50:54 - 00:50:56] Ilana Razbash: It's showing up for what you want to see.
[00:50:56 - 00:50:57] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:50:57 - 00:50:57] Ilana Razbash: Urban realm.
[00:50:57 - 00:50:58] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly.
[00:50:58 - 00:51:01] Ilana Razbash: Much like the path that inevitably brought you to government.
[00:51:01 - 00:51:02] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly.
[00:51:02 - 00:51:15] Ilana Razbash: So what are some of the developments in the urban planning space at the moment? And any ideas in urban planning, town planning that you're interested in and think are really exciting? What's coming up on the horizon?
[00:51:15 - 00:53:49] Rachel Iampolski: Oh, that's an interesting question. I think. Well, oh, my gosh. Something exciting that's coming up. This. I mean, I don't know if it's coming up necessarily. There's. There's. I think there's. I think as a result of COVID there's definitely a lot more awareness for pub. The quantity and quality of public spaces available to people and, and just. Yeah, a lot more like awareness of that and the consciousness around that is growing, I think, which is excellent. And so things like when people took over golf courses during lockdowns and tried to make it into public parks, you know, these kind of things. And, and likewise, I think that message is being carried through to. To. To planners. So that's really exciting. So I think there's. There's a lot of progress happening there. And I think the other one is obviously the cost of living crisis is. And housing affordability crisis specifically, while in itself terrifying and, you know, horrible thing that we're going through and, and will continue for some time, unfortunately, it. I think it again, has raised the question around quantity of public housing distribution and where we're putting public housing and yeah, the quality and quantity of public housing that's being built. So I think that's exciting. And likewise the type. The typology of housing, I think we're starting to think a lot more critically about, as partially as a result of. Of the cost of the cost of housing crisis and, and partially also through changing demographics and also because of a lack of space. So we're really forced to think about what does the actual family home look like now and how can we be doing it in a way that's more efficient? Is it like, can we only think about the standard model of a standalone house with a big backyard? I mean, that's really not a thing anymore, essentially. And as. And. And in the interim, I Think we had really poor design outcomes as a response to that. And now we're really starting to think about, okay, maybe the, The. The sort of standard grey townhouse isn't the best alternative either. So I think there's. It. We're not there yet, but I think that level of discussion at a political level, at a planning level is better than I've seen it before. So I think it's making good progress. And so I think hopefully we'll see good outcomes from that as well.
[00:53:49 - 00:53:51] Ilana Razbash: That's really exciting. Into a new era.
[00:53:52 - 00:53:53] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, I think so.
[00:53:53 - 00:53:57] Ilana Razbash: Especially so people in communities can downsize and stay there.
[00:53:58 - 00:53:58] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:53:58 - 00:53:59] Ilana Razbash: And not have to move away.
[00:54:00 - 00:54:00] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:54:00 - 00:54:05] Ilana Razbash: Or young people can afford to stay in the area they grew up in or want to stay in.
[00:54:05 - 00:54:31] Rachel Iampolski: Yep. And I think the other thing that's exciting is. Well, Generally, I think TikTok's really exciting because I go on there and I see these really interesting critical debates around planning being talked about on viral social media like I've never seen it before and being broken down in a really accessible way. And all of a sudden I'm going on TikTok and seeing people talk about third space, which is this. You know, I've never seen that topic talked about outside of academic spheres.
[00:54:31 - 00:54:32] Ilana Razbash: Can you explain?
[00:54:32 - 00:57:36] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, yes, certainly. Well, if you go on TikTok, someone will explain to you in a matter of 30 seconds, which is amazing. But basically, third space is just a space that is neither your home or your work. So first space was your home, and third space is your got. Your work is your second space. And then there was this argument, this sort of came about in America in the 70s, I think that there was. There needs to be a third space that people go that isn't home or work. And so people often described things like the hairdresser, you know, the hairdressers, the library, the laundromat, these kind of places where you can meet and mingle without being at home or at work. And then there's this. According to the theory, there is like seven specific criteria that have to. For it to meet a third space. But generally speaking, that's it. Right. And people are talking about this on TikTok now, being like, well, why don't we have more third spaces? You know, the way we design cities and the cost of rent and everything has eradicated third spaces. And these are integral to, like, commute, like maintaining the welfare of communities and connectivity in communities, living together. Exactly, yeah. And so all of a sudden people are talking about this, which is so exciting. And I Think. I think also we're seeing to a degree a resurgence around spaces like libraries and thinking more. There was, you know, this whole fear mongering that oh, in the, in the digital age, what, what's, what service the library's gonna have? I mean, everything's gonna be digital. We're gonna have ebooks. What, what the heck can libraries do? And where. Everyone thought they'd die out, but they didn't. They, they've had a complete resurgence because we've rethought what they are beyond just a place that collects books on a shelf. And now we're thinking about them as community spaces and spaces for community services. And so you're seeing things like now councils are putting social workers into libraries. So they're there available for people that come in, they're running classes, their study spaces, et like they've adapted in a way and, and really they're functioning as third spaces, which is exciting. We're also seeing that around things like community hubs at library, at schools. Increasingly there was this push for why should schools only serve children? They should be serving the community around the children, I. E. The families. And so now you've got these hubs that exist in school that are there for the parents and have wraparound social services so you can, you know, there's this sort of support social workers there, there's, you know, justice law and justice support for parents, you know, they run classes, whatever. There's bookable spaces and all. They created this infrastructure in public schools to service the community more broadly. And so I think we're starting to think about that. We're not thinking about our infrastructure in these really siloed ways. We're thinking about how can everything work in a more integrated way. And, and that's really like sort of pulling on these ideas of third spaces as well, but, you know, doing it more critically, I guess. So that's another exciting new sort of planning outcome I think we're seeing more and more of which is great.
[00:57:37 - 00:57:39] Ilana Razbash: That's what turns those buildings into places.
[00:57:39 - 00:58:17] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly, yeah. Oh, and that's the other one. Oh, you just got me. Just reminded me. The other one is, you know, since COVID with more and more people working from home, there's obviously now this question, well, what do we need all these office towers for in the city? And so there's a lot of questions now about refurb and that's a whole nother discussion. I mean there's so it's a whole detailed discussion around the pros and cons from an environmental perspective of refurbing or knocking down a building renew. But regardless, we're now forced to think about, well, what is the city if it's not just a space for office workers to go? So. And what are these tall towers for? So this. There's a lot. And I think Covid really turned it all on its head and in an exciting way.
[00:58:18 - 00:58:20] Ilana Razbash: Yeah, it's an exciting future ahead.
[00:58:20 - 00:58:23] Rachel Iampolski: I think so. Yeah, we're definitely that sort of intersection, I think.
[00:58:23 - 00:58:26] Ilana Razbash: What's. What's the number one thing that gives you hope?
[00:58:27 - 00:59:06] Rachel Iampolski: That's a great question. I think TikTok. No, I mean, all jokes aside, I mean, I'm obviously a huge TikTok fan, as you know, but I think the level of critical discourse on there around these topics that it brings to light is just so exciting. And I think it's mobilizing people that were previously not. I wouldn't say checked out, but just not aware of these topics. Right. Like when you mention it there. So it's like, oh, yeah, you're totally right, we do need more of them. But it's not that they didn't support that idea. They're just something they hadn't thought about before. And So I think TikTok is bringing around this new level of consciousness around these topics in this viral way that was never happening with other social media platforms or with YouTube. So that's really exciting.
[00:59:06 - 00:59:08] Ilana Razbash: And entirely public led.
[00:59:08 - 00:59:08] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:59:08 - 00:59:17] Ilana Razbash: And it's a really important reminder to designers, to architects, to planners, to government. Never underestimate the intelligence of the public.
[00:59:17 - 00:59:18] Rachel Iampolski: Definitely.
[00:59:18 - 00:59:20] Ilana Razbash: Because they are all over it.
[00:59:21 - 00:59:21] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:59:22 - 00:59:24] Ilana Razbash: Thank you so much for tonight's conversation, Rachel.
[00:59:24 - 00:59:26] Rachel Iampolski: Thank you. An hour flew by.
[00:59:31 - 00:59:50] Ilana Razbash: Thanks for joining me for another evening of radio architecture with Alana Rasbash. This live show was broadcast and recorded in the Radio Karam studio on Bonarong Country. You can replay this show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in and supporting Community Radio. Take care.
[00:59:54 - 01:00:15] Rachel Iampolski: Hi, everybody, this is Whit from Spider Bait. When I'm passing through Carrum, aside from slowing down to 50km an hour and reminisce about doing the Ill Race Road rumba or the Whateley Street Wiggle, I like to tune in to Radio Karen and get down with the good vibes.
[00:03:20 - 00:03:21] Rachel Iampolski: Thank you. Looking forward to it.
[00:03:22 - 00:03:29] Ilana Razbash: Well, the first question I ask all my guests is what's your earliest memory of a building or place?
[00:03:29 - 00:04:31] Rachel Iampolski: Yep, I think my earliest memory would be the stairwell of the apartment that I was born in or grew up in, which was a classic 60s brick three story apartment block in Caulfield. It was one bedroom and I we lived there. It was me, my parents and then later my brother and my mom's students because she was a tutor. All in one bedroom apartment anyway. But I don't remember the apartment that well but I remember the stairwell vividly to the apartment. It was terrazzo marble. I would assume faux. Looking back at it now, but I didn't know the difference of time. I remember it was, you know, had all these specks in it, and I just. Yeah, it was white with orange and red and brown terrazzo specks. And I remember sometimes pretending to have fallen asleep in the car because I didn't want to walk the three flights up. So, like, if I pretend I'm asleep, my dad would carry me into the house. It was the apartment. And so I remember pretending to be asleep as he's carrying me. Looking down and seeing the terrazzo marble.
[00:04:31 - 00:04:34] Ilana Razbash: Stairs out of the corner of your eye. Just jiggly.
[00:04:34 - 00:04:38] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. So I would assume somewhere, like somewhere around 2 or 3. Yep.
[00:04:38 - 00:04:42] Ilana Razbash: It's super popular now as well. People would die for that. Terrazzo.
[00:04:42 - 00:04:43] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly. Yep.
[00:04:44 - 00:04:47] Ilana Razbash: So, interesting you mentioned the stair is your first memory.
[00:04:47 - 00:04:48] Rachel Iampolski: Yep.
[00:04:48 - 00:04:53] Ilana Razbash: Because you do research and your PhD at the moment is largely on liminal spaces.
[00:04:53 - 00:04:55] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Didn't even make that connection. That's a good point. Point.
[00:04:55 - 00:05:03] Ilana Razbash: And the staircase. Yeah, it's a liminal space. What does liminality mean? What is a liminal space?
[00:05:03 - 00:06:19] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, great question. So liminality is just basically a concept that refers to something that is in between things. So, you know, people talk about the liminal space as a concept. You know, people be like, oh, I'm. Maybe I'm sitting in this kind of liminal space while I'm waiting to find out whether my visa got approved or something like that. We're not quite in one country or another. And then, of course, it can also refer to physical spaces, so stairwells as being the in between in an apartment block as being the in between space. If you have your apartment and your private sphere as one space and the outside world, the street, as another. Kind of very obviously understood registered space. The liminal space was. Would be the one in between, I. E. The stairwell or, you know, the entryway, et cetera. So I think these are these kind of. When you start paying attention, they're all around us, but they only really exist conceptually if we have an idea of what is considered space and what isn't considered space. And so if we have this, you know, if we can register the street as a space, we can register our apartment as a space. But for some reason, we don't register the stairwell as a space. It therefore falls into this liminal category. But if you viewed the stairwell as a space, it wouldn't technically be a liminal space, would it?
[00:06:19 - 00:06:28] Ilana Razbash: So we have a couple More definitions to tease out there, I think, for tonight's listeners as well. But a balcony is also a liminal space, right?
[00:06:28 - 00:06:52] Rachel Iampolski: Well, no, so that's an interesting one. I would consider personally a balcony, a threshold space because it sits halfway between the public realm and the private realm, which is that it sits between your apartment and the street. However, if you're viewing it from the street, the balcony, you might view that as a liminal space because you're not quite looking into someone's apartment, but you're not quite looking at the street either. I think that makes sense.
[00:06:52 - 00:07:00] Ilana Razbash: Oh, totally. I think in the last few years we definitely all felt and learned the importance of these in between spaces.
[00:07:00 - 00:07:00] Rachel Iampolski: Yes.
[00:07:00 - 00:07:20] Ilana Razbash: Half inside, half outside. Where can I get fresh air when I can't leave my house? Where can I sit when I'm not feeling well? These inside, outside moments. So then what constitutes the difference between a space and a place? And often, particularly in your research circles. I know it's quite a complicated question.
[00:07:20 - 00:07:20] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:07:21 - 00:07:28] Ilana Razbash: Maybe I might offer my, my thought on it and you tell me how that, how that sits in your, in your research.
[00:07:28 - 00:08:16] Rachel Iampolski: Yep, I think so. A space. You know, the commonly accepted definition of how of a space versus place is that a space is purely the physical constraints. Like it's, it's purely the physical four walls of a room or a physical landscape or. Etc. Whereas a place is what happens when that space, a physical space is activated by people, by memories or by associations you hold. And that's when it sort of transitions from a space into place. So really spaces, you know, with. Sans people, with our people, or the impact that people have had, the legacy, even if they're not physically in the space at the time. So, yeah, that. I think that would probably be the most common working definition, if you will.
[00:08:16 - 00:08:22] Ilana Razbash: That's definitely how I've always thought about A space becomes a place when people bring their life.
[00:08:23 - 00:08:23] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:08:23 - 00:08:34] Ilana Razbash: And their energy and their passions and their activation. And maybe this idea of. Then these places have memories and an intangible cultural heritage.
[00:08:35 - 00:09:00] Rachel Iampolski: Absolutely. And, and those things don't have to be positive. Right. It could be, you know, you can, you can have a negative memory of a place, of a space, of a building, for example, and in your mind it's therefore now a place because you've associated negative memory, even if it's derelict, like it feels like there's no people around, but there's a feeling that you as a person have now assigned to it. It's sort of turned into a place, if you will.
[00:09:00 - 00:09:02] Ilana Razbash: It transforms with our Memories, Exactly.
[00:09:02 - 00:09:27] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. With our memories. Associations. Exactly. So some people, some, if you like, not to get too academic about it, but there are some academic theories that would like some of the foundational theories in research that look at this topic that would say place is purely space, just viewed through the lens of a person, if that makes sense. So when you put it through a human lens, that's when it becomes a place.
[00:09:27 - 00:09:47] Ilana Razbash: I think I really felt that when I went traveling before the pandemic and I was in Japan and I went into those tiny little bars in Kabukicho that like only five people. And I truly experienced that definition because as an architect, I walk around cities and buildings, constantly looking at it.
[00:09:47 - 00:09:47] Rachel Iampolski: Yes.
[00:09:47 - 00:09:49] Ilana Razbash: Constantly looking at. As a building, as an object.
[00:09:50 - 00:09:51] Rachel Iampolski: As design.
[00:09:51 - 00:10:17] Ilana Razbash: As design. Yep. And then sometimes when you travel and you change your mindset, you say, oh, today I'm not looking at the greatest building in the world today. I want to feel what it's like to be in one of the most famous rooms in the world. And I had that moment and I was in one of these bars, very fortunately, because I was with a Japanese language speaker where it was members only, basically.
[00:10:17 - 00:10:18] Rachel Iampolski: Yep.
[00:10:18 - 00:10:46] Ilana Razbash: And I got to feel what it was like in one of those really unique rooms where everyone knew each other and they were there because of their cultural interests. They were all music musicians and writers and poets. And that's when that definition became so. So black and white for me. So then part of your work is Praxis, alliance for Praxis Research. And Praxis is the. The practical manifestation of theories and ideas.
[00:10:46 - 00:10:47] Rachel Iampolski: Yep.
[00:10:48 - 00:11:09] Ilana Razbash: Along with that and your work with Public street, your organization, you're really interested in place making, and you've had some really fantastic installations and activations, most recently at the Queen Victorian Market, if anyone was lucky to pop by and see it. Biorhythm. Yeah, biorhythm. With beautiful light and sound.
[00:11:10 - 00:11:12] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Immersive plant sculpture.
[00:11:12 - 00:11:51] Ilana Razbash: Yep, exactly right. So I wanted to ask about what is the importance of actively doing place making work and deciding that that is necessary. And I also am curious as to where does that come for you in the process? Is that placemaking that happens before a building is built? Do you think that's important or do you think placemaking is, in many ways, has been a remedial effort for you, that there's been a situation in a city and you've. And it's not quite right or in a suburb or a local area, and you had to come in and fix it up. So tell us, tell us about place making.
[00:11:51 - 00:12:26] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, great question. I think for me, definitely the way I view it anyway, and that's just from my personal, professional lens. But there's. That's not to say it's the only way you can approach placemaking, certainly, but for me, definitely does come from the remedial lens. I think when it is used as a tool in the design phase, it's more in that sense, it's more just about human informed design principles rather than specifically place making. And that should be the goal in general. Like, that should be the golden standard we're aiming for.
[00:12:26 - 00:12:28] Ilana Razbash: I certainly think so. I believe buildings are for people.
[00:12:28 - 00:12:39] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly. And so that's like when people talk about place making being built from the ground up, I'm like, well, I don't know if that's really place making or that's just good design at that point. Do you know what I mean?
[00:12:39 - 00:12:41] Ilana Razbash: That's a really interesting critique.
[00:12:41 - 00:14:26] Rachel Iampolski: So for me, I'm more interested in it as in that remedial sense. Okay. We've got the built forms that we have, and they're not serving us the way that they should be. So that's when I think place making is a really interesting tool to come in and play around with that and find ways to improve it. And I'm also really interested in it as an advocacy tool as well. So I think, to me, it's hugely important. I think placemaking has sort of where, you know, the origins of placemaking are contentious because some people say, well, what, you're just describing good design, or you're just describing landscape architecture, or you're just describing human informed design thinking. Like, what. What about this is placement? Like, where's that delineation? And that's, you know, that's valid critique. I'm not arguing, but I think for me, placemaking has come about as a prominent movement now distinctly as a result of gaps in design thinking and design outcomes. And I say design in the broader sense. I don't just mean architectural policy as well. Policy, policy, governance. Exactly right. Urban planning, design, landscape infrastructure. Exactly. All of it. Just generally how we design the environments that we live in, in the broader sense of the word, from all facets. And so there's so many holes in that process and there's so many conflicting forces that have other agendas than just good livable outcomes for people. And as a result, I think. And people feel that. People feel the impacts of that. And place making, I think, has come around so prominently as a result of that. Are people trying to be like, okay, how can we remedy These, what are other things, things we can be doing. It's almost like an instinct, you know, it's almost like a instinctual sort of knee jerk reaction to that outcome.
[00:14:26 - 00:14:37] Ilana Razbash: Well, it's sort of like when the. If the instinct hasn't quite worked, if the creation of the space hasn't been intuitive enough to. Or consultative enough.
[00:14:37 - 00:14:37] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:14:37 - 00:14:44] Ilana Razbash: Co designed enough to lead and spur on the use and enjoyment and life in that space.
[00:14:44 - 00:14:45] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, place.
[00:14:45 - 00:14:50] Ilana Razbash: Place making helps reinject it. You're like, yeah, you're the kombucha starter.
[00:14:50 - 00:16:14] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly, absolutely. And so that's why for me I do see it and where the space I'm interested in is that remedial space. However, I think, you know, the principles that can be learned from how it's used remedially should absolutely then be used for when it's ground up design. You know, we can learn a lot of lessons from placemaking and also from tactical urbanism, which is essentially place making but led by citizens. So really informally, very lo fi interventions largely out of necessity, like people painting, you know, pedestrian crossings onto the road where there isn't one, for example. That's usually what tactical urbanism is. And so I think the instinct for why we want it and the kind of design principles that people play around with when they do it I think are really useful learnings for improving design when you're doing from the ground up. But yeah, largely I see it as remedial and, and I'm also really interested in it as an advocacy tool because if you're only ever doing it at the citizen level or at this sort of filling in the gaps level, you're not really achieving structural change. And so I think any place making you do, not any, but when you do successful placemaking projects, you should be trying to push those as examples, as case studies to advocate for those better design principles in the first place, including through to government, which is sort of how I ended up increasingly in the political space, because I was like, well, it needs to come from both ends.
[00:16:14 - 00:16:49] Ilana Razbash: But yeah, so you ran for local government and for state government. And I really, I really admire that because I listened. It was a conversation many moons ago I had heard and a prominent scientist and science communicator was being interviewed on the radio, I think, and they were saying, oh, why'd you do this? Why'd you run for the Senate? He didn't get in. And he said, because good people with expertise in this field that we care about have to go in and have to go forward and put our hat in the ring. So congratulations on putting your hand in the ring. And you had a bit of an upswing actually, didn't you?
[00:16:49 - 00:17:47] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, I think, yeah, I got a little increase from the previous one from, you know, previous election, which was great and you know, was running in a seat that's been held by the Liberals for all 70 years since its inception. So I knew it's. Realistically, you know, it's. I'm not. We knew we're not going to win, but that's not why we were running. We were running exactly for the reasons you were saying and that, you know, it's about spotlighting the issues that you care about and sort of creating very slow groundswell with sort of this longer vision in mind. Many, many elections away, realistically, until we're seeing the kind of change we want to see. But, but you know, you have to start somewhere and. Yeah, exactly. Right. I kind of would describe myself as a reluctant candidate in that I never wanted to run, I still don't wanna run, but I felt like I had no choice, you know, so like, if you, if you wanna see the kind of stuff you wanna see being talked about and spotlighted and people have an option to tick it on a ballot, you need to put that onto a ballot.
[00:17:48 - 00:17:55] Ilana Razbash: Absolutely. And you also contributed to policy writing, so you've been absolutely in the thick of the political process.
[00:17:55 - 00:19:08] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly. And so I think it's, it's not a place I ever saw myself. I saw myself very much as a behind the scenes person and a creative person. So this was a complete 180 for me. And I still don't quite understand how it happened or that it happened. I'm still shocked by it because it feels really unnatural to me, but at the same time, natural at the same time because I, you know, talk a lot about spatial justice, I talk a lot about the design of more equitable cities. And, and I've always thought about it from a bottom up perspective, from like a citizen led grassroots perspective. And that's only as important as that is. And I will always be fighting in that space. I think it just, the outcome is going to be when the top down and the bottom up meet in the middle. And I was like, I'm not seeing the sort of progress that I want to be seeing from the government sphere. So, you know, why not just get amongst it basically? Yeah. So I think, yeah, it was sort of. It was, it was. I never saw it coming. But looking back in hindsight, it makes sense how I've ended up here. Because if you're talking about justice, be it spatially or otherwise. You're talking about law, you're talking about policy, talking about government. So yeah, there's no way around it, unfortunately.
[00:19:08 - 00:19:17] Ilana Razbash: Design and architecture has so many intersections with all that. Yeah, architecture in many ways is everything. That's why we talk about these topics. That's why.
[00:19:17 - 00:19:18] Rachel Iampolski: Yes, absolutely.
[00:19:18 - 00:19:52] Ilana Razbash: Interesting multidisciplinary guests two weeks in a row so far. They're interested in many, many things. I do want to give out the text number tonight if any guests want to text in and have any questions for you. The number is 0493-21-3831. So give us a text in the studio. Don't call us, just text us if you'd like to ask Rachel or contribute anything to the conversation. I'm also wondering, someone's listening at home tonight and they're thinking about, I might run for government. I might go for council, might give it a go. What would you say to them?
[00:19:52 - 00:22:21] Rachel Iampolski: I say do it. I'd say absolutely do it. No, no. But all jokes aside, I would, I would say do it. I would really say do it. I think there's so many. I completely understand why it's intimidating, but people really get amongst you people, even if they don't necessarily align with your political beliefs, you know, etc, they're overall really supportive of people to put their hand up. And there is a lot of infrastructure in place, a lot of support in place for first time candidates. There's lots of programs specifically for women running, for young people running, people of color running. There's lots of, if you fit any of that criteria, there's lots of programs and there's also lots of programs through the Municipal association of Victoria, which is sort of the peak body for government, local government. They have lots of classes you can attend and they'll all be ramping up in the lead up to an election, which the local government is in October of next year. So there's still some time. So if you're anxious from that perspective, particularly if you're running as independent and don't have party backing, there's loads of infrastructure in place and even if you don't win, you learn so much, you get connected with your community, you have the most interesting conversations with people, you challenge yourself on a personal level obviously as well. So I think there's, there's immense value in running if you're running with the right intentions and you're running with passion in mind, with, with passion for your community mind and good outcomes in mind. As I said like winning is not the only metrics by which I think you can consider a campaign successful. It's about, like I said, starting that slow groundswell, having conversations with people and having an option for people on a ballot that's significant in itself. So even if you want to run just for that and for the experience of it, that's still really successful, even if you're not getting necessarily the votes you're after and you'll end up, I guarantee if you do it, so many opportunities will come from it as well because you're sort of now connected in the community and people know your face and your number now and you're going to get calls, I guarantee, for better or for worse. So I still have people sometimes emailing me asking about, you know, if I can do anything about the bins. The day the bins are being picked up from when I did local council elections in 2020. And I'm like, honey, I didn't get in. But they remember you and they're like, oh, you know, you're a candid. Can you do something about the bins? So anyway, God bless. But, but people will message for all kinds of things. So, you know, it's a really valuable experience.
[00:22:21 - 00:22:29] Ilana Razbash: That's really good advice and I hope somebody who's been sitting on the fence or, yeah, itchy on the edge of their chair just takes the plunge and goes for it.
[00:22:29 - 00:22:57] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. And I think I had the real. I really thought, oh, well, who am I to run? You know, I'm not sort of a middle aged white man with a background in law and small business, like the classic image you have in your mind of a politician. And then I looked up the rules of, you know, how to be eligible to run and you have to be over 18, register to vote, registered to vote in the municipality that you're running and not been to jail in the last five years. And essentially, if you've met those criteria, you're good to go.
[00:22:57 - 00:22:59] Ilana Razbash: Be the change you want to see.
[00:22:59 - 00:23:12] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. So there's really, there's no, like, you're, you're suitable if you think you're, if you want to do it, that's enough to be suitable to do it, basically. So, yeah, I would encourage anyone to do it that's listening.
[00:23:12 - 00:23:17] Ilana Razbash: Go for it. Yeah, go for it, dear listeners. Yeah, get on board or at least.
[00:23:18 - 00:23:35] Rachel Iampolski: Attend training and get, get a sense of what's involved. You know, look up the Municipal association of Victoria's training, go along to a workshop or webinar they host. You know, get a taste for it at least. So you see what you think before you commit, because you don't have to commit formally on paper till like the 11th hour before the election. So you got lots of time.
[00:23:35 - 00:23:41] Ilana Razbash: I think that's really important information as well, because people don't often know that. Is that accessible?
[00:23:41 - 00:23:43] Rachel Iampolski: Is it super accessible? Exactly.
[00:23:43 - 00:23:47] Ilana Razbash: That the political process is actually there for their participation.
[00:23:47 - 00:23:48] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:23:48 - 00:23:50] Ilana Razbash: Democracy is there for your participation.
[00:23:50 - 00:23:51] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:23:51 - 00:24:11] Ilana Razbash: And while we're on the topic, everyone should start gearing up to learn about and talk about the upcoming referendum for indigenous recognition in the Constitution. While we have touched on the topic of the democratic process because it is a privilege, but very much a right and got to be involved in it at the very least, please vote.
[00:24:11 - 00:24:11] Rachel Iampolski: Yep.
[00:24:12 - 00:24:51] Ilana Razbash: But there's so many people in our local community here in Kingston who are very passionate about this area, who are really passionate about their beachside suburbs and in more inland suburbs as well, who are getting involved in local community groups. My guest last week, Dr. Damien Williams, was the president of one of those groups. And not only would they be potentially interested in running in government and considering politics reluctantly, they also do a lot of their own grassroots place making work.
[00:24:51 - 00:24:52] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Great.
[00:24:52 - 00:25:01] Ilana Razbash: And I'm quite interested in. What's your favorite place making project or tactical urbanism project that you've recently done? Can you describe that a little bit for us?
[00:25:01 - 00:25:03] Rachel Iampolski: Oh, that I've personally recently done that.
[00:25:03 - 00:25:09] Ilana Razbash: You'Ve done either yourself with Public street or with your alliance for Practices Research Collective.
[00:25:09 - 00:26:08] Rachel Iampolski: That's a great question. I think. Well, probably the most recent one that I can think of that was really unexpectedly impactful. Like we. We sort of did it thinking it wouldn't be, you know, it was just sort of a small project we were doing on the side and it ended up being quite impactful, I guess. For. For us was. Was a project with. With the alliance of Praxis Research and Publisher was a collaboration and it was called Open Lab. It was for Melbourne Design Week of last year. And it was essentially a cupboard that we purchased off Facebook Marketplace. And it is designed to be sort of like a tactical mobile placemaking unit so people can move it around and set it up to kind of create their own sort of infrastructure for social engagement, whatever that looks like. You know, if you just.
[00:26:08 - 00:26:11] Ilana Razbash: What color was it? Can you describe the cupboard?
[00:26:11 - 00:29:30] Rachel Iampolski: The cupboard was gray and it was very old. Was very. No, so it was. Well, it was brown, but it was graying, I think from being out in the rain for so long. Someone was just throwing it away basically from. It was really easily from the 70s vinyl and. But on the inside we painted it essentially rainbow, but in waves. And we had hand tie dyed fabric that pulled out onto a hills hoist. So inside you open the cupboard and there's a hills hoist, a mobile hills hoist that you put out. It stands out and then you connect fabric across it so you kind of create shade. And there was like a pull out picnic table. There was, you know, soft furnishing, those rugs, cushions, etc. And lots of equipment to play with. And we also used it as a mobile podcasting studio. So we had people come and join us inside the space, if you will, for conversations around public space. And it was really fun because we put it in really so it looked so janky. I mean it really was very cheap. I think we did the whole thing for, I don't even know, no money at all. It was all op shopped or, or donated materials and it was very low fi. And we put it in places like Spring Street. We put a Spring street right opposite Parliament. We actually had to get a permit to put it in a parking bay which took months of negotiation with the city to get. And we put it on Gertrude Street. We put it in front of the art gallery. We put in these quiet, sophisticated spaces, if you will, and quite formal spaces. And it was, you know, it's a particularly great image looking at it opposite the treasury building on Spring street and people would walk past interested and confused what it was. And we had a sign saying, you know, this is for free to use. Like come on in. Like we had, we had an. A frame that sat to the side and you could, you know, but people, if we were in the space ourselves, people would come up and chat and would be so interested and would, you know, poke around and use the space. But if we left it on it attended, I. E. Left it for people to open and discover and play with. People would definitely stop and look but were really resistant to use it. Which was a super interesting learning experience about the kind of. There's sort of, I think in Australia there's. We're very good at following rules in Australia and we have a real respect of public and private space and that delineation and there's sort of this resistance of how to make spaces your own. We don't really play with, with our social infrastructure, sorry, our physical infrastructure, that much public infrastructure. And I think this was the extension of that. We were very physically, we're very. In terms of like yes, our embodied engagement with spaces were very reserved as a Culture, I think, for better or for worse. And so there was. Yeah, there was a real resistance from people. There was interest, but ultimately resistance to go ahead and use it. Because there was this perception, I guess, well, what if this is someone else's? Even though we had a big sign saying it's free to use, whereas when you saw other people using it, it sort of gave you the social license to come and engage. It was like, okay, well, this is clearly okay to use, because here are these other people using it. So it was. It was a really interesting experiment, in a way, like a playful sort of experiment in public space.
[00:29:30 - 00:29:32] Ilana Razbash: That's a very interesting observation.
[00:29:32 - 00:30:30] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. So it's on wheels, so we still have it in storage. It was recently used at Queen Vic Market, again for an event. Someone was hosting an event. There was a conference for people in the gig economy and he was interested, as a researcher from Monash, interested in using creating spaces in the city for gig workers to be able to come and rest or charge their phone or get, you know, get a hot drink. And he was. Wants to basically build a space and there's a hosting of a symposium to kick this project off and they use the open lab there as a place for people to sit. So, you know, it's. It's doing the rounds, it's getting some use, but it's. It's also very clunky and heavy to move. So we're going to try to prototype another version that's a lot smaller and lighter and can be more mobile, essentially. But, yeah, it was a very interesting experiment, but it was ironically, one of the cheapest, easiest. Most sort of didn't have much thought into it beyond just, oh, let's do this fun thing. And I think that's usually where the best outcomes come from anyway.
[00:30:30 - 00:30:32] Ilana Razbash: Yeah, there's really unexpected.
[00:30:32 - 00:30:37] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There's no pressure and that. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah.
[00:30:37 - 00:30:39] Ilana Razbash: You've done a lot of walking tours in the city as well.
[00:30:40 - 00:31:59] Rachel Iampolski: Yep. Love. I love walking tours. I just love them. I love doing derives, which is sort of this concept, this French concept of walking without purpose. I think it translates. There's no direct translation, but loosely translates to drifting. That's what I've been told. I don't speak French, but I've been told it sort of loosely translates to drifting in that you're walking with no destination in mind, no aim, you're just going for a walk and you're meant to. The concept sort of encourages you to get disorientated and walk, Walk without a destination or without Quite the geographic awareness of where you are. So that sort of allows you to disassociate from your expectations of what the city is or what the space that you're exploring is based on what you've known it to be. You can dissociate from that and sort of see it from this fresh lens, if you will. So we lead these sort of tours, we lead these derivatives where we go out with people. So that's always fun. And also, I used to. I haven't done it for a little while now. I think the pandemic slowed stuff down. But we used to do readings in public space. We used to collect to do reading groups on. On topics of public space in the public space that we're reading about. So that was always fun. But have to. Yeah, have to get back into that. I haven't done it in a little while, actually. If you want to go out reading in public space, let me know.
[00:31:59 - 00:32:05] Ilana Razbash: These. Interestingly, these are all things people in the local community can pick up themselves.
[00:32:05 - 00:32:06] Rachel Iampolski: Absolutely.
[00:32:06 - 00:32:10] Ilana Razbash: They can go for a deriv. Have you sometimes applied rules to your derivatives?
[00:32:10 - 00:34:31] Rachel Iampolski: Like. Yes, turn right every. Exactly. Because what happens is because we, the people that join in are so familiar with the city in that they're locals or have been here for a while. So we have to set rules to help with the disorientation. Right. So be like. Oh, yeah, exactly. Every time you get to an intersection, turn right if the street starts with a vowel, turn left if it starts with a consonant. Follow any smells, you know, like, follow the sound of clanging, whatever. We'd set some rules to help disorientate. And you actually end up in the weirdest spaces you've ever been. And I think so that kind of stuff is really fun. But I think in terms of place making projects that the community can get involved with, I think those kind of projects, like these walking tours or derives reading groups, are really fun for thinking about space from a new lens, exploring that topic. But if you're looking at projects that are making sort of more impact on your local community, then I. What I would really advise people to. To get their hands dirty with is tactical urbanism projects, which, like I said, are basically placemaking, but at a very low fi level and led by the community and very much with the idea of improving the outcomes of your local community and the public spaces around it. So a classic one is that people close off streets themselves. They just go out and buy. So involves the sort of infrastructure and symbols of formal sort of infrastructure building and used strategically tact you know, with, you know, specific tactics in mind by citizens. So, you know, classic ones would be high vis vests so you look formal in what you're doing. Traffic cones is a great one. Tape and paint. So really simple interventions that have that sort of credibility of big infrastructure projects. And so if you've always wanted to close off your street, for example, to car traffic, to put on a, you know, like, let's say a block party or something, and you can't be bothered going through all the permits and the whole rigmarole of going through council to do it formally, you can't just put out some witch cones.
[00:34:31 - 00:34:34] Ilana Razbash: I was going to say that is a little bit of a cheeky solution.
[00:34:34 - 00:36:56] Rachel Iampolski: It is a cheeky. And that's. And that's. But that's what tactical urbanism is, right? It is. Guerrilla urbanism is a tax. It's a cheeky and strategic intervention in place of like a very bureaucratic heavy system that limits citizens ability to actually cultivate their own local spaces. So it's like, okay, well, maybe we can go around the rules a little bit. But I guess the other caveat is that it's done in ways that have no permanent implications on spaces around them and infrastructure. Right. So you're not doing any kind of permanent damage or anything. That's not reversible. It's all temporary, it's all removable. So all it is is witches cones. You can move witches cones in a second. If someone comes along, a local laws officer, and asks you to move your witch's cones. So, you know, so you can, you can do that. Slightly more intense one is to paint onto the road if you want to paint. You know, I've seen these great ones where people are trying to slow down traffic on their local street because cars are coming down really fast, they've ridden to local council, it hasn't been actioned, etc. And people just paint circles or shapes onto this road, which naturally cause. Forces drivers to slow down because people will be like, oh, what is this? So they end up driving a bit slower. And so, so they've kind of taken making their street safer into their own hands. So there's lots of interventions you can do. And if it's something you're interested in and you're listening, I'd recommend googling tactical urbanism examples and seeing there's so many great ones from all over the world and they're just really simple and easy ways to do it. And I think if, yeah, if there's. If you've ever walked past this space and thought, oh, gee whiz, wouldn't it be better if it was like this? Or you could access this, or this was closed off or whatever. There's probably a way you can try and do it yourself, at least for the day. It won't be permanent, but you can get away with it for a day, maybe. And if you do it, I would recommend, depending on the legality of it, taking photos and sending it to your counselor, being like, look how great this outcome was. We closed the street and we had all this intervention, all this activation, so we had kids playing street, whatever. Can you think. Can you think about doing this in a more permanent way? And that's where I see place making and tackle urbanism as a. As an advocacy tool. If you're sort of, then taking these good examples, good outcome examples up to your relevant government authority. Yeah.
[00:36:56 - 00:36:59] Ilana Razbash: Is a test. A test scheme?
[00:36:59 - 00:37:02] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Just casually inviting your listeners to do crime.
[00:37:02 - 00:37:07] Ilana Razbash: But I should note that there are very much plenty of permits mechanisms.
[00:37:07 - 00:37:13] Rachel Iampolski: No, there are. And there are formal ways, of course, if you've got the time and energy there, do the formal route, of course, but if you don't.
[00:37:14 - 00:37:30] Ilana Razbash: And at the moment there's also. We touched on this last week with my guest, but there is an open application process with the City of Kingston for parklets. And the thing about this application in particular is that it's to hospitality businesses only.
[00:37:31 - 00:37:31] Rachel Iampolski: Gotcha.
[00:37:32 - 00:38:10] Ilana Razbash: So if you're a shopkeeper on the street and if you're not a hospitality business, you can't apply for it, that permit, as far as I understand it. So what are some recommendations you can make to hospitality businesses looking at designing their parklets to be a bit more open, to be a bit more inviting, a bit more democratic if. When the. When the store is closed to encourage people to use it or to encourage people to stay longer. Can. Can you make any suggestions to. To improve the. The civic quality of parklands? Because they're complicated. They can. They're definitely contentious, definitely.
[00:38:11 - 00:40:03] Rachel Iampolski: So I think greenery is a big one, particularly if you can get away, if you've got the budget for it, for real greenery. Like, if you can put. If you have the budget for inbuilt planters on the periphery of the parklet? I think it's really great just visually. And then likewise, I think I see a lot of parklets that have thought about the interior, but haven't really thought about the exterior, and it's just the exposed timber. So if you've got any capacity to offer any Kind of, you know, visual application to the outside, even if it's just a lick of paint, you know what I mean? And then likewise, I think to go to the topic of how to have to get the most function out of it, even when your business is closed. For example, if it's a cafe, you know, how. How can people use it after 4 o' clock when the cafe closes is I think, inbuilt furniture. So rather than the temporary, rather than the restaurant furniture that you pull out every morning and take away every afternoon, if you can have inbuilt furniture in the park, or at least some of it, like sort of bank seating on the periphery and then you bring out tables, that. That's a great one. And I think also visual diversity is. Is important like that there's. It's not just one homogenous design or shape play around with the heights of the seating or the colors of the seating or the fabric. You know, just some. Something visually to break it up and create a bit of intrigue when people walk past. And if there's again any capacity, I think also. And again, this obviously depends on permits and where you're on the street to basically reduce. To bring some kind of canopy or something that sort of sits overhead, even if that's just a row of fairy lights or just, you know, two sort of, I don't know the architectural terms, but two, you know, rows of timber that creates sort of a bit of a.
[00:40:03 - 00:40:04] Ilana Razbash: Like an arbori.
[00:40:04 - 00:40:44] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly, yeah. You know, something like that. This obviously has to be, you know, structurally, structurally sound and, and survive the elements. But something that creates a little bit of quasi ceiling, if you will, I think is really important for human scale people like that. The ceiling feels like it's there. Like it's there basically. Especially if you're in a street with really tall buildings either side, the human scale gets really warped and you feel really small and therefore not very comfortable on the street. So if you're particularly in a street with, you know, three, four, five plus story buildings, it would be great to have some kind of canopy overhead just from that sort of human experience. I think they're really useful.
[00:40:45 - 00:40:46] Ilana Razbash: Those are all really good tips.
[00:40:46 - 00:40:47] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, yeah.
[00:40:47 - 00:40:56] Ilana Razbash: Encouraging any listeners who are putting in parkland applications at the moment to see how can you open that up a bit more for your community.
[00:40:56 - 00:41:34] Rachel Iampolski: But it is a shame though that it is only open to hospitality, isn't it? Because imagine like a dry cleaner, I assume a dry cleaner business doesn't count as hospitality. Assume it's zoned as Retail or something, I'm not sure. But imagine if it had a. If it had a small. Even a small parklet out the front where you could wait. What? You know, with magazines or something from the inside while you wait for your dry cleaning. You know, like, I think just small things like that, I think help create a more social street, a more social high street. So it's a shame we can only really extend our imagination around what that could look like to hospitality only. Yeah.
[00:41:34 - 00:42:07] Ilana Razbash: That's my hope for the future, with parklands being taken up, that we can be a bit more discerning, maybe, with who we offer it to. And of course, you probably couldn't give a parklet to any business that applies, but if the application can demonstrate the value, add to the street, to the public, to the amenity of the service, that laundromat's a perfect example. I'd love to see council assessing that on its merits and helping streamline those processes and even streamlining block party applications.
[00:42:07 - 00:42:08] Rachel Iampolski: Absolutely.
[00:42:08 - 00:42:15] Ilana Razbash: I know once upon a time, a little cul de sac area used to do that and they're thinking of reinvigorating it. So.
[00:42:15 - 00:42:16] Rachel Iampolski: The block party.
[00:42:16 - 00:42:18] Ilana Razbash: Yeah, the block party experience. Yes.
[00:42:18 - 00:42:20] Rachel Iampolski: And why did they stop doing it?
[00:42:21 - 00:42:23] Ilana Razbash: I think it was the pandemic.
[00:42:23 - 00:42:24] Rachel Iampolski: Oh, sure. Yeah. Okay.
[00:42:24 - 00:42:24] Ilana Razbash: Perhaps.
[00:42:25 - 00:42:25] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:42:25 - 00:42:27] Ilana Razbash: Well, before my time in the local area.
[00:42:27 - 00:42:28] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:42:28 - 00:42:41] Ilana Razbash: With the street that I grew up in, in the city of Glenara area, they have an annual block party in the little park, actual park, at the end of the street.
[00:42:41 - 00:42:45] Rachel Iampolski: At the end of the cul de sac. Yeah. Because you got that infrastructure to do it in. Exactly.
[00:42:45 - 00:42:58] Ilana Razbash: So. So they already have the infrastructure to celebrate rather than having to occupy tactically, tactfully, to. To create those moments for. For interaction.
[00:42:58 - 00:43:31] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think. Yeah, There's. I think a lot of people want to do more, but find the process of doing it formally quite intimidating, even though most of it's, you know, if you want to find out the information, you will be able to find out the information, but it's taxing and it's intimidating and I think it turns a lot of people away. So, you know, I think it's. It would be great to see councils find ways to make that a lot more accessible to people. And in the interim, I think the other option is to do it guerrilla style.
[00:43:31 - 00:43:34] Ilana Razbash: Guerrilla Gardeners, that was a very popular show briefly.
[00:43:34 - 00:43:34] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:43:36 - 00:43:39] Ilana Razbash: Small run season on commercial television.
[00:43:39 - 00:44:47] Rachel Iampolski: Well, that's a great example. Also Verge Gardens. Guerrilla Verge Gardens, which is when people are transforming the nature strip in front of their own property. To, you know, a veggie garden or an edible garden or just planting non edible native plants. I'm not sure the rules of Kingston, but a lot of councils that I know of allow it. It is legal to do it. However, if anyone complains, if anyone has any issues with the verge garden, you will get a letter in the mail to remove it. So it depends. I mean, every council's got slightly different rules. I know some councils are a lot more supportive of it and others less so, but that's another great example of ways you can sort of reinvigorate the public realm in a way that's accessible and that, that's still, that's right in front of your house. So that's space you're allowed to occupy according to most council laws. I mean, probably look up Kingston specifically before you do it, but I would imagine it's okay. And that's another great one people are, because I think something like, I read a statistic that in suburban areas, about one third of open green space is nature strip, which is huge if you.
[00:44:47 - 00:44:49] Ilana Razbash: Think about it, like manicure lawn.
[00:44:49 - 00:45:41] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah. Massive. And it's doing that lawn is doing nothing for biodiversity, visually, it's doing nothing. Like it could be serving so much, serving people and insects and animals and biodiversity so much better than it is. And of course, I understand council does not have the infrastructure to turn every nature strip into a verge garden, but you have the right as a citizen to do it. And there's also community groups that go around and support you doing it. They share, you know, cultivated seeds and advice on how to do it. So that's another great example of tactical urbanism that has sort of come about as a response to a lack of, you know, appropriate biodiversity in your neighborhood. And people have come up with this solution and it's a great solution. And now it is being adopted by councils, which is great to see.
[00:45:42 - 00:45:44] Ilana Razbash: Is a nature strip a threshold space?
[00:45:44 - 00:46:06] Rachel Iampolski: Yes, I would say so, definitely. Oh, actually that's a great question, isn't it? I'd be curious to see what other people say. I would see it as a threshold space, but I would imagine there's people that just see it as the public realm and not the threshold space. So that's a curious one, isn't it? I wonder. I, I personally would, but I could imagine other people might see that as, as just part of the street, therefore public, not in between public or private.
[00:46:07 - 00:46:10] Ilana Razbash: Sometimes you get these moments where people have put down pavers.
[00:46:10 - 00:46:10] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:46:10 - 00:46:18] Ilana Razbash: Through their nature strips. They can go directly into their car and that, for me, is definitely a threshold moment.
[00:46:18 - 00:46:41] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Right, yeah. So it's. It's sort of. Because most street designs will have the footpath, the cemented footpath and then the nature strip and then the gutter. And so I could imagine, if you're. For some people, it is. The nature strip is the threshold space between the footpath and the road, and for other people, it's all part of the street, so it'd be interesting to see how people view it.
[00:46:41 - 00:46:54] Ilana Razbash: Last week we touched on the topic of fine grain and these threshold spaces, these liminal spaces, they also. The phenomena that enhance and contribute to the fine grain.
[00:46:54 - 00:48:13] Rachel Iampolski: Absolutely, yeah. And it's. I think, for me also, fine grain is the stuff you don't even necessarily think about. Like, it's just sort of there. And it's only when you're forced to stop and think about it that you realize how much quote unquote, liminal or threshold spaces exist around you. And there this sort of cowboy space in that it's not quite clear who owns it and who's responsible for it. And even if there is a formal owner. Right. But I just mean when you walk past, there's a sort of feeling that it's not quite clear whose it is. And so sometimes I think it feels neglected for that reason, because no one quite takes ownership over it. Which is why I think verge gardening is great, because maybe previously thought, oh, well, this is just this place that the council owns. However, it's your responsibility to mow it. Right. Because it's the nature. The nature strip in front of your property is owned by the council. It's not your property, but it is your responsibility to mow it. So you have a responsibility to it. And so I think it's great to see that sort of dynamic being flipped when people are activating it in a way that they want to activate it through. Through plants or through planting in general. So, yeah, it's. It, yeah. Threshold and liminal spaces are almost what you make of it. Right. It almost comes down to personal perception of what is and isn't. Yeah.
[00:48:14 - 00:48:16] Ilana Razbash: But they're very important for a quality of life.
[00:48:17 - 00:48:55] Rachel Iampolski: Oh, hugely, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's mostly what you're experiencing when you're in the public realm. You know, not so much of what you experience when you're out walking about is a liminal spaces and threshold spaces, and there's so much untapped potential in them as well. I think they're really neglected, often from. From a government lens, from a design lens, and from a civic lens, from citizen lens. And so that's what I'm saying. It's great to see when citizens respond to that lack of thought by, by, you know, just claiming it and doing something with it, I. E. A verge garden. So yeah, I think there's loads of potential there from all actors to do more with them. Yeah.
[00:48:56 - 00:49:03] Ilana Razbash: And sometimes doing something joyous and exciting and a bit silly. I remember during the lockdowns, the wooden spoons.
[00:49:03 - 00:49:04] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly.
[00:49:04 - 00:49:05] Ilana Razbash: Villages everywhere.
[00:49:05 - 00:49:44] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly. And it's sort, it's sort of like people like, oh wait, we can do fun things, we can play with space. We don't play with space here. It's a bit of a shame actually. But you're allowed to. And even if you're not, what's the worst that will happen? They'll take you, make you remove your spoons. I mean, do you know what I mean? So I think I would, yeah, if you, I would encourage anyone listening to think about ways you can play with space and, and, and, and, and, but, but I, I understand the resistance. I understand people think, oh well, I don't have authority over this space, I don't own it, et cetera, or I don't have permission, therefore I won't do anything. But I'm here to tell you, you probably have more permission than you realize and if you don't, no, nothing's gonna happen.
[00:49:44 - 00:49:45] Ilana Razbash: Or you can apply for it.
[00:49:45 - 00:50:17] Rachel Iampolski: Well, you can apply, yeah. If you're, if you're really, you know, litigious, you can apply or you can talk to the owner of the property. If it's a private property, you know, this ways around it, but it just needs, there needs to be, you know, it needs to be led by someone. It's not going to happen on its own. So if you see something you want to do, something you want to play with space, just go for it. There's, there's, there's a, there's a means and if not that space, there'll be another space. But it has to be self driven, I think is what I'm trying to say. There's not going to be, it's, it's.
[00:50:17 - 00:50:19] Ilana Razbash: It'S not going to come to you.
[00:50:19 - 00:50:54] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly. Yeah. And the more it's self driven and the more we see examples of that, positive examples and case studies, etc. And that then sort of ends up, goes up the chains and is seen by the local officers or the local government or state government, whoever it is, powers that be, developers, etc. The more that they see that it's being done and that there's a desire for it and the people responding positive to it, the more they are likely to do it from the bottom down. And then it might eventually come to you, but nonetheless it will only come to you once. There is, I think, a citizen push for it. Yeah. So we have to mobilize.
[00:50:54 - 00:50:56] Ilana Razbash: It's showing up for what you want to see.
[00:50:56 - 00:50:57] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:50:57 - 00:50:57] Ilana Razbash: Urban realm.
[00:50:57 - 00:50:58] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly.
[00:50:58 - 00:51:01] Ilana Razbash: Much like the path that inevitably brought you to government.
[00:51:01 - 00:51:02] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, exactly.
[00:51:02 - 00:51:15] Ilana Razbash: So what are some of the developments in the urban planning space at the moment? And any ideas in urban planning, town planning that you're interested in and think are really exciting? What's coming up on the horizon?
[00:51:15 - 00:53:49] Rachel Iampolski: Oh, that's an interesting question. I think. Well, oh, my gosh. Something exciting that's coming up. This. I mean, I don't know if it's coming up necessarily. There's. There's. I think there's. I think as a result of COVID there's definitely a lot more awareness for pub. The quantity and quality of public spaces available to people and, and just. Yeah, a lot more like awareness of that and the consciousness around that is growing, I think, which is excellent. And so things like when people took over golf courses during lockdowns and tried to make it into public parks, you know, these kind of things. And, and likewise, I think that message is being carried through to. To. To planners. So that's really exciting. So I think there's. There's a lot of progress happening there. And I think the other one is obviously the cost of living crisis is. And housing affordability crisis specifically, while in itself terrifying and, you know, horrible thing that we're going through and, and will continue for some time, unfortunately, it. I think it again, has raised the question around quantity of public housing distribution and where we're putting public housing and yeah, the quality and quantity of public housing that's being built. So I think that's exciting. And likewise the type. The typology of housing, I think we're starting to think a lot more critically about, as partially as a result of. Of the cost of the cost of housing crisis and, and partially also through changing demographics and also because of a lack of space. So we're really forced to think about what does the actual family home look like now and how can we be doing it in a way that's more efficient? Is it like, can we only think about the standard model of a standalone house with a big backyard? I mean, that's really not a thing anymore, essentially. And as. And. And in the interim, I Think we had really poor design outcomes as a response to that. And now we're really starting to think about, okay, maybe the, The. The sort of standard grey townhouse isn't the best alternative either. So I think there's. It. We're not there yet, but I think that level of discussion at a political level, at a planning level is better than I've seen it before. So I think it's making good progress. And so I think hopefully we'll see good outcomes from that as well.
[00:53:49 - 00:53:51] Ilana Razbash: That's really exciting. Into a new era.
[00:53:52 - 00:53:53] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, I think so.
[00:53:53 - 00:53:57] Ilana Razbash: Especially so people in communities can downsize and stay there.
[00:53:58 - 00:53:58] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:53:58 - 00:53:59] Ilana Razbash: And not have to move away.
[00:54:00 - 00:54:00] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:54:00 - 00:54:05] Ilana Razbash: Or young people can afford to stay in the area they grew up in or want to stay in.
[00:54:05 - 00:54:31] Rachel Iampolski: Yep. And I think the other thing that's exciting is. Well, Generally, I think TikTok's really exciting because I go on there and I see these really interesting critical debates around planning being talked about on viral social media like I've never seen it before and being broken down in a really accessible way. And all of a sudden I'm going on TikTok and seeing people talk about third space, which is this. You know, I've never seen that topic talked about outside of academic spheres.
[00:54:31 - 00:54:32] Ilana Razbash: Can you explain?
[00:54:32 - 00:57:36] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah, yes, certainly. Well, if you go on TikTok, someone will explain to you in a matter of 30 seconds, which is amazing. But basically, third space is just a space that is neither your home or your work. So first space was your home, and third space is your got. Your work is your second space. And then there was this argument, this sort of came about in America in the 70s, I think that there was. There needs to be a third space that people go that isn't home or work. And so people often described things like the hairdresser, you know, the hairdressers, the library, the laundromat, these kind of places where you can meet and mingle without being at home or at work. And then there's this. According to the theory, there is like seven specific criteria that have to. For it to meet a third space. But generally speaking, that's it. Right. And people are talking about this on TikTok now, being like, well, why don't we have more third spaces? You know, the way we design cities and the cost of rent and everything has eradicated third spaces. And these are integral to, like, commute, like maintaining the welfare of communities and connectivity in communities, living together. Exactly, yeah. And so all of a sudden people are talking about this, which is so exciting. And I Think. I think also we're seeing to a degree a resurgence around spaces like libraries and thinking more. There was, you know, this whole fear mongering that oh, in the, in the digital age, what, what's, what service the library's gonna have? I mean, everything's gonna be digital. We're gonna have ebooks. What, what the heck can libraries do? And where. Everyone thought they'd die out, but they didn't. They, they've had a complete resurgence because we've rethought what they are beyond just a place that collects books on a shelf. And now we're thinking about them as community spaces and spaces for community services. And so you're seeing things like now councils are putting social workers into libraries. So they're there available for people that come in, they're running classes, their study spaces, et like they've adapted in a way and, and really they're functioning as third spaces, which is exciting. We're also seeing that around things like community hubs at library, at schools. Increasingly there was this push for why should schools only serve children? They should be serving the community around the children, I. E. The families. And so now you've got these hubs that exist in school that are there for the parents and have wraparound social services so you can, you know, there's this sort of support social workers there, there's, you know, justice law and justice support for parents, you know, they run classes, whatever. There's bookable spaces and all. They created this infrastructure in public schools to service the community more broadly. And so I think we're starting to think about that. We're not thinking about our infrastructure in these really siloed ways. We're thinking about how can everything work in a more integrated way. And, and that's really like sort of pulling on these ideas of third spaces as well, but, you know, doing it more critically, I guess. So that's another exciting new sort of planning outcome I think we're seeing more and more of which is great.
[00:57:37 - 00:57:39] Ilana Razbash: That's what turns those buildings into places.
[00:57:39 - 00:58:17] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly, yeah. Oh, and that's the other one. Oh, you just got me. Just reminded me. The other one is, you know, since COVID with more and more people working from home, there's obviously now this question, well, what do we need all these office towers for in the city? And so there's a lot of questions now about refurb and that's a whole nother discussion. I mean there's so it's a whole detailed discussion around the pros and cons from an environmental perspective of refurbing or knocking down a building renew. But regardless, we're now forced to think about, well, what is the city if it's not just a space for office workers to go? So. And what are these tall towers for? So this. There's a lot. And I think Covid really turned it all on its head and in an exciting way.
[00:58:18 - 00:58:20] Ilana Razbash: Yeah, it's an exciting future ahead.
[00:58:20 - 00:58:23] Rachel Iampolski: I think so. Yeah, we're definitely that sort of intersection, I think.
[00:58:23 - 00:58:26] Ilana Razbash: What's. What's the number one thing that gives you hope?
[00:58:27 - 00:59:06] Rachel Iampolski: That's a great question. I think TikTok. No, I mean, all jokes aside, I mean, I'm obviously a huge TikTok fan, as you know, but I think the level of critical discourse on there around these topics that it brings to light is just so exciting. And I think it's mobilizing people that were previously not. I wouldn't say checked out, but just not aware of these topics. Right. Like when you mention it there. So it's like, oh, yeah, you're totally right, we do need more of them. But it's not that they didn't support that idea. They're just something they hadn't thought about before. And So I think TikTok is bringing around this new level of consciousness around these topics in this viral way that was never happening with other social media platforms or with YouTube. So that's really exciting.
[00:59:06 - 00:59:08] Ilana Razbash: And entirely public led.
[00:59:08 - 00:59:08] Rachel Iampolski: Exactly.
[00:59:08 - 00:59:17] Ilana Razbash: And it's a really important reminder to designers, to architects, to planners, to government. Never underestimate the intelligence of the public.
[00:59:17 - 00:59:18] Rachel Iampolski: Definitely.
[00:59:18 - 00:59:20] Ilana Razbash: Because they are all over it.
[00:59:21 - 00:59:21] Rachel Iampolski: Yeah.
[00:59:22 - 00:59:24] Ilana Razbash: Thank you so much for tonight's conversation, Rachel.
[00:59:24 - 00:59:26] Rachel Iampolski: Thank you. An hour flew by.
[00:59:31 - 00:59:50] Ilana Razbash: Thanks for joining me for another evening of radio architecture with Alana Rasbash. This live show was broadcast and recorded in the Radio Karam studio on Bonarong Country. You can replay this show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in and supporting Community Radio. Take care.
[00:59:54 - 01:00:15] Rachel Iampolski: Hi, everybody, this is Whit from Spider Bait. When I'm passing through Carrum, aside from slowing down to 50km an hour and reminisce about doing the Ill Race Road rumba or the Whateley Street Wiggle, I like to tune in to Radio Karen and get down with the good vibes.
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