Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments A Review of Best Practice and Guide for Western Sydney Renewal AUGUST 2020 Published by: Landcom, Sydney, Australia First published August 2020 © Landcom, Sydney, 2020 ISBN: 978-0-6483596-4-7 Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Research Assistant: Vanicka Arora, PhD Urban Environments: a review of best practice candidate, Institute for Culture and Society, and guide for Western Sydney renewal was WSU [email protected] prepared by researchers from the Institute for Research Assistant: Dr Hermann Ruiz, Culture and Society (ICS) at Western Sydney [email protected] University (WSU), Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and the University of To cite this Report Technology, Sydney (UTS). This research was funded by the Landcom Roundtable. Mellick Lopes, A., Arora, V., Healy, S., Power, E., Armstrong, H., Crabtree, L., Gibson, K., and Tonkinwise, C. (2020). Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments: A Review of Best Practice and Guide for Western Sydney Renewal. Sydney: Landcom. Authors Researchers who contributed to this Acknowledgements Report and the prototype Cooling the We would like to thank the students of Commons Pattern Deck include: Western Sydney University and University of Technology, Sydney who participated in this Lead Researcher: Associate Professor research. We would also like to thank staff Abby Mellick Lopes, School of Humanities at Landcom for their generous contributions and Communication Arts and the Institute of time, interest, enthusiasm and considered for Culture and Society, WSU feedback during our Workshops and site visits. [email protected] This research is informed by our pilot study Researcher and Coordinator of Student Cooling the Commons with contributions from Project 1: Associate Professor Louise Penrith City Council and residents and social Crabtree, Institute for Culture and Society, services in Western Sydney, for which we are WSU l.crabtree@ westernsydney.edu.au ongoingly grateful. Researcher and Coordinator of Student Preface Project 2: Professor Cameron Tonkinwise, School of Design, University of Technology This independent research was funded through Sydney [email protected] the Landcom Roundtable. The Roundtable was established to drive innovative approaches to Researcher: Dr Stephen Healy, urban research where government, academia Institute for Culture and Society, WSU and industry work in genuine collaboration. This stephen.healy@ westernsydney.edu.au research was funded to find innovative ways to Researcher: Dr Emma Power, improve liveability under extreme urban heat. Institute for Culture and Society, WSU Landcom notes the findings as a contribution e.power@ westernsydney.edu.au to the ongoing exploration of ways to Researcher: Emeritus Professor Helen leverage patterns in natural, built and social Armstrong, Landscape Architecture, QUT environments to enhance liveability in hot cities, [email protected] but does not endorse specific conclusions. Researcher: Professor Katherine Gibson, Institute for Culture and Society, WSU [email protected] 3 Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments Contents 5 Executive Summary 34 4. Old Patterns 36 Uncommoning new urban spaces 7 1. Introduction 46 Night-time Commoning 7 Increasing Temperatures and Climate Change Impacts: Contextual Trends 47 5. Post-Occupancy: 9 Focusing on Heat Related Impacts Living Commons 13 Cool Commons 47 Collaborative Governance 15 Patterns for Cooling the Commons 49 Peer to Peer Dynamics and a Partner State 20 2. Approach and Methodology 51 A Sense of Community 21 Literature 22 Analytical Tools: Commoning, Social 53 Conclusion Practices and an Intergenerational Mindset 54 References 24 Student Projects 61 Appendices 25 Workshops 27 Cool Master Planning: 62 Appendix 1 - Cooling the the case of Stuttgart Commons Pattern Deck Sample 31 3. Where do the Patterns Fit 79 Appendix 2 - Workshop 1 in the Development Process? 95 Appendix 3 - Workshop 2 32 General Development Process 33 Government Stakeholders 103 Appendix 4 - Building System Design: Material Lifespans 33 Community and Business Stakeholders 33 Non-Profits and Local Initiatives 105 Appendix 5 - Cooling the Commons Media 2018 -2019 4 Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments Executive Summary In Australia, we are looking toward 50 degree summer days in our capital cities by mid-century (Lewis et al., 2017; IPCC, 2018). Increasing urban heat is a particular concern for Western Sydney, as the locus of population growth and economic activity moves west, creating a demand for new housing, infrastructure and services. This situation requires an intergenerational built environment on community health and mindset and new tools and resources for well-being is particularly magnified. Funded thinking through the compounding social and by the Landcom Roundtable and aligned with environmental implications of increasing heat, Landcom’s Sustainable Places Strategy, this population and building density in Australia’s research aims to support Landcom and its third largest economy. stakeholders in making planning and design decisions that recognise this influence. Landcom is engaged in developing neighbourhood precincts in Sydney that create Planning and developing healthy and more affordable and sustainable communities, inclusive neighbourhoods to accommodate including in Western Sydney, where the rapid population growth is critically urban heat island effect is adversely affecting important. However, new environmental liveability, and where the influence of the and social conditions demand innovation 5 Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments in planning and design processes, and new water stations and connecting residential sensitivities in relation to what people want environments to public transport networks and need from their neighbourhoods in the or shops, affords walkability and sociality for much warmer Sydney of the future. While diverse members of the community. However, climate-controlled environments are an since a pattern such as ‘Shaded Pedestrian important part of the picture, the challenge Linkage’ is distributed across space and is to design shared urban environments that time, as it is activated by pedestrians, it is facilitate comfortable mobility and sociality. not ‘owned’ or cared for by a single entity. From our perspective, these qualities are We claim the commons should be the focus what make living in a city worthwhile. of strategies for cooling the city but, as the historic commons economist Elinor Ostrom Learning from international examples of what describes, they require protection and has worked well in practice, we identify key maintenance on an intergenerational basis. design patterns that improve how communities can live in a hot city. Our context is the This research takes up the challenge of commons – those spaces, practices, resources promoting a new approach to thinking about and knowledges shared by a community, and urban liveability in warming cities, with two that a community depends on for a sense principles at its core. First, asking how open of cohesiveness and well-being. It is on the space can be planned for ‘coolth’ defined quality of the commons that perceptions of as the experience of feeling manageably liveability across environmental wellness, social comfortable in a hot city; and second, how connectedness, accessibility and safety, often coolth can be connected with sociality. stand or fall. This research has two outputs. The first, this Designing with an intergenerational Report, contains background material and an mindset requires those with a shared Appendix of the presentations and workshops stake in maintaining healthy and inclusive held over the course of this project, which neighbourhoods to have a sense of extended made up our methodology. This Report responsibility for design decisions, which underpins and informs the second and key continue to resonate past the point of output, the Cooling the Commons Pattern occupancy. Our research identifies patterns Deck. The deck is conceived as a prototype at the planning, delivery and post-occupancy decision-making resource for planners, (or lived in) stages of a development, which developers, community liaison officers, outline material and social strategies that council workers and the communities they are required for optimum liveability. These serve. It is envisaged that the pattern deck patterns expose and support aspects of will be ‘resonance tested’ with stakeholder community life that are compromised by groups facilitated by the research team, with increasing urban heat and the retreat into feedback from these groups incorporated into private air conditioned environments, which is the patterns on an ongoing basis (outside the rapidly becoming a design and social norm. scope of the current research). While currently in a prototype form, we argue that the pattern Patterns for cool commons are not discreet, deck represents the sorts of strategies and but are a result of interactions between the resources now needed to ensure liveability in natural and built environment and rhythms new and renewing neighbourhoods in Greater of social life, that recur over time. A wide, Western Sydney, into the future. shaded walk-way furnished with seating and 6 Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments 1. Introduction Increasing Temperatures and Climate Change Impacts: Contextual Trends According to the Australian Bureau