More than ever, our environment is impacting how we live – and vice versa, as Cathy O’Leary discovers.
Perth-based transport planner Ben Haddock argues that when it comes to what people want and expect from the environment around them, it’s not rocket science.
“Humans are pretty simple, we want to feel happy with a perception of safety, feel a connection and have clean air, so it’s not that complicated,” he says.
As future mobility lead designer in Australasia for engineering and planning consultancy Arup, Mr Haddock’s work focuses on connecting energy, transport and the environment in a low-emission space – essentially smarter
urban design.
He has more than 20 years’ experience managing transport projects around the world, working with clients to help them understand and quantify how decarbonisation and clean fuels impacts cities and regions.
Earlier this year, he was guest speaker at a webinar organised by WA safety advocacy organisation Injury Matters, where he discussed the urban environment and design measures that can create a safer community.
The presentation was told that people’s mobility habits had changed significantly during the pandemic, with a 63% increase in cycling during COVID restrictions and more time spent locally. This had contributed to a 36% reduction in harmful emissions at street level, by limiting access by polluting cars to urban places.
On the downside, there had been a 29% increase in cyclist fatalities.
More than lip-service
Mr Haddock told Medical Forum that while urban design had been part of the planning process for some time, what people were now realising was the actual impact of decisions made.
“Traditionally there has been a bit of a nod and an understanding of the potentials of a project to cause environmental harm and societal difficulties,” he said. “It has been more of a checked box exercise to get on the project, whereas now there’s a huge shift towards ‘what is the impact and why should we continue with the project’.
“We’re starting to see these things laid out in project briefs, that we need to quantify our impact, and that’s everything from a building through to a piece of infrastructure or a new road or bridge.
“We need to consider who will be using the streets, and how they will do it, so we have to think about the user now, and we haven’t done that much in the past.”
Mr Haddock said it was obviously harder to retro-fit environments, where there was established infrastructure such as a road, footway or park that people had been using since it was installed. It created certain behaviours such as people using their car or avoiding walking across a street because it was wide and felt unsafe.
“So that’s a challenge. You have a whole group of stakeholders who already use a street but want it to be safer and a more pleasant environment that is more accessible and healthier,” he says. “But then there’s another group of stakeholders who don’t want it to change, perhaps they drive through that street and have no connection with it and want it to stay as is.”
While there were people who did not want change such as lower speed limits in local streets, WA was on the cusp of a monumental shift in how people travelled and how they perceived the need to travel.
“With COVID we’ve had a significant number of people in Perth who are travelling to and from the CBD far less than they would usually, and going to their local centre more,” Mr Haddock says.
“They’re travelling within an environment that’s 15 minutes from where they live because it’s easier. But there are other people who are travelling a significant amount more than they were in the past – such as delivery drivers and tradies.
Rethinking movements
“Other people are realising that jumping in their car is not necessarily the best option – so they’re walking and cycling more, and they’re waking up to the fact that some of the infrastructure that is around them, near their home, isn’t up to scratch. It’s not safe or it is an environment where you would not let your seven-year-old run free.”
Mr Haddock said his company had adopted the practice of trying to design with the eyes of a child – putting themselves at the eye level of a seven-year-old, with all their vulnerabilities. That environment was very different to what was currently in the suburbs and, in particular, the CBD.
“You can’t have everything designed through the eyes of a seven-year-old, but if you bring them into the conversation, you might have a better, safer environment,” he says.
“Children are a unifying factor and being engaged with the environment and community means that people attract people, so with more people you feel safer, especially at night.”
Mr Haddock said this change in approach did not have to be expensive, and cost-wise it was preferable to get it right at the start rather than having to retro-fit down the track.
“The CBD is a bit different because it’s never complete. It’s a different economic model, but in places where people live, and local centres around schools, if you get it wrong, it’s a significant cost to fix it.
“Spending a bit of time designing a safer street early on will certainly pay dividends.”
Before COVID, about 30% of all public transport users across Australia achieved 30 minutes of exercise every weekday, walking to and from their transport. During COVID restrictions, few achieved that because people weren’t walking to the train station anymore. They needed to find their physical activity in other ways.
“Working from home has had an impact, because you don’t have to run for the train to go to work. But when you log off at 5pm, you don’t want to just transition to the couch, you need to take a break and go for a walk,” he said.
“You also can’t over-control humans. We’re organic and we make mistakes. What we really need to do is flip the narrative from designing for cars, buses and trains and design for people.
Speaking up for health
“We have to use the emotive language that’s already common in the medical environment but is not common in the built environment. It might be as simple as asking developers and governments how many people they are willing to see hurt by this scheme.”
The link with doctors advocating for healthy environments is timely, given they have a long track record of speaking up to protect public health.
In the lead-up to the recent Federal election, 10 medical groups—including the RACGP and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine – penned an open letter calling on politicians to address the effects of climate change, including the recent floods in NSW and Queensland.
“We are a broad group of doctors and physicians, and we’re seeing the impacts of climate change on health first-hand, supporting our communities in the aftermath of horrific bushfires and devastating floods,” they wrote.
“We’re also seeing the impacts of extreme heat, particularly on older people. Paediatricians and obstetricians are concerned about how climate change will affect the lives of their young patients as they grow. GPs and psychiatrists are witnessing the mental health impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on people of all ages. And specialist physicians across the country are bracing for an onslaught of illness caused by the impacts of climate change.”
Dr Omar Khorshid, the former Australian Medical Association national president, said doctors had a responsibility as professionals to advocate to improve the health of their patients.
“When I’m assessing my trainees, health advocacy is one of the domains that we use. It’s absolutely a core part of our profession,” he told Medical Forum.
“And while some people might say why is the AMA talking about climate change, we say it’s already having a very significant impact on the health of Australians, and is going to have a huge impact on the health of people in Pacific nations.
“The future is bleak if we don’t act.”
And while the voices of health experts have gone largely unheard by developers in the past, that could be changing, as more research is done into the impact of bad urban design.
Results from a global study on urban health released in May this year found that Australian cities wanted design to make residents healthy.
Their low density and walkability meant they failed to meet health and sustainability thresholds, according to The Lancet Global Health’s Urban Design, Transport and Health Series.
It found that people often lived in areas where it was difficult to walk or cycle to shops and services, and access healthy food, so the chances of meeting the World Health Organisation’s physical activity guidelines were stacked against them.
Led by RMIT University, the study assessed the daily impact of urban design, transport and health policies in 25 cities globally.
Falling short
The Australian cities studied – Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney – failed to meet health and sustainability thresholds, let down by poor access to public transport and car-centric designs.
Mr Haddock told Medical Forum that the time was ripe for change, because more people were thinking about their local environments because of COVID.
“Everyone has different lived experiences, and we should be bringing that into the discussion and that’s different from what we’ve done in the past, which is minimal consultation and then going ahead and doing it anyway.
“What we know is that the link between transport and health is direct, and the health of my child going to school is all about transport, safety, accessibility and being confident in their environment.
“So, you have to look at the whole life cycle cost. If you’re creating an environment that’s unsafe, it’s a lot costlier than a safe one, even if it doesn’t look like that at the start. We’re talking about better lighting, footpaths, safer crossings, or a covered pathway.
“There are some really big decisions to be made, and others around the world are tackling this, and Perth needs to get on and tackle these decisions too.”
Designer labels
Two Perth-based architects are behind a book which argues the case for improving the quality of medium-density housing in Australia – and quality of life.
Simon Anderson, who has taught architecture at the University of WA since 1989, and UWA professor of architecture Geoffrey London, explain in Designs on Density how housing remains in a state of rapid change, even crisis.
This is linked to increasing environmental consciousness, demographic movements, affordability pressures and new technologies in the building industry, the workplace and in the house itself.
The pair are well-credentialled, with Anderson a multi-award-winning architect, and London holding the positions of Victorian Government Architect from 2008-14 and WA Government Architect before that.
They argue the state of flux in general housing has re-invigorated debate, including how new materials and methods of construction can be best used in house-building, and how housing can help respond to environmental changes.
Their book calls for a diversity in medium-density housing types, with their main focus being on existing lots, and they include projects by a selection of Australia’s most innovative residential architects that are aimed at the majority of the population, rather than the luxury housing market.
Many of the projects featured are mixed-use buildings in the case of apartment buildings, or contain spaces on the ground floor that can be used for home offices in the case of houses on their own lots.
There are often few apartments per floor, and they have multiple external walls and aspects and are designed to maximise angle and distance of view, access to sun and breeze, and quietness.
“Rather than champion density per se, we try to understand how to do density well at the level of the individual lot,” the authors argue. “Densification is occurring – and much of it is of a low quality, leaving a poor legacy and diminishing the suburbs where infill is occurring.
“This book has drawn together a number of examples from around Australia that each carry some lessons for how to use design intelligence to do density better.”
ED: Designs on Density, UWA Publishing, RRP $59.99