Coordination and communication
Rosie Halsmith speaks with experienced landscape architect and design facilitator Greg Grabasch of Brave and Curious about the importance of considering all perspectives during the design process.
Rosie Halsmith: Could you tell us a bit about yourself, your projects and what you do?
Greg Grabasch: I’m a co-founder of the firm Brave and Curious with my colleague Joe Bean. At Brave and Curious, we facilitate processes of collaboration with people, communities, clients and stakeholders, working towards sustainable social and ecological outcomes.
Our project types are broad – we could be facilitating community and facility master planning processes or facilitating the reimagining of organisational governance. Being ‘brave and curious’ is about always being willing listen and learn.
RH: Place Value Ashfield aims to encourage a broader consideration of values around densification and provision of medium-density housing in Perth’s middle ring. As designers and coordinators, we bring our own mindsets to a project. How can we be transparent about this, and acknowledge this in project processes?
GG: Coming to a project with a process that allows the integration of other perspectives is important. The real value comes in going through a process of learning [together with the end users of a place]. When [your project process allows you to] learn from other perspectives, you might find that your values change throughout the process, which is quite exciting.
RH: Ashfield is a suburb with a high proportion of Department of Communities housing stock. Place Value proposes a coordinated approach, which is possible in sites where there is one landholder. With this opportunity comes complexity, and a responsibility to all residents of Ashfield, a rich and diverse community. What is important to keep in mind when working in this context?
GG: It’s important to remember that everyone has the same needs – to live in a place that is safe and secure. If an area has a high proportion of social housing, it’s great if we can develop a place that [has a feeling of permanence], and a place that has everything a community needs. Security is key, so it’s great if we can develop a strong and stable community in these areas.
When you’re working with high levels of social housing, it’s even more important to make sure people feel safe and engaged in their place. [Working within a landscape framework] can be a great way to do that. One way to do this is to ensure that people feel as if their backyard is bigger than the space they can see in front of them, and bigger than what their economic situation provides them.
It’s about creating a bit of space for people to call their own. A bit of space to think, rather than a place where people are packed in with others, which often happens in social housing.
RH: Could you speak to the role of coordination and communication in creating this sense of safety and security?
GG: In Bunbury, we collaborated with the Department of Communities, South West Development Commission and the City of Bunbury to develop the Withers Local Area Plan. Withers is a suburb of Bunbury that has a lot going for it – proximity to public open space, the coastline and a number of community resources. When we came in, we were in a situation where many plans had already been proposed to the community, but rejected. We were engaged to make a plan for this area together with community and stakeholders.
In this situation, it’s important to remember that you might be going against what the community needs if you’re not having conversations with the right people. Withers, like Ashfield, is an area with a high proportion of social housing, and safety and security were a key issue.
The design of the suburb was influenced by Radburn planning principles [typified by the separation of vehicular and pedestrian circulation networks, resulting in a suburban form characterised by shared greenways and cul-de-sacs]. In this context, opening up pedestrian corridors could be seen as logical design move. However, in talking to people in Withers we discovered that safety and security meant reducing, not increasing, access to dead ends – places that were unsafe. These are things that were very specific to [the community of Withers].
In the end, we found that some of the design proposals that worked really well for Withers were in direct opposition to ‘best-practice’ planning and design. We had to look at different people’s perspectives to best understand what suited the life of people living in that place, and this resulted in a final strategy that was accepted by the community.
RH: What structures and processes have to be in place to ensure that everybody is listened to within a project process?
GG: The client needs to be willing to allow open engagement with the community. The process needs to be both top-down and bottom-up, to allow everyone to come to an agreed or preferred outcome. If this doesn’t occur, you will lose respect from both sides.
We should all be working with and talking to people who will be living in the places we’re designing for. In places like Ashfield it’s not about a singular vision for what a community should be. It’s about learning – an ongoing process that will allow the community to reimagine itself and evolve.
