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It’s no overstatement to say that water is a vital source of life. It plays a major part in the food, energy and environment systems that help sustain our cities, towns and regions, and the interconnectedness of these systems makes it one of the most used resources on the planet. It’s also one of the most abundant.

This issue of Future West (Australian Urbanism) looks at the relationship between urban life and water through rethinking how we perceive water along the west coast of Australia – the 12,889 kilometres of coastline that partly defines Western Australia by mediating

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between its cities, land, islands and the sea.

Water provides many complex challenges in terms of how we design, build and manage cities, towns and regions. It is inextricably bound with issues around pollution, flooding, drought and sanitation. It also has untapped potential. Through transformative design water can mitigate the effects of extreme weather, provide energy and improve the amenity of humans, flora and fauna. How do we harness the potential of water to make better places on the west coast?

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OPINIONS

6 DEEP IN THE WATER Sandra Harben interviewed

by Rosie Halsmith The knowledge of Traditional Owners is vital when it comes to making development decisions around water.

14 PERTH’S SECOND COAST Daniel Jan Martin and Geoffrey London Understanding and designing with Perth’s ‘second coast’ is key to the city’s future.

24 BORE WATER STAINS Loren Holmes The presence of bore stains turns our focus to groundwater depletion.

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32 THE CITY, ALL AT SEA Charity Edwards The effects of urbanism extend deep into the ocean.

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PROJECTS

38 C ULTURAL FLOWS Rueben Berg interviewed

by Maitiú Ward Maitiú Ward speaks with Victoria’s first Aboriginal water commissioner for the Victorian Environmental Water Holder (VEWH), Rueben Berg.

46 POWER IN NUMBERS: TOWARDS A WATER SENSITIVE CITY Katie Hammer, Briony C. Rogers and Chris Chesterfield Collective action is driving Perth towards a water sensitive future.

52 O N THE BEACH: FROM SHACK TO SALES PITCH Felix Joensson How do we create beachfront suburbs with soul?

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62 T HE CIVIC POOL Timothy Moore Recent community pool projects demonstrate different approaches to

how public works are conceived.

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Sandra Harben:​My name is Sandra Harben. I’m a Traditional Owner. My family affiliations are within the Whadjuk Nyungar Boodjar, or Country, which incorporates Perth and its surrounds, and the Balardong Nyungar Boodjar, or Country, which is on the other side of the Darling Escarpment. I’ve been interested in Nyungar research for over 30 years. I feel that it’s my responsibility to share knowledge about Nyungar culture, history and language. This includes talking about our Country, our knowledge, our knowledge systems, our family, and how we maintain our culture through the sharing of stories with family.

Rosie Halsmith: The landscape of Perth is defined by its water bodies – the Swan and Canning rivers and chains of coastal wetlands. What is the significance of these systems, and the forces that have shaped the landscape in which we live?

In the Nyungar belief system, the creator of our Boodjar, our moort and our katitjin – our people, our family and our knowledge – is the Waugal, the Nyungar rainbow serpent. Water is a huge life force for us, and our belief system tells us that the spirit of the Waugal lives in all the freshwater sources. All of these freshwater water systems are very important, not only because of the belief in the Waugal, but also because they are places rich with sources of food, medicine and plants, and habitat for native species and birdlife.

In the years since colonisation, Perth’s water systems have been significantly altered. Perth’s great lakes have been filled in and a port created at Fremantle, and there has been a gradual and continual reclamation of land around the edges of the Swan River. The ecological impact of these decisions is now being acknowledged.

Could you speak to the cultural significance of these alterations?

Our Waugal is the giver of life – without water, you can’t live. The Waugal is a freshwater being – he can’t live in salt water. In the case that salt water replaces fresh water, the spirit of the Waugal will no longer be found, and we’re no longer going to be linked culturally to that place.

For example, before colonisation at Fremantle Port, which the Nyungar call Walyalup, you had the wardan, or the ocean, and then you had the bilya, the fresh water. While those two might at times have come together and met as the tides rose, there was a clear separation of the ocean from the fresh water of the Swan River.

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Previous pages: Lancelin Beach. Image: Josh Spires

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In the area where the ocean and the fresh water met, there was a limestone crossing. When the tides were low, the Nyungar used this area to cross from the south side across to the [north].

Our Dreaming story tells about how the Waugal fought the saltwater crocodile so that the salt didn’t come down into the fresh water.

The Waugal talked with the other mythological beings – Urumbuk, the lizard; the wardan dwerda, the sea dogs; and the dwerda, the land dogs. They told the Waugal that the saltwater crocodile was going to come into the Swan River, and they said, “You must stop the salty from coming in.” So, the Waugal went and fought with the crocodile. The Waugal bit the tail off the crocodile and he floated out to create Carnac Island, and then part of the body of the crocodile formed Garden Island, and the rest of its body formed Rottnest Island. Now, the wardan dwerda and the dwerda keep guard. They watch that the crocodile, who’s in three parts, doesn’t move, so that he never comes down into the fresh water. That’s our story about that separation of the salt and fresh water.

Since colonisation, there’s an urge for rapid urban development, which includes creating the Fremantle Port for the transport of goods.

[Irish engineer] C. Y. O’Connor was engaged to create this new port.

Of course, they blew the limestone bar up, which means they blew the crossing up and brought salt water into the Swan River. This impacted our beliefs, our Dreaming. Although our stories will never change, the landscape will change, but we will continue to tell our stories as they have been told for thousands of years.

What is it important for people to know as they move along freshwater systems on Whadjuk Nyungar Country?

Nyungar people never camped on the edge of the fresh water.

They camped further away. There are many laws around the waterways, which kept Nyungar away. So what does that do? It ensures that you’re protecting the habitat and respecting the belief in the Waugal. Just as importantly, you’re not creating any debris, and you’re not contaminating the water. The way urban development is today is at odds with the way that Nyungar protected and looked after the waterways.

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Whadjuk Nyungar people have been caring for Country for millennia – and with this, are the custodians of tens of thousands of years of knowledge about this place. What processes need to be in place so that planners, designers and policy makers can understand, respond to and, if appropriate, integrate traditional ecological knowledge into projects and strategies?

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Engagement is fundamental to any project. Engaging with Nyungar people about anything to do with the Boodjar absolutely needs to happen.

Whether it’s planners, architects, landscape architects, designers – they all need to have a cultural knowledge. Aboriginal cultures are the oldest living cultures in the world, and with that comes the stories. Any design consultant who is engaged to do a project must have written into that tender process to engage with the local Aboriginal people on whose Country they are going to be working. That should be the number one, primary criterion for any architect, any landscape architect, any planner, any designer. It’s a tangible demonstration of the respect that people have for Nyungar and other Aboriginal people. It’s a way of showing and demonstrating that we have a voice – we have a story that’s associated with our Boodjar.

In recent years, community awareness around the value of Perth’s water systems has come to the forefront.

Opposition to the proposed Roe 8 road connection, and the subsequent protection of the Beeliar Wetlands, became a key state election issue in 2017. Most recently, the proposal to develop a marina at Point Peron was scrapped in response to community protests. Do you think there’s a shift in general social awareness regarding the importance of our water systems?

Absolutely. In the 1980s, during the protest against the development of the Swan Brewery on the banks of the Swan River, how many non-Nyungar people joined in the protest for over 100 days to say, “Yes, we must protect this?” I could probably count them on one hand.

In the case of the protest for Beeliar Wetlands, places like the City of Cockburn and the City of Fremantle are very forward-thinking in Aboriginal affairs, and particularly in Nyungar affairs. When you’ve got people in positions of power who are aware, respectful and do a lot of work in the Aboriginal space, it makes a huge difference.

When you move across Perth, how can you tell that you’re in a successfully designed space?

It tells you a little bit about the place or where you are. When you talk to the Traditional Owners about a space and how it can be interpreted, and how it can be designed to give you that sense of connection to what’s there, it puts you in good stead for when the project is finished, so that it is something that is respectful, and tells a story.

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Previous pages: The Fremantle coastline separates the river and the ocean. Image courtesy of Tourism Western Australia Right: Roe 8 protesters outside Parliament House. Image: Michael O'Brien, The West Australian

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There’s an allure to Perth’s coastal edge. With some of the country’s best beaches, the city reclines towards the blinding bluegreen water and stretches out for more than 150 kilometres along a continuously developed coastline. So intense is Perth’s orientation to the Indian Ocean that most of our drinking water is now drawn from it (and we also use it on the lawn).

A ‘second coast’ runs straight through the city – and extends deep below it. This is the tapestry of wetlands, streams and rivers that once covered the entire region. This rich hydrological landscape is as vital to the urban and environmental future of Perth as its ‘first’ coast.

The water contexts of the second coast have been ignored throughout Perth’s recent history, and continue to be today. These seasonal wetland-scapes are nuanced, and have been misunderstood historically. Cultivation began in haste after European settlement: wetlands were filled, routed through drainage channels and pipes, and converted to market gardens, ovals, parks, walled lakes, rubbish dumps and freeway forms. Much has been lost, but much remains, and the flows continue.

Perth is located on the clarified western edge of Australia, and this explains its hydrology and urban form. The Swan Coastal Plain, over which Perth stretches, is situated between the Indian Ocean and Darling Scarp, the topographical edge of what is known as the Yilgarn.

The Yilgarn extends for nearly 1000 kilometres inland and is the most ancient landform in the world, eroded to its bare geological form. Below, a freshwater plain was formed in a geological blink, built up in layers by rivers and clays pouring down from the weathering Yilgarn and the Indian Ocean sands lapping over time.

The Whadjuk Nyungar people understood the water across the Whadjuk Boodjar (Country), both environmentally and culturally. These wetlands were places of meeting and places of plenty, tied to intricate cultural and agricultural practices, with clear conceptions of a groundwater system. The Waugal, or rainbow serpent, formed paths through which water flowed, and surfaced. As Traditional Owner Cedric Jacobs explains in an oral history by Maxine Laurie in the City of Vincent Local History Collection: “The water on the surface is really the marks where the Waugal either wound his way through or came up after making the subterranean streams and waterways. It’s all part of the ecological system to purify the land, its people and the environment.”

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Previous page: Bibra Lake. Image courtesy of BE Productions.

Right: A drawing of the historic wetland landscape of the Swan Coastal Plain, reconstructed from geological surveys, and groundwater and terrain data.

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The series of aquifers underlying Perth are unique to the Swan Coastal Plain: no other Australian city, and few cities globally, share it. It was only from the 1970s and 1980s that the extent of these groundwater structures was measured and the potential for urban use comprehended. Mountains of water beneath the ground are expressed on the surface as the lakes and wetlands that rise and fall with the groundwater seasonally, and with the moon monthly. These aquifer tiers (the superficial; the Leederville; and the deepest, the Yarragadee Aquifer) are held within layers of sands and trapped by layers of clays.

The Yarragadee is many kilometres below the surface and hundreds of kilometres in length. The water stored in the Yarragadee is up to 40,000 years old, can reach temperatures of 95 degrees Celsius, and could hold around 2000 Sydney Harbours.

Perth was and remains a hydrologically intense city. But these hydrologies, and the aquifers, have been in decline. Groundwater has been tapped for scheme water supply, residential irrigation, public irrigation and agricultural use. The sinking of private bores, which escalated from the 1980s, has drawn down the superficial aquifers; there are now nearly 200,000 regulated but unmonitored bores in backyards. Groundwater enabled Perth to maintain the most consumptive water culture in Australia and feel little compelled to change behaviour, despite a drying climate and growing population.

By the mid 2000s, desalination became necessary for Perth to maintain its levels of water consumption. In 2017, desalination accounted for 54 per cent of Perth’s scheme water use (by far the highest level in Australia), and used up to 6 kilowatt hours of electricity per kilolitre, according to online publication Water Technology. (In 2005, before desalination, Perth’s average energy intensity for scheme water was, according to the 2008 CSIRO report Energy Use in the Provision and Consumption of Urban Water in Australia and New Zealand, a steady 0.56 kilowatt hours per kilolitre). Designing with local water cycles and systems in mind can significantly reduce dependencies on desalination and groundwater. In Adelaide, around 49 per cent of houses are provided with significant water reserves through rainwater tanks (Australian Bureau of Statistics, SA Stats: Household Water Consumption and Conservation Actions, 2011); the city receives around 550 millimetres of rainfall annually, according to 2017 Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) statistics. In Perth, according to recent ABS data, only 9 per cent of houses are with tanks,

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Right: The superficial aquifers form mountains of groundwater beneath the city – the Gnangara Mound in the north, and Jandakot Mound in the south.

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but the city receives, on average and as cited by BOM, around 850 millimetres of rain per year. Household rainwater collection is one method of localising water supply. At the precinct scale, there have been proposals in Perth for stormwater recycling, collective rainwater harvesting, locally managed aquifer recharge and abstraction, and water supply through ‘third pipe’ schemes. However, many of these innovations continue to face threats from the ‘business as usual’ mentality.

A typical ‘business as usual’ housing development in a high groundwater area at Baldivis. At Perth’s fringe, cutting, filling, benching and hydrological erasure is a prerequisite for development.

Today, ‘business as usual’ suburban development in Perth continues at the expense of sustainable water supply and consumption, as well as sensitive groundwater systems and wetland environments.

Many of Perth’s water crises are crises of design.

Perth is a sandy city and this has enabled the easy development of the land. In the west, slabs and soakwells into sandy soils are commonplace. However, the Perth region is also covered in rich clay complexes with fertile ecologies, which are in need of different approaches. The claypan wetlands at Perth’s foothills are phenomenally biodiverse; some tiny remnants hold more than 500 unique species of flora. The scale of

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Right: Perth’s urban area stretches along the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Yilgarn.

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suburbanisation in clay-rich high groundwater areas has increased in recent decades. Perth faces a scenario where many of the ‘easy’, sandy, low groundwater areas are built upon, with the exception of Perth’s longest arm of ‘first coastal’ sprawl to the Alkimos dunes and beyond.

As a result, much suburban development will be going lower, closer to groundwater, onto clay-rich grounds, and into areas of exagricultural, hydrological and wetland intensity. This raises waterquality concerns around nutrients and flows to rivers and wetlands, and quantity concerns in terms of flooding and drainage. Perhaps worst of all, development in these areas is predicated on hydrological erasure.

‘Business as usual’ involves stripping remnant trees and vegetation and covering over existing water. It involves extensive siteworks, the dumping of sandy fill and the benching of the land. These are incredibly costly prerequisites to building in Perth, both financially and environmentally. The building culture and material economies of Perth demand clear-benched sandy sites as a prerequisite for concrete floor slabs, heavy double brick and tile construction, and soakwells and drainage.

How do we design a water sensitive city on these hydrologically intense sites? Rather than erase water, how can we live with water as a vital element in urban life? Appropriate responses to these questions will lead to environmental conservation, sustainable water consumption and decreased irrigation, and bring other benefits in terms of wellbeing and microclimate. It will be necessary to shift ‘business as usual’ practices on the fringe while minimising fringe development by encouraging quality medium-density housing within existing urban areas. Increasing density can dramatically increase the water sensitivity of the city. Welldesigned infill developments in Perth can begin to recover hydrologies, build with the groundwater conditions and bring water presence to our urban environments.

The shift begins with an awareness of the water contexts and persisting richness on which Perth is grounded, and an acknowledgment of the role and responsibility of those in control of architecture and housing.

This article is drawn from a research and mapping project at the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, led by Nigel Bertram and involving The University of Western Australia, Monash University and The University of Queensland. This research will culminate in a book to be published late 2018.

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Right: This drawing shows the extent of overlap between clay and high groundwater intensities and projected suburban development at Perth’s fringe (drawn from Perth and Peel@3.5million, Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, 2018).

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Orange arcs, bronze drip lines and amber spray patterns adorn the brick walls, crinkle-cut fences and concrete kerbs of Perth’s suburban fabric. These rusty surface stains trace the use and misuse of bores that draw from Perth’s groundwater, which is estimated to contribute to about half of the city’s suburban water supply. Iron dissolved in groundwater (the source of the rust stains) is often found in the water table close to present or past wetlands. It’s no wonder, then, that bore-water splotches are so prevalent in the Perth coastal plain – a landscape once characterised by a vast network of freshwater wetlands, swamps and lakes.

Beyond being the visible markings of mineral loadings, watering habits and sprinkler malfunctions, the rusty battle scars are also alarm bells for the future. Perth’s groundwater reserves are, as Ruth Morgan points out in her essay ‘Out of sight, out of mind? The use and misuse of groundwater in Perth, Western Australia’ (2013) in bad shape. Part of the problem has to do with how groundwater depletion is largely out of view. With this in mind, these photos focus on the stains in an attempt to reconnect our awareness with the bigger forces at play.

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It is a curious paradox that while many, if not most, major Australian cities identify as coastal, we tend to limit our discussions of the urban-ocean intersection to our love for living by the beach or, more pragmatically, the economic potential of ports for international trade. The occasional controversy regarding shark culls and netting aside, surprisingly little is made of the complex relationship between cities and the sea and those who inhabit each, or how urban processes are increasingly extending far into the ocean. Perhaps much of this disregard can be attributed to what geographers Philip Steinberg and Kimberley Peters have termed a ‘landward bias’; that is, privileging dry land for attention over the colossal volume of the ocean.

Indeed, we find it difficult to even attach urban characteristics to this vast mass of water. However, the ocean has supported urban development since at least the fifteenth century. It was not only an essential component in the colonisation of territories by Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but also fundamental to the establishment of lucrative commercial ventures, slave trade networks and massive resource-extraction operations across the world, pre-empting modern globalisation processes that structure the key connections between and within cities today.

The success of both Fremantle and Perth can also be attributed to the expansion of urban processes into the ocean: such activities have turned what were once considered remote outposts into significant centres for trade, mining, tourism and agriculture, with strong links to cities in Indonesia, India and South America. Fremantle has long been a site of urban-ocean transformation – quite literally extended, sliced and remade to suit ever-changing planning requirements since the 1830 establishment of a whaling station on Bathers Beach on reclaimed land. Today, Fremantle is being strategically repositioned as a tourism precinct; Cox Architecture’s multimillion-dollar refurbishment of its heritage-listed passenger terminal will create a cruise ship ‘gateway’ to the rest of the state. As Western Australia draws economic potential from the sea, Fremantle has tended to operate as a dynamic threshold; a shifting boundary between land and sea enabling maritime infrastructure construction and the carving out of new harbours to meet increasing trade, export and container-ship traffic logistics. This growth also pushes beyond Fremantle’s port, as prized pearl diving, recreational and commercial fishing, and offshore oil-mining activities continue to extend along WA’s coast.

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Left: Cottesloe Beach. Image: Flickr/Michael Spencer CC by 2.0

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Aerial view of Fremantle. Image: Alan Deveau

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Indeed, in a recent speech at the Indian Ocean Marine Research Centre at the University of Western Australia in Perth, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, claimed that “oceans have always been critical to Australia’s prosperity”, and affirmed her government’s investment in aquaculture, mining and marine-tourism innovation as part of a burgeoning global ‘Blue Economy’ worth around $3 trillion in employment, capital growth and trade opportunities. Another boom lies latent in Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ): spanning three different oceans, this sub-marine landscape is the third-largest marine territory in the world and, importantly, sits alongside 80 per cent of our highly urbanised population. High-tech and economically strategic encroachments into the sea represent only the newest manifestation of urbanisation at the scale of the planet. While these activities are notable in that they move beyond what we ordinarily think of as ‘the container’ of the city, we must remember that they are also transforming fragile marine ecosystems and disregarded oceanic landscapes.

There are more literal examples of the sea being used to support growing cities: sand and other minerals are increasingly being extracted to create the foundational materials employed in the construction of buildings and everyday objects. Supply-chain transparency has recently become more important in the built environment, as architects, planners and designers seek to minimise the environmental impacts of material choices, but we rarely consider these operations beyond our inherent landed bias. For instance, the sand-mining industry is degrading vulnerable environments, harming communities and

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draining the common pool of this important resource across the planet, dredging from oceans, beaches and estuaries freely, since there is no international regulation of the extraction. At the same time, global building and transport infrastructure concrete construction expand due to the easy availability of this primary product.

Deep seabed mining for rare earth minerals and metals presents further dilemmas for the urban dweller. Increasingly valuable as a key ingredient in the production of smart telecommunications and renewable energy infrastructure, these elements are severely depleted or simply geographically difficult to access on land. This circumstance is now driving miners to explore ever more remote landscapes in underwater zones typically outside the jurisdiction of any one nation. The ocean offers new sources of mineral reserves that have the potential to create a huge economic windfall to whoever can negotiate the difficult terrain of both the ocean and international treaty regulations preventing the minerals’ wholesale extraction. We need to ask: have we simply shifted our blind spot with regard to complicity in the devastation of environments from resource-harvesting from the land to resourceharvesting from the ocean?

The Pacific trash vortex, microplastic pollution in the Antarctic, exploitative illegal fishing, organised crime in ‘dark’ (that is, barely surveilled) spaces, tax-free floating-enclave proposals, aquaculture impacts, the construction of artificial islands, growing dead zones, wave-energy technologies, shipping-corridor densities, and acoustic injury to marine life are all co-opting the space of or affecting the ocean across the planet in what some urban planners and theorists often term this ‘urban age’. It is clear therefore that cities, their extended territory and influence, and the ocean are deeply interconnected. We extract resources from, and equally import other toxic pollutants into, oceans on a regular basis through everyday activities in, and for the direct benefit of, our own cities. Even so, the question of how we as architects, planners and designers respond to the relationship between the city and the sea remains largely unexamined.

We should acknowledge that built environment and design professionals are responsible for material and product selections that have the capacity to harm marine environments and, with this in mind, work to expand our awareness of often overlooked urban-ocean intersections. Indeed, a rethink about what even constitutes ‘the urban’ beyond those traditionally assumed land-sea binaries is desperately needed.

The Australian love of city life by the coast may just put us in a unique position to explore this.

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Where is the west coast?

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❏ It’s in the mind. ❏ It includes the waterways that lead to the coast. ❏ It extends deep into the ocean. ❏ All of the above.

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Maitiú Ward: Why might an Aboriginal voice be valuable within the commission of the VEWH? Rueben Berg: The Victorian Government has been very keen across a lot of areas to increase the voice of Aboriginal people in water and recognise the role of those communities in water management – not just currently, but recognising that we as Aboriginal people have managed this resource for tens of thousands of years, and that connections to land also include connections to water, and that water and culture are linked. The more Aboriginal voices we can get within the water sector, the better off all of the community will be. So that’s why I’m there, to bring an Aboriginal perspective, but also I bring my decisions to bear across all other areas of the commission as well.

What does the role of water commissioner involve?

Victorian Environmental Water Holder has an environmental water entitlement for various rivers and water systems across the state, so it’s working out what the best way is to use that water we’ve been allocated for the environment, while also bringing about shared benefits. So, can we also use that water to help Aboriginal communities; can we help with recreational uses?

Given the diverse range of Aboriginal peoples in Victoria, is it possible to speak of shared Aboriginal values with regard to water and water bodies within the state?

The work we do with the VEWH is about what we call shared benefits – so, how we can use the water we have for the environment to also benefit other things. What we’re talking about separately from that is how we can have some water that is dedicated to Aboriginal use. So it doesn’t matter if it’s bringing a specific environmental outcome; this is water that might just be for a cultural practice. Or it might also tie in with economic reasons, around aquaculture systems and those sorts of things.

When we do look at it, we are often looking at it in a very localised fashion. There’s generally not a program that’s across the whole state – it is about local areas, so that’s why I think it can come down to specific Traditional Owners. So if we’re talking Previous pages: The Yarra River at Warrandyte. Image: Flickr/r reeve CC by-ND 2.0 with modifications. Right: Fishermen on the Yarra River, Melbourne at the Church Street Bridge. Image: Flickr/Luke Richardson CC by-NC-ND 2.0

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about northern sections of the Yarra River, the Birrarung, we’ll be talking with the Wurundjeri. It’s a localised view of a waterway, so while there might be a common approach, in each waterway there can be a localised view of what those Traditional Owners want, for their waterway in their Country.

The Council of Australian Governments’ National Water Initiative identified the need to bring Aboriginal voices to the table in a policy document last year. That document says that “Indigenous values are often not contained within a single, discrete water planning area, while water planning processes are focused on water resources within the relevant state or territory.” Do you think this is a fair assessment?

Part of the issue is that a lot of the boundaries we’ve set up around these organisations vary. So the boundaries for the catchment management authorities, the local councils and the registered Aboriginal parties don’t line up. Oftentimes, one waterway might cut across multiple Traditional Owner groups, or it might cut across multiple catchment management authorities.

So it’s not just thinking about your little patch – it’s about working with organisations to think about the broader landscape. But that’s just one of the complexities of government administration we have to navigate – sometimes the boundaries just don’t all line up where you want them to be.

How will the incorporation of Aboriginal values affect the way we plan and design in and around Australian waterways?

There’s definitely potential for us to change the way we look at our waterways from a design standpoint. A lot of small towns have a waterway and historically it’s been at the back of places.

There’s a main street and then the rear of the buildings will face the waterway, which has been used in the past as just a place to dump waste. As we rethink our waterways, as we recognise the value they have from a financial perspective but also from a community perspective, and as we enhance the flora and fauna we have in those places, we no longer want to have our backs to the river; we want to turn and embrace the river. So hopefully in looking at our waterways as not just places to dump our waste and move boats up and down, but actually as the lifeblood of these places, design will mirror that and we’ll get a better connection to our waterways.

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I’ve seen the term ‘cultural flow’ used to represent the value of water bodies to Aboriginal groups. How would you understand this concept? Is it useful?

Cultural flow is a key part of saying that this is water that we want to try to use for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, across Australia, that doesn’t have to have an environmental benefit. It might just be about rejuvenating a cultural practice that happened for tens of thousands of years, but because we’ve modified the waterways it can’t happen anymore. I think there should be water that can be dedicated for that purpose.

Should we also talk of ‘economic flow’?

Definitely. That’s one of the areas that the Victorian Government is looking at – access to water for economic development. When you start talking about native title holders and other Aboriginal groups who have had their land recognised as theirs and the entitlements that come with that, water is a key part of that.

Being able to use that water for economic uses, I think, is a valuable part too. There are a lot of challenges, because there is already a very high value placed on water as a resource. So how that fits in with that economic market will be interesting to find out, but there’s definitely keenness to work in that area, and I think an openness as well.

What do you want to achieve in your time as a water commissioner?

One of the things is to work out the ways we can empower Aboriginal people to be involved in water management, in whatever way works for those different communities. We also need to work out the best way we can harness the limited amount of water we have, to maximise the benefits for the whole community – for the Aboriginal community, for recreational users – obviously using the environmental values we’ve got as a priority. How can we maximise the use of our water to benefit as many people as possible, so that when I take my kids down to a creek somewhere, I can say, “See that platypus that we can see there? I helped make sure that platypus is there, so we can celebrate it as a family.” Hopefully that’s what I can get out of it.

A version of this interview originally appeared on Foreground at foreground.com.au.

Following pages: Amphitheatre Falls traditionally demarcated the border between Wurundjeri Country to the west and Brayakoloong Country to the east. Image: Flickr/Rexness CC by 2.0

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y on ri is ,B r er Ch m nd am a H rs eld e ti oge rfi Ka R ste C. e Ch

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A S Y D IN : IT S AR VE C ER R W ER TI W BE TO AT SI PO UM W N EN S

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The Swan Coastal Plain has historically provided a unique and challenging environment for its inhabitants. The Indigenous Nyungar tribes relied on the numerous rivers and estuaries, and shaped their lives around the climate patterns. European settlers struggled to adapt to the region’s unique biophysical and climatic context, with the realisation that they could not rely on rainfall alone to provide enough water to support the colony. As the Swan River Colony continued to grow, its people turned to the construction of dams and extraction of groundwater to ensure water supply.

Today, Perth faces a changing climate – one that is becoming hotter and drier. Annual rainfall has fallen significantly since the 1970s and consequently, Perth’s water supply has been severely affected. Faced with the challenge of providing reliable water to an increasing population, Perth is now leading Australia in its use of climate-independent methods of obtaining water such as desalination, and has also begun to implement novel solutions such as groundwater replenishment with recycled water from the city’s wastewater treatment plants.

While these solutions have helped achieve a water supply that is resilient against the drying climate, Perth is now faced with an emerging challenge of adapting its urban form and water systems to support greater livability outcomes for its residents. There is an increasing demand from communities for cities to provide urban spaces that are green, cool and which promote recreation and social cohesion. The successful adaptation of the urban form will require stakeholders across Perth’s water, planning, environment and development sectors to come together to deliver integrated, multifunctional urban design and infrastructure solutions that support the community’s broad livability aspirations.

The Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) has undertaken an action research project in Perth to align stakeholders in the context of a shared vision and strategic framework for transforming Perth into a future water sensitive city. The emerging concept of the water sensitive city represents aspirations for how water servicing can support urban livability, resilience, productivity and sustainability. The CRCWSC research team worked with local stakeholders to identify a group of key leaders and strategic thinkers across Perth’s water, planning, environment and development sectors who were considered critical for driving more sustainable and integrated water management.

A series of five participatory workshops involving these targeted 48

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champions was held in 2015 to develop an analysis of Perth’s current water sensitive performance, a shared vision for Perth to be a water sensitive city in 50 years, and a strategic framework for coordinating action and advancing Perth’s transition. The vision for a water sensitive Perth developed by this group of champions includes the following themes and associated outcomes.1 1. Fostering stewardship of the system People understand the entire water cycle and recognise the need to adapt to uncertain and changing conditions. They feel a sense of belonging in Perth, identify with its evolving water story and connect with Nyungar water knowledge and values. People are appropriately engaged in open and inclusive decision-making processes that are informed by comprehensive information and transparency in people’s priorities. There is continuous investment in developing necessary knowledge, skills and capacity across water-related professions and sectors, and the community.

with local conditions to minimise impacts on, and embrace opportunities for, the city.

2. Protecting and enhancing the wellbeing of people and the environment Water is valued and managed with respect for the interdependent and dynamic relationship between people and the environment. Perth’s coastal and inland water ecosystems are protected and thriving with biodiversity. Flood and inundation risks are managed in harmony

4. Sustaining the long-term use of Perth’s resources Water is available to equitably meet the needs of people and the environment both now and in the future. Fit-for-purpose water is supplied through adaptable systems that work across multiple scales. Efficient use and recovery of resources is ensured through innovative water-cycle management.

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3. Integrating and engaging with the built and natural landscapes Perth’s urban character reflects its unique landscape and water environments. The urban environment is comfortable, safe, and promotes health and wellbeing. The city is filled with a network of beautiful, welldesigned and high-quality places that are diverse, accessible, loved and enhanced by effective water management. Infrastructure planning and development is coordinated and integrated to deliver multiple benefits.

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The process of bringing champions together to develop a shared water sensitive vision is already having an impact on individuals, organisations and agencies across Perth. The ideas articulated in the vision have been developed by a diverse group of stakeholders and demonstrate interdisciplinary approaches to achieving multiple benefits through the management of water (e.g. flood mitigation, community health and wellbeing, urban cooling).

Key organisations and agencies have now included water sensitive city principles in formal policies, processes and frameworks, demonstrating organisational commitment towards and endorsement of the shared water sensitive vision.

Stakeholders develop a shared vision for transforming Perth into a future water sensitive city.

The work of the CRCWSC has also had indirect impacts in Perth as a result of the collaborative process that brought stakeholders together. The group of champions involved in the workshop series has continued to meet on an ongoing basis as the Water Sensitive Transition Network (WSTN), driven by their commitment to the outcomes articulated in Perth’s water sensitive city vision. The WSTN has since expanded to include stakeholders 50

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not originally involved in the CRCWSC process. The WSTN is an informal network of champions who are committed to working together to progress the developed strategies and pursue related opportunities by influencing their own individual organisations and networks, and driving action more broadly. It operates as a community of practice with a mutual desire to work together in partnership towards beneficial outcomes, but does not impose formal obligations on individuals or organisations. An informal champion network such as the WSTN is important in ensuring broad long-term commitment to achieving the vision beyond political cycles, and to identify opportunities for collaboration across organisations.

While the informality of the network is important in ensuring ongoing commitment to achieving shared aspirations, the formal roles of WSTN members are also critical in enabling the dissemination of ideas more broadly. WSTN members are able to bring the ideas from the network discussions back to their own organisations and shape policies, strategies or projects. The WSTN also includes more senior members who give the network weight and credibility, and have the ability to influence broad city and organisational agendas.

To date, Perth has made significant strides in achieving its vision of urban livability, connected communities, healthy environments and sustainable resource use. Its recent technological advancements in alternate water sources are leading the nation in achieving a climate-resilient water supply. Faced now with the emerging challenge of creating a livable urban environment, stakeholders across Perth’s water, planning and development sectors have come together and demonstrated their commitment to working together towards a water sensitive future.

This article was produced as part of research for the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities and Monash University.

The support of the Commonwealth of Australia through the Cooperative Research Centres Program is acknowledged.

1. B. C. Rogers, K. Hammer, L. Werbeloff & C. Chesterfield, Shaping Perth as a Water Sensitive City: Outcomes and Perspectives from a Participatory Process to Develop a Vision and Strategic Transition Framework, Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, Melbourne, 2015.

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: H O AC T K BE C E HA CH TH S IT N M P O O ES FR L SA

te bs ea ur cr b on e su ss w nt en do fro l?

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To the untrained eye, the central coast of Western Australia is a vast and seemingly desolate landscape. Sand dunes appear and disappear, like glaciers sitting on top of a thick green carpet of low-lying vegetation. State Route 60 carves a course northward, wriggling its way out of the cul-de-sacs that continue to multiply along its spine, extending the urban fringe ever northward. This highway relates to the coastline like the trail of a snake. Turning towards and then away from, it oscillates between perpendicular and parallel as it cautiously broaches the water’s edge. A journey along it is characterised by regular but expansive intervals of small fishing towns, and the view from the driver’s seat reveals that many of these settlements are undergoing transformations, and are beginning to resemble more closely the new coastal suburbs to their south.

Wedge Island, a 180-kilometre drive north of Perth, is home to approximately 350 beach shacks among its dunes.

Towns like Jurien Bay and extant beach shack settlements like Wedge Island, one of the nation’s largest squatter settlements, allow us to discern some early settlement patterns specific to Western Australia. Yet to evolve completely into highly controlled display villages, these settlements make evident some of the first suburban impulses, namely the use of the beach as a suburban landscape, but also embody ideas about self-sustaining 54

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communities, which, unlike their southern suburban counterparts, avoid regulation of their built environment.

Wedge Island Access Road.

The Aboriginal Yued and Amangu people (descendants of whom currently occupy shacks at Wedge) would move seasonally from the inland plateaus to the central coast, using waterholes and springs as they collected food and other resources.1 The small inland wheatbelt towns of Moora, Three Springs, Dandaragan and Cataby, all of which were established around traditional Aboriginal water sources, supported a small livestock and agriculture economy, producing wool and wheat. They were also on a major stock route to more fertile lands further north. The earliest shack settlements on the mid coast sprung up in the 1920s and were a result of pastoralists establishing a seasonal leisure base for camping during the summer holidays in between harvest and winter sowing. Eventually developing into a productive fishing hub in the mid twentieth century, Wedge is now predominantly a holiday destination.

With a very informal arrangement and no man-made spatial barriers between shacks, Wedge is distinguished by a high tide mark, dunes and significant vegetation, and is not surveyed, drawn or recorded. Wedge’s beachscape challenges the binary of public and private realms that we are accustomed to, and has 55

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Previous pages: Wedge Island oval.

Above: Wedge store and noticeboard.

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an informality that discourages concrete claims to ownership; the distinction between yours/mine/ours. This atmosphere is in contrast with that of the formal linear boulevards of suburbs further south, which are flanked by developer flags, advertising and display villages. These boulevards terminate on the beach, usually in a grassed park characteristic of the contemporary subdivision. A perpendicular approach like this reveals exclusive thresholds and layers of ownership and property demarcation that are not immediately obvious at informal settlements like Wedge, where the openly accessible beachscape is characterised by parallel use.

The nature of ownership on Wedge Island has its origins with squatters and the subsequent leasehold arrangements reached between government and occupants after the introduction of the Illegal Occupation of Coastal Crown Land (Squatters) policy, known as the Squatter Policy, in 1989. The policy not only banned the construction of any new shacks, but also the sale of shacks. Transfers do take place, however, but without ever entering the mainstream real estate market. Occupants are also required by government to maintain the shacks and the overall landscape as a community.

This kind of shared landscape relies on the productive participation of the occupant, and results in an architecture that is dynamic, flexible, adaptable and individual, and which encourages communal agency and cooperation. The piecemeal delivery of labour and recycled materials dictated by the isolation of the site facilitates a do-it-yourself culture, which is reflected in the design of the shacks. The infrastructural requirements for water, waste, heating/cooling and cooking are dealt with in a structurally honest manner, and as urban researcher Reena Tiwari pointed out in her essay ‘Embedded poetics and surrounding politics of a coastal squatter settlement’ (2009), invert the hidden domestic life found in the contemporary coastal suburb. Turning towards the public street, which in this case is the beach, visible semi-covered outdoor spaces to shelter domestic activities continue the disintegration of private boundaries. The shack form is compelling not only because of its site specificity, but because it asks us to be more involved with the objects we produce, including our buildings and landscapes.

Elements of a productive suburbanism still exist at Wedge, and echo the earliest conceptions of domestic self-sufficiency 59

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Top: Jurien Bay suburbia.

Bottom: The Beach Shack at Scarborough by developers Norup + Wilson.

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found in the first detached cottages of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Australian colonies. As Australian anthropologist Michael Taussig noted in his 2000 essay ‘The beach (a fantasy)’, the “reconfiguration of the sea”, or the squeezing out of productive use to make way for the “market of fantasy” – the gentrification and exploitation of leisure as a sales pitch for coastal real estate – has yet to take hold here. However, Jurien Bay is beginning to look like Alkimos in its urban morphology, despite the assertion of the developer of the Jurien Bay Beachridge Estate, who claims that they are ensuring that “‘suburbia’ is not transplanted to this unique coastal location”.

These are unique coastal locations, and they require unique urban responses. The harshness of the landscape at Wedge Island and the subsequent social interactions produced here free it from market forces, making it a rare site of suburban resistance in a rapidly homogenising housing landscape. However, this state of affairs is quickly changing with the extension of Indian Ocean Drive and the spread of a suburban condition along the coastal axis that has not been slowed by similar topographies that are flattened, terraced and divided by housing grids. The shack settlements embrace the beach as an open public space that is both flexible and provisional, rather than a fixed entity used to market the national ‘lifestyle’. At Scarborough the shack has been given new meaning with a proposal for a luxury apartment complex called The Beach Shack. The hyperbole of developers Norup + Wilson on its website couldn’t be more ironic: “Imagine stepping out of your apartment building and walking barefoot onto the beach – this is the true definition of freedom!”

1. This knowledge and their tracks formed the basis of the first roads used for settler pastoral activity. The historical chronology of midcoastal shack settlements is outlined in significant detail in the Wedge and Grey Shack Settlements Cultural Heritage Assessment prepared

by Godden Mackay Logan Heritage Consultants in collaboration with Context for the National Trust of Australia (WA), April 2012. Some of the chronological facts and stories of development in this essay have been drawn from this report.

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ol po y e o it rat s t un st e e m on ach ar om em ro ks t c d pp or en ts t a c w ec ec n li R oj re b d. pr ffe pu ve di w ei ho nc co

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Swimming is central to Australian identity, whether it is at the beach or in a river, in a backyard pool or creek. However, at the heart of Australia’s bathing culture is the public pool. Its persistent popularity is reflected in the raft of recent proposals to construct pools across the country. Property developer Riverside Marine has proposed the building of a pool in the Teneriffe section of Brisbane River; the Yarra Pools project in Melbourne, which seeks to create a swimming pool on the Yarra River, is gaining momentum through the input of a collection of peak bodies and community organisations; and recently, individuals, community groups and private companies have put forward proposals to revitalise the Cottesloe foreshore in Perth – and provide a safe swimming spot away from sharks and stingers. These three realities reflect a growing trend; namely, that Australian community construction proposals are not being led by local or state government but by a constellation of individual and organisational interests.

This set of circumstances brings two questions sharply into focus. Who should take responsibility for the conception and financing of community facilities, such as pools, in the twenty-first century? And, additionally, why does the desire for public pools persist?

The public pool became embedded in Australia’s cultural consciousness after hundreds of seaside and suburban pools were constructed all over the country in the early to mid twentieth century. The pools’ construction reflected the belief that government should lead in providing amenities for its citizens that promoted health, safety and appropriate leisure activities. (It was also part of a belief that nature, including water, could be controlled, regulated and tamed by humankind.) The popularity of outdoor public pools declined in the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of the indoor leisure centre and backyard pools; attendances waned and public funding fell away, which exacerbated underinvestment and many closures in the 1990s. In the twenty-first century there has been a revived interest in public pools, with several new proposals for wave, river and ocean pools across urban Australia. This reflects a wider global interest in urban pools, water parks and promenades – see Berlin’s Badeschiff, Malmö’s Västra Hamnen and Helsinki’s Allas Sea Pool – as part of efforts to make places more livable, healthy and attractive. There is particular interest in the redevelopment of many Previous Pages: A render of + POOL by Family New York. Image courtesy of Friends of + POOL

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Top: Allas Sea Pool in Helsinki. Image: Flickr/Ninara CC by 2.0 Bottom: Badeschiff on the Spree River in Berlin. Image: Flickr/ Nordicbird CC by NC 2.0

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docks, ports and city beaches in wealthy cities. Public pools create a place to play, display, bathe, exercise and congregate.

The private sector has been active in proposing new pool developments. Some design firms and property developers have signalled their interest through the ‘render drop’; that is, the release of an ‘artist’s impression’ of a project that has a novelty factor to media outlets, with the hope of garnering media traction and public support. Damian Rogers Architecture and Arup employed the render drop to gain attention for a proposal for a surf pool at Melbourne’s Docklands. The effects of strategies like this might be that the organisation putting forward the proposal gains a reputation as an expert, or that the project attracts design firms’ new work, private developers and favourable press, and accumulates lots of shares and likes on social media. However, attention for a project does not equate with support for it. A render drop can test popular opinion, but a project put forward this way can fail to achieve engagement with the stakeholders that would have to help plan for, deliver, maintain and use the project; i.e., local community and government.

Another method used to gain attention and raise new funds for pool projects is crowdfunding, facilitated by platforms such as Kickstarter or Pozible. Here, citizens become investors in another citizen’s design idea. However, having raised money for a project does not guarantee its success. Those behind + Pool (‘plus pool’), the well-known crowdfunded proposal for a pool in New York’s Hudson River, several years on from the beginning of the campaign, have raised money and designed and tested components of the pool, and have beer company Heineken’s financial support, but the pool is yet to be built because it has not been approved by local government. Such projects will not necessarily be approved by local bureaucrats, either. Why is this? Are there too many municipal pools or are they not meeting community needs, or is it more the case that council is not supporting emerging consumer behaviours, such as a commercial operation with a swim-up bar?

The visibility of non-government proposals from communities of interest may reflect a sense that federal, state and local governments lack the sense of responsibility, will, finance or imagination to deliver public projects. This makes way for the private and community sectors to meet an untapped demand. But there may be another reason for the increase in non-government proposals: the increased push from the community and private sectors to be involved in the processes of urbanism.

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Artist’s impression of the proposed surf pool at Docklands, Melbourne.

Image courtesy of Studio Magnified/Aurecon

However, it is important to consider: has government ever been the only force funding community infrastructure? Architect and historian Hannah Lewi argues in the book Community: Building Modern Australia (2010) that this was never always the case: “Progress societies and local groups were instrumental in the building of public pools through fundraising to bolster municipal, state and federal government assistance that was typically meagre and stopped short of achieving such a costly undertaking.”

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collaboration between community, government and private sectors is very much the norm. In this tripartite relationship, if one wants to shift the behaviour of local government, at the very least, to get a pool built from the bottom up, then one needs to engage with governmental frameworks, rules, regulations and organisational culture from the outset.

Online and private interests should work with government from early on in a project’s conception, as seen in the case of the aforementioned Yarra Pools, which has a long roadmap for gaining public support for the pool, including partnering with peak community bodies, engaging with private firms and speaking with governmental organisations. It is a non-profit organisation driven by grassroots interest, and is achieving widespread community support through studies, workshops, advocacy, design and the ‘render drop’. A community project to create a pool with the input of individuals and organisations, such as the Yarra Pools project, shifts the role of the public from passive agent that is consulted at the beginning of the design process to potential, ongoing and active participant, or collaborator, in the continuing life of buildings and cities, in this way diverging from top-down consultative processes.

This model can also hold governments and private stakeholders to account in the area of project delivery while building trust by opening up the oft-opaque processes of urban development.

Citizens, private interests and government organisations working together is reflective of a broader twenty-first-century societal movement towards increased collaboration enabled through communication technologies and a desire for systemic change in the delivery of projects. The creation of a public pool is also a project about redesigning how a society makes urban development decisions, shifting the process away from participants with the loudest voices or most money towards the broader community. The process can be mediated by government, and must allow citizens to not just give feedback, but genuinely feel involved in the creation of public life. The building of a pool can be part of a larger project of building new civic institutions and networks that fall somewhere between market, state and civil society.

Right: Artist’s impression of the Yarra Pool, Melbourne.

Image courtesy of Studio Octopi, Yarra Swim and Picture Plane

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BIOGRAPHIES SIMON ANDERSON is an architect, educator and author, and a professor at the School of Design at the University of Western Australia.

CHRISTOPHER CHESTERFIELD is director of strategic engagement at the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities.

CHARITY EDWARDS is an architect, and lecturer in the Monash Art, Design & Architecture faculty (MADA) in Melbourne.

ALESSIO FINI is a Melbournebased, Perth-raised designer.

He previously worked at Casper Mueller Kneer Architects, Universal Design Studio and Fieldwork.

FELIX JOENSSON is a graduate of architecture from UWA. He currently teaches and researches in its School of Design.

GEOFFREY LONDON is a professor of architecture at UWA. He is a former government architect of Victoria and Western Australia, and a past dean and head of architecture at UWA.

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ROSIE HALSMITH is the codirector of To & Fro Studio. She previously worked as a landscape architect at UDLA in Fremantle.

KATIE HAMMER is project manager and research officer at the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities at Monash University.

LOREN HOLMES is the co-director of To & Fro Studio. She previously worked for Allford Hall Monaghan Morris in London, and Syrinx Environmental in both Perth and Melbourne.

DANIEL JAN MARTIN is a researcher and PhD candidate at the UWA School of Design and Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities.

TIMOTHY MOORE is the editor of Future West (Australian Urbanism), and director of Sibling Architecture.

JENNIE OFFICER is the director of architecture practice Officer Woods. She is also a senior lecturer at UWA. BRIONY C. ROGERS is a senior lecturer with Monash University's School of Social Sciences and a project leader with the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities.

MAITIÚ WARD is an editor at Foreground. He is also co-director of architecture and design book publisher Uro Publications.

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DISTRIBUTION Future West (Australian Urbanism) is distributed by the School of Design at the University of Western Australia.

To obtain a copy, navigate to www.alva.uwa.edu.au/ community/futurewest

Future West (Australian Urbanism) is a biannual publication that looks towards the future of urbanism, taking Perth and Western Australia as its reference point.

EDITORIAL BOARD Simon Anderson Alessio Fini Geoffrey London Jennie Officer

Future West (Australian Urbanism) has been made possible with a generous private donation.

EDITOR Timothy Moore

ISSN 2206-4087 Copyright 2018 The rights to the material within the publication remain with the contributors.

SUBEDITOR Rowena Robertson PUBLICATION DESIGN Stuart Geddes and Alex Margetic PRINTING Printgraphics, Melbourne PUBLISHER Future West (Australian Urbanism) is published by the School of Design at the University of Western Australia.

COVER IMAGES Josh Spires

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