URBD5802 Urban Design Studio 2 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Robert Cameron ‘Business as (Un)usual’
NUR MOHD ROZLAN
‘Transition City’
Conflicts, environmental changes, rapid global development – these are some of the factors that result in forced displacement of people throughout the world. As a signatory to the Refugee Convention and Protocol, Australia has a role to play in providing refuge to these vulnerable populations. The future Australian dream is one where disadvantaged immigrants will be given the best possible start in beginning their new Australian life. A charter city in Port Augusta that helps facilitate this transition, the location chosen as it’s a crossroad between east and west, has a climate suitable for future inhabitation, existing train infrastructure that allows for easy transportation of people across the region and a history of playing host to temporary visitors through being a major servicing hub in the region. In the new city, newly arrived immigrants have access to secure housing, opportunities to choose and learn a trade from a plethora of industries, attend university, be supported by adequate services and need not rely on private automobiles to get around. Their stay will be a temporary one – that is until a place to settle permanently in another part of the country has been found, such as a regional town or a nonmetropolitan city. Consequently, this city will constantly have a changing population, enriched by the different people and cultures that come through. The new city intervention will be structured in a grid, along which run rail networks that help build the city, such as through transporting housing modules and construction materials. The form allows for the city to expand as needed, constrained by the airport to the west and existing water bodies. This organisation only provides a framework however, while still encouraging the city to grow as organically as possible and residents to add their own personality to the city.
Image: Concept plan.
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