Implementing the Rhetoric

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: The 2010 exhibition at the Australian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale invited proposals for the future of Australian cities. 'Implementing the Rhetoric' imagines with great optimism that by the year 2050 politicians and planning authorities will have the power, political conviction and know-how to realise design strategies that decisively address critical urban issues. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: Using defragmented design techniques, the proposal interrogates key objectives for sustainable urbanism - protecting solar amenity, and allowing for strategic density increase and the creation of walkable cities - and visualises their literal, undiluted execution. 'Implementing the Rhetoric' is the outcome of digital procedural modelling techniques specifically designed to address current urban objectives. These techniques were simultaneously applied to a portion of the inner western suburbs of Melbourne. The first of these, Subtracto-Sun, a subtractive solar modelling technique designed for preserving solar amenity for public spaces through accurate solar ray casting over time, was used to sculpt maximum permissible building envelopes. A density distribution surface informed by access to public transport was modelled using animated virtual-pedestrians to determine areas suitable for increased urban intensity. Areas close to railway stations have high density which reduces as walking distance from the station increases. A hexagonal pedestrian overlay was superimposed over the existing street layout to improve walkability creating high level pedestrian connectivity. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The work was exhibition at the 2010 Venice Biennale as part of the 'Now and When', which has travelled to four other locations, including South Korea. It was published in the accompanying catalogue and featured widely in media news items.