IBA - Density By Design
Type: Research, Urban Strategy
Location: Moreland
Client: Moreland City Council
Status: Publication, Exhibition
‘Density by Design’ is a publication that documents a design research project conducted by the IBA Melbourne team, in collaboration with Moreland city council and Kerstin Thompson architects.
IBA Melbourne brings the framework of the ‘Housing expo’ or Internationale Bauaustellung to Melbourne, to showcase innovative housing and demonstration projects, built on research.
The objective of this publication was to explore the potential of new planning tools being developed by Moreland council to contribute to better housing development outcomes, as well as improved planning processes.
A large public renewal car park site in Coburg was deployed as a testing ground for a housing and urban design study that challenged the blanket setbacks of the existing DDO, through a more collaborative, research-led, nuanced design process involving tools such as VR and AR.
The research raised the questions: Can the introduction of new virtual planning tools present an opportunity to engage stakeholders and the public in more constructive ways?
And furthermore, can the IBA format of a ‘housing expo’ provide a new framework to deliver best practice housing outcomes on strategic renewal sites?
As our city confronts the challenges of growing population, large renewal sites can play an important role in enabling new and affordable housing supply and encouraging design innovation. When this is done in a deliberate and coordinated fashion, using mechanisms like the housing exposition IBA that put innovation to the forefront, these areas could even become sites of international significance.