| Title | Christie Walk Project |
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| Country | Australia |
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| Area | Adelaide, South Australia |
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| Implementation level | Local level |
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| Duration/Year | December 2000 - completion stage 1 July 2002; completion stage 2 December 2003.
Commencement stage 3 January 2004, completion December 2004. |
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| Contact Person(1)/Focal Point for Enquiry Contact | Name | Dr. Paul Francis Downton |
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Affiliation | Urban Ecology Australia Inc.
Ecopolis Architects Pty Ltd |
Address | 105 Sturt StreetAdelaideSA 5000 AUSTRALIA |
TEL | +61-8-8223-6760 |
FAX | +61-8-8223-6760 |
E-mail |
paul@ecopolis.com.au
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| Sponsor(s) | 1) Amount - Stage 1: $900,000; Stage 2: $1,600,000
2) Source(s) of funds: Private investment and ethical borrowings from Bendigo Community Bank.
3) Efforts to raise/sustain funds for implementation: Ongoing: sale of properties, personal investments, personal (unsecured) loans, ethical investment borrowings. |
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| Actors involved | Private Sector
Non-governmental organisations |
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| Description of the Practice | SectionA:Background & Objectives | 2000 square-metre. inner-city site with derelict houses and semi-industrial land use. The Christie Walk project in Adelaide's southwest quarter was designed to test and demonstrate the processes, plans and principles contained in the 'ecological city' vision of the non-profit environmental education association Urban Ecology Australia Inc (UEA). It is part of a conceptual strategic framework for mapping the southwest quarter of the city as a future piece of ecocity.
A key aspect of this project is its inner-city location. It is situated in the most mixed-use, least wealthy and most culturally diverse part of the City of Adelaide requiring the design to address complex inner-urban contextual demands. That context supplies solutions as well as challenges -transport energy use is minimised by the site's walkable proximity to all major urban facilities and the closeness of public transport. |
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| SectionB:Outline of Practices/Actions | 1) Objectives of the practice
Objective was to develop a mixed, medium-density community housing project that maximised lifestyle options and minimised environmental impact for similar cost to conventional inner-urban development, with very low energy bills. The brief demanded energy efficiency, healthy environments and high ecological performance for an urban demonstration project in which user participation and ethical investment funding was vital.
2) Outline of the practice
The overall design strategy was, regardless of orientation, to use high internal mass within highly insulated skins with multiple user-controlled ventilation options and thermal flues. Solar exposure and control was to be varied according to orientation options and overshadowing impacts of adjacent structures. The final design of dwellings for stages one and two is for a block of four linked three-storey townhouses with full solar orientation, a three storey block of six apartments with east-west orientation, and four standalone two-storey cottages, one of which possesses an attic third storey and is situated on Russell Street.
A variety of construction methods are employed in the various buildings including load-bearing autoclaved aerated concrete, poured low-strength concrete (earthcrete), steel framing, and timber-framed strawbale. Non-toxic construction and finishes are used throughout with a policy of avoiding formaldehyde and minimising the use of PVC. All timbers are plantation or recycled. All dwellings have solar hot water, photovoltaic panels are being mounted on pergolas over the apartment block roof garden, sewage is treated on-site (thanks to a 'Coast and Clean Seas' grant) and stormwater is captured for use on site. Landscaping is based on low water use (xeriscape) plantings that favour native and indigenous species with pavings, carports and feature elements constructed from recycled materials including bricks, stone, steel and timber retrieved from demolition of the few pre-existing structures on the site.
3) Stakeholders involved, decision making process
Clients were represented by a development cooperative, Wirranendi Inc., created by a non-profit group Urban Ecology Australia Inc. The cooperative structure provided a means for people to build in urban environments where single house blocks are rarely available. The clients included first-time homebuyers, investment purchasers, experienced home owners seeking the advantages of an urban lifestyle and older people wanting to retire in an active, mixed community.
This has been a community based development heavily reliant upon voluntary effort in its early stages. It was initiated by UEA (run by volunteers) which created a non-profit co-operative developer Wirranendi Inc, and a building company - EcoCity Developments Pty Ltd - to work in association with Wirranendi. The high level of community self-reliance in the project has tested the proposition that innovation and ecological development can be largely sustained by the non-government sector. The project contains many elements of experimentation but a government/industry grant has been necessary to include the provision of on-site sewage treatment system.
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| SectionC:Results/Outcomes | This was intended to be a medium budget project designed to provide housing for an equivalent purchase cost to conventional local inner-city development. Building costs ended up being reasonably competitive in the medium-high range, but site development costs were inflated by time lags in the early part of the programme that resulted, to a significant extent, from inexperience in development processes on the part of the original cooperative members. A substantial degree of innovation and environmental performance, very high levels of insulation and substantial construction (e.g. avoidance of toxic materials, thick external walls and high internal mass) contributed to high costs that were otherwise ameliorated by the non-profit structure of the developer body. This non-profit structure enabled re-investment in the development in lieu of profit-taking as a means of covering the additional cost of construction associated with building considerably in excess of code requirements and with a full gamut of environmental technologies. The project has been as much a research and educational programme as it has been about urban development and it has carried costs associated with this role. The builder was configured on a conventional company structure and all sub-contractors have provided services in line with conventional contractual and financial practice.
Christie Walk is currently perhaps Australia's only example of a fully featured and integrated inner-city environmental housing development and it has been identified as an exemplary urban ESD project by the Lord Mayor of the City of Adelaide, by the government of South Australia and by the Australian federal government.
Lessons learned from the community based development process are now being adopted in a joint venture approach between Wirranendi Inc and a private company, EcoCity Pty Ltd, in the third stage of developing the project. |
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| Keys for success(cause of failure) | Participation in the design process was managed on the basis of individual consultation on dwelling layouts within an overall framework set by the architect for the site and approved by semi-formal processes internal to the developer organisation. These processes were formalised as the project developed. An interdisciplinary team was set up to co-ordinate services and engineering with the architectural and urban design demands. This team became less effective as the development time was distended and co-ordination was eventually directly managed by the architect and a new project manager brought in to help complete the project in a timely and cost efficient way. Design workshops for landscaping began prior to construction and have continued sporadically through the development of the entire site, fitting in around the building programme.
A number of rarely used environmentally responsible construction approaches were introduced to South Australian inner-urban development through this project and the sewage mining technology is innovative.
Lessons learned from the community based development process are now being adopted in a joint venture approach between Wirranendi Inc. and a private company, EcoCity Pty Ltd, in the third stage of developing the project. This is proceeding on a more directly managed and pragmatic basis than the broader community structures of the early project history but maintains the community structures and environmental goals as core to the programme. The role of volunteers was critical to the establishment of the project and maintenance of community and environmental ethics, including issues of gender equity and social inclusion. |
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| Evaluation | The project has been effective in introducing a radical and uncompromising approach to community and environmental issues to inner-city development. That approach has been dependant on a strong community of support and preparedness to share risk.
Cost benefits are hard to assess but the project has shifted expectations at a number of levels. As a one-off it is unlikely to be economically efficient but as a prototype is has trailed a number of ideas and processes that are now being refined and applied in new projects.
It has addressed all the core issue of sustainability and provided a rare example of this in an inner-urban context.
The level of integration of social, economic, environmental and cultural aspects has been very good, although there always remains room for improvement.
The level of transparency and accountability has been high, with open, democratic institutions underscoring the entire programme.
The strengths of the project have been to do with the powerful sense of community that underpinned its very existence and its capacity to engage many people at many levels, each establishing a stake in the ideas and processes of urban ESD. The weaknesses derive, ironically, from the same source, with decision-making and management made more complicated and time-consuming than could easily be supported within the financial constraints of urban development. |
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| Applicability | The volunteer base could be adopted anywhere as a means of initiating such development and engaging the wider community.
A degree of financial capacity is needed that is not always available, but the support of ethical investment and funding bodies (in this case Community Aid Abroad Ethical Investment Trust, then Bendigo Community Bank) should be replicable elsewhere.
Good project management is essential and, it was learned, could be matched with community interests. This is replicable and needs further consideration and development for other places and cultural contexts.
The process of implementation was simple in principle and complex in practice. That complexity is very much a consequence of principles meeting 'on the ground' political and regulatory conditions. This will vary in other contexts. |
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| Reference | Various case studies, papers and reports, including PhD thesis.
- 1999 Downton, P.F., 'From Greenhouse to Green Houses' in Greenhouse Living (1) May pp.10-11.
- 2000 Downton, P.F., 'A Strawbale in the CBD' in Greenhouse Living (5) Winter (Southern Hemisphere) pp.44-45.
- 2001 Downton, P.F., 'Step Into Christie Walk' in Greenhouse Living (10) Spring (Southern Hemisphere) pp.48-49.
- 2001 Downton, P.F., 'Step Into an Ecocity' in Greenhouse Living (11) Summer (Southern Hemisphere) pp.30-31.
- 2002 Downton, P.F., 'Making Place in an Urban Sense' in Artlink (2) Vol 22 pp.48-51.
- 2001 Reardon, C. et al, Medium Density -Christie Walk case study in 'Your Home', Commonwealth of Australia, section 7.3 pp.1-6. See also: http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/technical/fs73.htm
- 1982 Szokolay, S. Climatic Data and Its Use in Design, RAIA Education Division, Canberra.
- Updates on the progress of Christie Walk are posted periodically on the Urban Ecology Australia website: www.urbanecology.org.auBrochures and further information on the project are available from Urban Ecology Australia Inc. (see links). |
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| Sectoral Issues | Urbanisation |
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| Cross-Sectoral Issues | Environmental Governance
Human Capacity Building |
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| Instruments | Standards
Participation
Empowerment
Technology |
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| Provider of this information(1) | Name | Dr. Paul Francis Downton |
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Organisation | Urban Ecology Australia Inc.
Ecopolis Architects Pty Ltd |
Position | Principal Architect & Urban Ecologist |
Contact | 105 Sturt StreetAdelaideSA 5000 AUSTRALIA |
TEL | +61-8-8223-6760 |
FAX | +61-8-8223-6760 |
E-mail |
paul@ecopolis.com.au
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