2006-2007 Springfield
Introduction
Mr. Maha Sinnathamby, Chairman, Springfield Land Corporation, guest speaker
at the Faculty of the Built Environment graduation ceremony in late 2005, initiated
the studio by asking the MUDD program to be involved in the design of Springfield,
a major new city under development in southeast Queensland. He invited Professor
Jon Lang to Springfield to give a talk on current concerns in urban design and
introduced him to Darren Mew, the Urban Design Manager for the new town. Darren
suggested three sites: one dealing with transport oriented development, one
dealing with a wellness area and one dealing with housing associated with new
tertiary education facilities. The goal of the studio was not simply to replicate
a professional study but to explore the implications of working with different
problem definitions and within different design paradigms. The objective was
to examine the implications of assuming different intellectual boundaries within
which a design is generated. A secondary objective was to evaluate the strengths
and weaknesses of current paradigms and adapt them by enhancing their strengths
and reducing their weaknesses.
Transit Node
The brief for Springfield Transit Node was to design a transport terminal that would connect both sides of Centenary Highway and provide an efficient means of transferring to and from different modes of transport. An effective pedestrian spine was also to be integrated into the Transit Node. |
Wellness Precinct
The brief for the Springfield Wellness Precinct was to design a healthcare facility located on a 30ha site that would provide all forms of public and private healthcare and be capable of accommodating a rapidly expanding population. | Campus Housing
The brief for this Springfield site was to provide residential housing for the education precinct that would integrate educational facilities, residential, research and technology precincts and allow for the development of a strong tertiary education focus for Springfield. |
The product of the studio was a series of designs for each site, each accepting
different intellectual boundaries and extending those implicit in the design
paradigms being explored. A favoured design was identified for each site but
it was recognised that given different design criteria another of the designs
explored might fit the bill better. The designs were presented to Darren Mew
who provided valuable feedback as an urban designer closely involved in the
property development process. A by product of the studio experience was an understanding
of the richness of ideas that the field of urban design harbours and what falls
within the boundaries of urban design thinking today. It also provided an inkling
of what should fall within urban designers’ domain of concern in the future.
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