Download - Zamri_N_Conceptualising creative city
Conceptualising creative city through characterising creative milieu in Central Geelong
Nur Melati Zamri Professor David Jones
Beyond the Edge: Australia’s First Peri-Urban Conference
LaTrobe University
1st – 2nd October 2013, LaTrobe University, Melbourne Campus, Melbourne
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LOOKING THROUGH THE LENS OF CHARLES LANDRY
• Born in 1948, studied in Britain, German and Italy.
• Aims to help cities become more resilient, self sustaining - identifying and make the
most of their resources and reach their potential by triggering their inventiveness and
open-minded thinking.
• Coined the term ‘Creative city’ in 1980s, soon after founded Comedia in 1978, a highly
respected European consultancy working in creativity, culture and urban change.
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KEY AUTHOR
knowledge-base
THE URBAN SHIFT
• “Century of cities” - shift from an industrial era to a knowledge-based era has
entirely switched the city’s functions and policy from being the ‘producer’ by
maximising productivity to reintegrating the system as a whole.
• The challenge for cities from the older era is how to adapt to 21st century desires
and needs. This requires more than just shifting the city‘s visions but also the shift
in thinking holistically; the instruments, and the aspirations.
BACKGROUND
industrial
CREATIVE CITY
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THE CREATIVE CITY
• An on-going process - “a journey rather than a destination, a process not a
status”
“[A] … creative city posits that conditions need to be created for people to think, plan
and act with an imagination in harnessing opportunities or addressing seemingly
intractable urban problems”
• More than 100 cities and regions call themselves creative cities.
• Often involves a checklist of requirements and interpreted as a successful recipe
expected to be replicated without considering the distinctive aspects and locality of
places and circumstances.
• These common misinterpretations trigger competition between cities who replicate
the same strategies and policy interventions.
BACKGROUND
Having an art or cultural centre does not make a city creative, instead it needs the
creative milieu to be a successful creative city.
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THE CREATIVE MILIEU
• Milieu - environment.
• A place that contains the necessary precondition of both ‘hard’ and
‘soft‘ infrastructure to allow people to think, plan and act with their creative
imagination to harness any opportunity for solving the urban problems.
“What makes a milieu creative is that it gives the user the sense that they can shape,
create and make the place they are in; that they are an active participant rather than a
passive consumer, that they are an agent of change rather than a victim”
BACKGROUND
“hard” infrastructure “soft” infrastructure successful
creative milieu
network of buildings and
institutions of a “creative milieu”
system of associative structures and
social networks, connections and
human interactions
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THE CREATIVE MILIEU - ITS CHARACTERISTICS
• Understanding Landry’s concept of the ‘creative city’ involves four main
themes:
BACKGROUND
to test it in case studies
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supporting
LOCALITY
Refers to both
businesses and
cultural aspects;
specifically to an area
which can harness,
inspire and innovate.
The ‘soft’
infrastructure
describes social
diversity
Hard’ infrastructure
refers to physical diversity. It provides
spaces that
encourage business
or living at various
scales
“creativity needs to be
communicated and a
creative milieu can be
the physical urban
setting where a group
of people can engage,
communicate and
share in an open-
minded environment”
Suggests the ability of
a building or space to
adapt to changes.
Can be classified as
temporary or
permanent capacity
harnessing
DIVERSITY maximising
INTERACTIONS provide
CAPACITY
what are the value added outcome to Geelong through implementing the characteristics?
GEELONG - The ‘peri-urban city’
• Originally known as a port city due to its
location on Corio Bay and Barwon River.
• Developed a strong (20%) manufacturing
industry.
• The emerging of tourism and hospitality
industries that soon made up 10% of the
local activity caused Geelong to develop
into a major commercial and residential
area.
CASE STUDY Beyond the Edge: Australia’s First Peri-Urban Conference
In response to this, the Council recognised the need to provide facilities to support the
transition.
TESTING THE THEORY
METHODOLOGY
1. Literature review
2. Data collection:
QUALITATIVE QUANTITATIVE
•face-to-face interviews with 20 selected
professional practitioners in Geelong.
•conducted with open-structured questions
and recorded through note taking.
x 20 professional
practitioners invited
10 replied
Site analysis in selected areas through
observation and documentation within
central Geelong. Elements being
identified, observed and analysed.
-Pedestrian count, include:
Walking
Going to destinations
Cycling
Browsing
Service
s
Primary
sitting
Secondary sitting
Standing
Laying
Playing
Leisure Commercial
activities
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CASE STUDY
DISTINGUISHIN
G LOCALITY
ENRICHING
DIVERSITY
PROMOTE
PLACES FOR
INTERACTIONS
PROMOTE
CAPACITY
SMALL SCALE
OF
INTRUSION
POSSIBILITIES MEDIUM
SCALE OF
INTRUSION
LARGE
SCALE OF
INTRUSION
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Each characteristic is investigated by using appropriate scales of intrusion.
DISTINGUISHING LOCALITY - SMALL SCALE OF INTRUSION
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• Small scale - least amount of intrusions, more temporal in nature, requires the least
amount of physical structure to reinforce the changes in the area.
• Example : laneways.
• The best example of a successful laneway in Geelong that developed the character of
a creative milieu is a café called Fuel Coffee + Food along Gore Place.
FINDINGS
new cafe blocked area
Fuel Coffee + Food cafe
• Gore Place - displays a successful
means of harnessing locality by
developing creative milieu through
introducing retail activity in the
laneway - new cafés opening up
towards their backlane.
• Interviews: 60% agree upon the
significant of locality portrayed at the
site.
• Several key barriers:
-permeability
-walking and cycling facilities
-facade treatment
-usage - services • Poor hard infrastructure - leads to poor soft infrastructure.
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Average pedestrian count per hour in Gore Place.
FINDINGS
DISTINGUISHING LOCALITY - SMALL SCALE OF INTRUSION
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FINDINGS
• Refers to a higher degree of built work and physical installations.
• Provides a higher degree of interactions by promoting diversity in both social and physical
context.
• Example : any programs extended into the public realm, street vendors, or even small shops.
• Little Malop Street in the heart of central Geelong - the favourable urban plaza - intended to
create a public place to allow impromptu gatherings or community events to take place
and replacing the dull commercial facade.
ENRICHING DIVERSITY - MEDIUM SCALE OF INTRUSION
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FINDINGS
• Convincing amount of pedestrians.
•However it is the street shops (hard
infrastructure) experiencing dullness.
• Interviews: 90% of the participants
agreed about the insignificant amount
of diversity harnessed.
• Several key barriers:
-large scale of retail (lack of
intensification)
-poor pedestrian facilities
-sidewalk barriers • Poor physical diversity restraining the creative milieu from growing
ENRICHING DIVERSITY - MEDIUM SCALE OF INTRUSION
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FINDINGS
PROMOTE PLACES FOR INTERACTION - LARGE SCALE OF INTRUSION
• Biggest intervention and
reconfiguration involving mixed - used or
creative cultural complexes.
• Libraries, art galleries, and museums
are among the examples of cultural
complexes in a ‘creative milieu’ which
perform as the community nodes.
• In Geelong, the cultural precinct is
located along Little Malop Street towards
Gheringhap Street.
Geelong
Performing Art
Centre
Geelong Gallery
Geelong
City Library
Why are these creative buildings
developed an uncreative milieu?
PROMOTE PLACES FOR INTERACTION - LARGE SCALE OF INTRUSION
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FINDINGS
• Interviews: 90% of participants
strongly agree that there are
insignificant amounts of interaction in
the area.
• Several key barriers:
• lacks human scale activities and its
hard street edge makes it hard to
promote interactions
• lack of indoor and outdoor
connections – the key activities are too
internalised. • Lack of interactions restraining the creative milieu from growing
THE POSSIBILITIES
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FINDINGS
• Refers to the capacity of a space to
allow changes and by definition, it
deals with flexibility, complexity and
uncertainty.
• Open or enclosed areas and they
vary in size and function.
• In Geelong - Johnstone Park, a
landscaped garden located in the
heart of central Geelong, has the
strategic location surrounded by civic
buildings
THE POSSIBILITIES
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FINDINGS
• Very insignificant amount of
interactions reflecting the minimum
amount of potential creative milieu
being harnessed.
•Several key barriers:
-Vehicle priorities oriented
-Lack of walking and cycle
amenities
-Lack of commercial engagement •Weak creative milieu due to the
lack of soft and hard
infrastructures.
•The capacity of the park
is not fully harnessed, decreasing
the creative milieu.
CONCLUSIONS
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• Uneven level of ‘creative milieu’, making it hard for Geelong to fully harness the creativity.
•Weak soft infrastructure in most of the case studies, due to poor hard infrastructure.
•70% of the participants were reticent that Geelong was currently steering towards becoming a creative city.
•Through this research, it is suggested for those cities who are ready to adopt the concept of creative city, they first need to unravel the key issues by underpinning the characteristics of a creative milieu and adapt to it accordingly.
•This research explores the intangible aspects of the concept of creative milieu as the basis of building a creative city.
•The focus of this research was only to identify the possibilities for solving urban issues by unraveling the key problems through looking into characteristics of creative milieu.
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