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


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.


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


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.


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


THE CREATIVE MILIEU - ITS CHARACTERISTICS

• Understanding Landry’s concept of the ‘creative city’ involves four main

themes:

BACKGROUND

to test it in case studies


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


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


Each characteristic is investigated by using appropriate scales of intrusion.

DISTINGUISHING LOCALITY - SMALL SCALE OF INTRUSION


• 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.


Average pedestrian count per hour in Gore Place.

FINDINGS

DISTINGUISHING LOCALITY - SMALL SCALE OF INTRUSION


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


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.


-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


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


FINDINGS

• Interviews: 90% of participants

strongly agree that there are

insignificant amounts of interaction in

the area.


• 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


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


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


• 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.

THANK YOU... Beyond the Edge: Australia’s First Peri-Urban Conference

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