Sustaining Places: Public Space Design in a Time of Loss
Chief Investigator: Professor Paul Carter
Funded by: ARC Discovery-Project grant 2004
Public space currently experiences various forms of loss: environmental, symbolic and spiritual. As an index of democratic health, this represents a diminished capacity to sustain ourselves politically and culturally. The project aims to reverse this decline through an innovative approach to public space design. It redefines public space to include soft-edge environments. It identifies ephemeral and performative heritages that lend places their sustaining character.
Through global case studies and an in-depth account of current Australian public space commissioning processes, it identifies obstacles to the creation of sustaining places, and defines an integrated theory and practice to produce them.