Future Park Competition, Shortlisted Entry

A competition entry by Duncan Gibbs and Ata Tara was shortlisted in Future Park Design Competition hosted by Melbourne University. Also, an abstract “Occupying Transience” was presented at Future Park Forum.

This ‘Future Park’ is based upon the premise that transport infrastructure occupy the juxtaposed ontology of being both connective and obstructive. By placing a park over the top of the Monash Freeway we hope to demonstrate how major infrastructure can be literally overcome re-establishing the relationship between the southern edge of Richmond and the Yarra River, a site that once had an avenue of honour commemorating the war dead of Richmond, now somewhat ironically occupied by a freeway named after the preeminent WW1 general. Our park seeks to create the opportunity for a whole series of programmes along its length, from filtering the air (whilst petrol powered vehicles remain in use) to establishing a direct connection between the people of Richmond and the edge of the river as one of the most primal experiences that can be drawn from a park.

As well the establishment of a new and rich topography over what is currently a ‘non-place’, windscreen landscape: A new place of stillness and pleasure over a landscape of alternating speed and traffic jams. This isn’t necessarily a new idea, but rather a new location for a similar park built by Angela Danadjieva and Lawrence Halprin in 1976 in Seattle. We, therefore, don’t claim originality, rather opportunity: The space is publicly owned already, but the experience of it is currently wholly private, locked into individual spaces that move through the larger whole like André Lefevere’s train passenger locked into a route they cannot escape. This proposal is the ontological opposite, both theoretically and practically.

The prototype has already been built, and the future of the private car, with higher fuel prices, carbon emission costs coming home to roost, autonomous vehicles promising reduced congestion by elimination of human error and far more efficient travel patterns, these freeway spaces are there for the occupation of future parks in cityscapes everywhere. This park typology has an endless potential, both in terms of formal design as it re-establishes a new topography, in terms of community use and activation, as well as the potential to reintroduce natural systems into this constructed artifice.

Air quality, noise reduction, urban/natural connectivity, passive and active recreation, as well as transport are all overlaid onto one space. Also the potential for exploring the palimpsest of history as the riverbank has moved from pre-settlement to the avenue of honour to an inclusive and vital future is rich.