24. Slowdown landscapes: The care and repair of our suburbs
Retrofit over new build; greening the grey, greying the green; urbanising the suburban, and suburbanising the urban; making the suburbs work, by enhancing diversity
Between the peri-urban surrounds and the central business district (CBD), we might find the diversified suburban neighbourhood — diversified in terms of activity, biodiversity, culture, space, amenity, environment.
Rory Hyde’s work has often touched on how the typical Melbourne suburbs — examples of the quintessential Australian urban form— might be retrofitted via simple interventions and repurposing. For Architect Victoria, he wrote:
“The suburbs we have are here to stay, so instead of decrying them as the places which will drag us all under, shouldn’t we develop new ways to retrofit them to be socially, environmentally and economically sustainable places in their own right?”—Rory Hyde
Rather than simply wringing hands over this lack of care, Hyde suggests an inventive resuscitation of Robin Boyd’s Small Homes Service, subtly shifted in focus to become a ‘Small Homes Adaptability Service’, with an emphasis on improving the already-there. He describes how such a service would be “directed to…
