‘Water-sensitive urban design’ has become a global focus in 2021. As climate change continues to shift our natural environment, and our urban centres face further densification, consideration of how we work with water must also evolve. 

Since European settlement in Australia, water has often been viewed as a resource to control, exploit and contain. In recent decades, however, there has been a shift in the approaches of designers and developers to harness the potential of water to create a more sustainable future. From a source of energy to being a home for so much biodiversity, a city’s waterways holds the power for future-thinking projects. 

In Melbourne Design Week 2021, a vast array of individuals and organisations are embracing our unique landscape and asking the question: when it comes to water, how can we work with it, not against it?

A fully immersive experience

Melbourne Design Week 2021 continues the Waterfront program for its third year presented by the Centre for Architecture Victoria and Open House Melbourne. The program takes the public for adventures along the Yarra River (Birrarung), Port Phillip Bay, Phillip Island, and Gippsland Lake regions. From kayaking tours to snorkelling with sea urchins, bushwalks to dinner demonstrations, the Waterfront program connects you to the many talents designing with water, and its traditional custodians.

This year’s Waterfront program is the largest to date, with over thirty events being hosted in local and regional locations across Victoria. Fleur Watson is the Executive Director and Chief Curator for the Centre for Architecture Victoria and Open House Melbourne, and this year, she is excited to draw audiences towards the water. The program, she hopes, will change the way people interact with our precious waterways.

“This year we are thinking about our relationship with water, and how it shapes our total environment,” says Fleur. “Coming out of a COVID context, we’ve been prompted to consider how we come together as a community in our open spaces. Our waterways are a really important part of that.”

The program kicks off on the 26th of March with Breaking Down The Urchin, a hands-on river float hosted by Open House Melbourne and a conversation with senior curator Ewan McEoin and researcher Dr. Pifjo Haikola. Following the tour, guests will learn how to process and preserve sea urchin as fish sauce under the creative guidance of food researchers Long Prawn and fermentation experts Furrmien. Want to get even closer to your dinner? Then dive in the next day with Join Dr. Pirjo Haikola on a guided snorkel tour of the Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary.

In fact, adventure tours abound: there’s the Living Shorelines ‘wading tour’ in the Altona Coastal Park, where Reef Design Lab will be showcasing large-scale planters; a boat tour along the Yarra hosted by the Birrarung Council and Wurundjeri members; and even a a ‘ranger-led’ tour around the Phillip Island Nature Parks with Research Director, Peter Dann reviewing sustainable design principles for the local penguin population.

Spend the Easter long weekend in Gippsland

From Wednesday the 31st March, the Waterfront program moves to the East Gippsland region. Just a few hours drive east of Melbourne, the Gippsland program kicks off with a Welcome to Country smoking ceremony with Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC) in Kalimna, followed by a  panel discussion with Traditional Owners and invited guests to discuss and recognise the formal handover of unallocated water in the Mitchell River. The program concludes on Easter Monday with a selection of self-guided tour options including the Nowa Nowa Silent Walk.

Good food, adventure, and wellbeing are key ingredients to the Waterfront program in Gippsland. Give your tastebuds an education with the Sustainable Seaweed Appreciation Dinner at Sodafish floating restaurant, where chef Nick Mahlook and curator Lichen Kelp will lead you through the wonderful ways we can incorporate seaweed into our diets. For an experience in nature, don’t miss the Walk on Country led by Gunaikurnai Traditional Owners and GLaWAC. Sore feet? Finish off the weekend with a soak at the Metung Hot Springs, which is soon to start construction: Splinter Studio is hosting a tour of the site, with guests invited to try out the 45 degree geothermal mineral water springs.

Like water, fire is central to life in Gippsland. The intertwining of these elements is also explored in the Waterfront program. The School for unTourists is hosting a kayak tour of Lake Tyers, where participants will learn about the health of the lake since the fires. This tour concludes with a floating meditation and “Kayak Orchestra” sound performance. Also addressing the experience of fire is an exhibition, Rethinking Regional Recovery at the old Iceworks, showcasing insights from architect Nikhila Madabhushi and Monash University students around reconstruction, and how local and traditional knowledge can be leveraged for community-led approaches to water health, bushfire preparedness and recovery.

See the Open House Melbourne ‘Getting To Gippsland’ travel guide, here. 

Hearing the voice of the Yarra

The Waterfront program will feature several events hosted by the Birrarung Council. Officially acting as ‘the voice of the Yarra’, the Birrarung Council was formed after the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act was passed in 2017.  The first legislation in Australia to be co-titled in a Traditional Owner language, the Act recognises the Yarra River (Birrarung) as a ‘living entity’. The public land corridor of the river that stretches from the city to Warrandyte is reimagined as the Great Yarra Urban Parkland, reflecting its significance to Melbourne and as one of its great open spaces.
For Melbourne Design Week 2021, the Birrarung Council will be hosting, a series of talks, workshops, and tours introducing the audience to the challenges and opportunities faced in transforming the legacy of urban development and infrastructure that dominates and disconnects us from this reach of the river.  The event is designed to stimulate conversations and creative ideas for the precinct with the view of seeing it the way New York sees Central Park: a natural environment that’s not only protected, but celebrated and centred in community activities and design projects. 

To achieve this, the Birrarung Council is championing the importance of bi-cultural design and bringing together the creative energy of design faculties from Melbourne, Monash and RMIT universities with Traditional Owners of the Birrarung, the cities of Yarra and Stonnington, and agencies such as Melbourne Water and Parks Victoria. “The Birrarung Council is asking, how can we embrace the knowledge and values of Traditional Owners in rethinking our relationship with the river?” says Chris Chesterfield, Chair of Birrarung Council and a Director at the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities. “That means re-designing our built environment to overcome the legacy of development and infrastructure that previously ignored the natural and cultural significance of the river. How do our Indigenous people and traditional owners have a voice in planning and decision making?’”

This is emphasised by Australia’s first Aboriginal Water Commissioner, Rueben Berg, who stressed the importance of First Nations input in creating enduring, sustainable practices for Victoria’s waterways in an interview with landscape journal Foreground. “We as Aboriginal people have managed this resource for tens of thousands of years, and that connections to land also include connections to water, and that water and culture are interlinked,” said Rueben Berg. “The more Aboriginal voices we can get within the water sector, the better off all of the community will be.”

Chris Chesterfield hopes that this year’s Waterfront program will inspire new thinking and design ideas that explore what the Yarra means to us, and the importance of bicultural design moving forward. Kirsten Bauer, fellow Birrarung Council member and Director of ASPECT Studios, points out that the Yarra River can be a prime example of how we can immerse ourselves in traditional local knowledge to achieve better design outcomes for our community. “It offers designers the opportunity to ask themselves what can be done now to really get improvement, and what are the bigger projects for the future?” says Kirsten. “We’re hoping to see some different approaches emerge, so we can advocate for better urban design outcomes.”

Shared knowledge for a shared future

The cornerstone of water-sensitive urban design is the active participation of citizens. The responsibility of design falls not only on the policy makers and property developers, but those who will live and move among these spaces. It is through collaborative events, such as Melbourne Design Week, that these grass-root conversations can permeate.

“This year we asked ourselves, ‘How do we bring people together?’” says curator Fleur Watson. “We wanted to create an environment where people can share ideas, so most of our activities will be tours. It’s all about the experiential — for it’s the ‘the doing’ that we learn the most.”

From the cavalcade of talent — chefs, artists, designers, architects, and scientists — to those attending the events, every person is invited to join the conversation about how we design with, and for, Victoria’s waterways. Melbourne Design Week asks participants to consider design beyond the bounds of outmoded urban values around water: if water is not something to restrict or contain, what are its possibilities as a source for energy, community, health, and an active agent to fight climate change? Come along and explore how design is shaping a more sustainable future for Victoria’s creeks, rivers and oceans by boating, bathing, kayaking, snorkelling and even eating your way through the program.

You can view the complete 2021 Waterfront Program here