Description
Book SynopsisThis text explores how architectural and urban design values have been co-opted by global cities to enhance their economic competitiveness by creating a superior built environment that is not just aesthetically memorable but more productive and sustainable. It focuses on the experience of central Sydney through its policy commitment to ‘design excellence’ and more particularly to mandatory competitive design processes for major private development. Framed within broader contexts that link it to comparable urban policy and design issues in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, it provides a scholarly but accessible volume that provides a balanced and critical overview of a policy that has changed the design culture, development expectations, public realm and skyline of central Sydney, raising issues surrounding the uneven distribution of benefits and costs, professional practice, representative democracy, and implications of globalization.
Trade Review“The book is informative and well written. … Well illustrated and amply stocked with diagrams and tables supplementing the narratives, this book is an essential contribution to the comparative literature on urban design. It is certainly an authoritative source for urban designers and public officials interested in improving their cities’ appearance and design. It is also an important argument for the role of public policy and design governance in obtaining excellence in the quality of the built environment … .” (Tridib Banerjee, Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 87 (4), 2021)
Table of Contents1 Introduction2 Property Development, Governance and Design Excellence3 Global Sydney: Economy, Planning and Environment
4 A Pre-history of Design Excellence in Sydney
5 The City of Sydney’s Competitive Design Policy: Context, Genesis and Operation6 Competitive Projects and Their Design Outcomes
7 Competitions and Excellence: Three Case Studies
8 The Benefits and Drawbacks of Mandatory Design Competitions9 Design Competitions as Public Policy
10 Conclusion
