RESIDENTIAL

CURRUMBIN ECOVILLAGE

Landscape/Environmental Planning and Co-design for a 220 home ecovillage in the Gold Coast hinterland’s most scenic valley.

Landscape Principles in Practice:

• Value Our Landscape:  The layout of the ecovillage follows existing landform and character, respecting existing landscape values to create eco-hamlet footprints only on previously cleared land with no environmental constraints.  Extensive site analysis and sieve-mapping was carried out prior to design, and the brief was strongly influenced by a comprehensive community design process, involving a multi-disciplinary team of consultants working together with the active participation and collaboration of residents and the local community.
• Protect – Enhance – Regenerate:  Three distinct ecological zones exist on the land and have been the basis for leading the design process. Each home parcel has been site designed to create ecohamlet clusters, allowing 80% of the site to be revegetated and regenerated in a manner which supports local and broader landscape function.
• Design with Respect: A key design driver was respect for the valley’s rural and natural landscape character. Extensive visual impact assessment and local character studies were undertaken to ensure that the environmental qualities of the site would be improved over time, through careful siting of activities and landscape management. The goal of the project is for the ecovillage to be fully integrated into the ecological and social framework of the existing landscape, and to enhance its overall environmental performance over time.
• Design for the Future:  An overall ecovillage community title will be the framework to achieve ongoing maintenance of the ecovillage. Each eco-hamlet will be responsible for the ongoing upkeep of the community gardens and greenways within their cluster, including paths, gardens and activity areas. A design review board will ensure that the ecovillage’s stringent ecological planning code is artfully and carefully interpreted for all homes in the village development to enhance resilience and adaptive capacity over time.
• Embrace Responsive Design: The project capitalizes on a respect for the value of landscape to develop new prototypes for subdivision development in rural and peri-urban areas.  Innovative design processes, governance structures and technologies are used to support environmental and community integrity and enhance landscape performance, creating more responsive, adaptable built environments which are more resilient to the impacts of future change.

 

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