Blue sky thinking for liveability in Sydney
On day one, Term 1, the first day back from the Christmas holidays, the Year 10 HSIE Extension class was introduced to a 14-week long project: “Liveability by Design”. This project was created to mirror the current redevelopment of the Bays Precinct, overseen by UrbanGrowth NSW. Our brief was to redevelop an area within this precinct with the aim of improving Sydney’s overall liveability through the enhancement of social, environmental and economic features.
To help develop our creativity and problem-solving skills, the class adopted a “Design Thinking” approach. This approach allowed us to develop a detailed understanding of our “users’ through various primary and secondary research methodologies and, in turn, allowed us “not just to have ideas, but to have good ideas” as our teacher, Mr Robertson, implored.
The Design Thinking process included a few key stages:
Empathise – This stage focused on gaining initial insight into the needs and wants of our users – the public. We did this by interviewing people in Pyrmont and Darling Harbour and by speaking to real estate agents located around the Bay Precinct.
Define – During this stage we refined our focus to just a few main areas. We asked the questions, “what do the demographic that we are designing for look for in a suburb?” and “why are these factors important?”.
Ideate – At this stage, we were encouraged to come up with innovative ideas based on the insight developed through our primary research as well as other inspiration gained from secondary research into cities around the world. There was an emphasis on “blue sky thinking”, after all, you can’t solve the world’s problems by employing the same approaches that caused them!
Prototype & Test – The final stage of the project was to showcase our designs and ideas to a panel of experts and our parents at a special presentation evening. These experts were invited from three different backgrounds: designers, town planners and UrbanGrowth NSW representatives and included the President of the NSW Branch of the Planning Institute of Australia, Marjorie Ferguson.
The evening was an extremely valuable opportunity as it enabled us to develop our confidence and communication skills in front of people from “the real world”. It also challenged us to think on our feet when we were asked complex and thought-provoking questions by the experts after our presentations. At all stages, we were accountable to our ideas, being made to thoroughly justify our designs and arguments with evidence. At the conclusion of each group’s presentation we received valuable feedback from both experts and parents, which greatly enhanced the authenticity of our experience.
While this project was daunting and challenging for most, all students distinguished themselves, producing sophisticated ideas to solve complex problems. We are all proud of our efforts and appreciate on reflection what a great experience it was.
Kate Coyne and Alexandra Witting
Year 10
