Shadeways: cool routes through hot cities
About This Project
Minta is a flagship greenfield residential estate for Stockland, and a key development for the City of Casey, who have a vision to create Australia’s most liveable and smart city. Working closely with the urban designers, Stockland and Council, Alluvium and Mosaic Insights analysed the wider social landscape in Berwick to:
- Understand current green spaces distribution and active transport linkages in the wider Berwick area
- Identify future movement patterns and opportunities to connect into and through the development
- Inform the urban design with a focus on encouraging social connectedness and active transport
The premise of this approach is that urban development and open space should be considered as part of a broader social landscape, as opposed to an isolated development or site. Advanced social and spatial analytics identified areas with low levels of access to open space to further inform design.
A critical active transport route was identified through our work that connects the high value open spaces and wetlands on Cardinia Creek into and through the development, making them more accessible and improving access to open space beyond the Minta development
Alluvium then designed a novel ‘shadeway’ along the active transport route with a very dense urban forest canopy cover to promote active transport on hot days. The forest is irrigated via a novel urban water system that captures roof runoff and stores it in a low maintenance underground trench system.
The shadeway will allow residents to move along a cool, shaded route that links the waterway open spaces and the new town centre with a network of more than 10 km of waterways, constructed wetlands, shared paths and parklands.