Long-lived passion for better urban design takes flight

Bill Chandler’s long-lived passion to improve urban design in Australia was publicly endorsed in Melbourne on Thursday, April 22.

Nearly 50 people meet in the “Melbourne Room” at the city town hall in Swanston St to enthusiastically to support an idea that would see Australia have its own version of Britain’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE).

For about a decade Bill has felt Australia should have its version of CABE and in the March edition of the Urban Design Forum, the quarterly magazine of the Victorian based UDF, Bill discussed the value of CABE and how Australia would benefit from something similar.

Bill, a co-founder and honorary editor of Urban Design Forum, was convinced that Australia had both the appropriately skilled and qualified people for a “CABE down-under”, as it has been colloquially described, and an evident need for such a body.

It was only at the March lunch meeting of the UDF that Bill first formally proposed the idea to others involved with the group and in discussions it was agreed a small group should meet to further discuss the idea.

Among those at the lunch and who is a former employee of CABE in Great Britain, Leon Yates, who presently works with the Victoria’s Department of Planning and Community Development, and he was confident other former CABE employees would support Bill’s idea.

Arrangements were made for a meeting on April 22 of just several people at the Urban Initiatives office of UDF co-founder Bruce Echberg, but interest spread and so with the support of Melbourne City Council, the meeting was moved to a town hall.

Bill’s idea was enthusiastically taken up and so what had been little more than just an idea simmering in Bill’s mind had boiled over to become a movement that has spread interstate, attracting interest from all parts of the country.

A 90-minute discussion resulted in the formation of ten-strong initial working group, as it was called, to further consider the idea and determine a clear direction of how to progress “CABEDU”.

That initial working group is: David Rayson, Geoffrey London (State Architect- top right), Laura-Jo Mellan, Emma Appleton, Justin Kelly, Gerry McLoughlin, Bruce Echberg, Leon Yates, Rod Duncan and Bill Chandler.

Also among those at the April 22 meeting was Melbourne City Council’s Director of City Design, Rob Adams (above right).

In an email circulated the day after the event, Bill Chandler said: “Thanks for your contributions yesterday. The feedback is very positive, and already the interest is spreading to those who were not able to be there, including interstaters”.