Bob Perry's talk

Went to Bob Perry's talk a couple of weeks ago on 'Designing for Density'. It was a great talk!

He talked about Paris and how the locals buy from the markets and the councils assemble the framework and dissasemble the stalls and clean up afterwards. The stall holders also display the produce and other goods really beautifully. There's such a variety of goods as well.

He talked about scale and perspective and context, and how tall buildings are not necessarily a problem if it's designed well, and the spatial relationships and scale is designed well.

He talked about Tokyo and the regional areas of Japan. He showed lots of really beautiful images of Tokyo. In Tokyo, the underground train system is very reliable, and extends to all areas. Also, you can basically walk everywhere and there's things to look at. All the areas are connected rather than having to drive to a destination and the rest is just roads and highways with nothing to look at. Tokyo is very suited to walking and biking. Tokyo is very much built up with around 6 or so storeys and yet it doesn't feel impersonal or overwhelming in scale.

He also showed images of China and how the bike becomes part of the stall and the people lay out their goods on the street and then pack it all up at the end of the day and go home to replenish their goods and do it all again the next day.

He likened cars to cane toads on the road, choking the Sydney landscape.

He said we chose this way of planning and this lifestyle. We choose to go a shopping centre and to park our cars there and to shop at the large malls, rather than to support street corner shops and small shops.

It was a really good talk with lots of food for thought and hopefully inspired some of us to act on some of these ideas too. We can vote with our feet and support more markets, cycling, walking etc.