Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments: A Review of Best Practice and Guide for Western Sydney Renewal

Abby Mellick Lopes
Vanicka Arora
Stephen Healy
Emma Power
Helen Armstrong
Katherine Gibson
Cameron Tonkinwise

In answering the following research question: What design features allow for both comfort and mobility in the hot city, and what design features detract from this? What climate-resilient social practices are these features enabling and disabling? this report develops a new approach to understanding and designing cool cities: cool commons. The report sets out the new conceptual approach of Cool Commons. It moves beyond current technocentric approaches to cool urban futures, recognising that a combination of material, social and institutional strategies are required to support climate adaptation, including community-led adaptive practices. ‘Cool commons’ view the city not as a collection of private spaces, but as an environment for convivial social life. The design challenge is thus to integrate opportunities for respite or coolth across the city, for example, in public spaces that are accessible to all. The report also sets out a methodology for analysing and reporting on the extent of Cool Commons, drawing on the pattern language of architect and mathematician Chris Alexander. It provides a series of sample patterns for Cool Commons that are the foundation for the ‘Cool Commons Pattern Deck’.

Cover of Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments

Suggested citation

Mellick Lopes, A., Arora V., Healy, S., Power, E., Armstrong, H., Crabtree, L., Gibson, K., and Tonkinwise, C. 2020. Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments: A Review of Best Practice and Guide for Western Sydney Renewal. Sydney: Landcom.