Cataloguing a future city : Melbourne Cool Lines !

(...)
Referring to the French architect Claude Parent’s warnings about sprawling cities and “making the city over the city,” the Cool Lines’ pitch embraces complex thoughts about the future of our global urban environments, both testifying to their vitality while at the same time viewing their achievements with renewed criticality.

Urban heat islands, climate change and other conditions of the Anthropocene are symptoms of our ignorance towards ecological knowledge – a state of affairs that has spurred many environmental diplomats to advocate for a more respectful dialogue with the natural systems that support us. The ethical failure in the understanding and approach to the urban, to architecture, and to landscape, has also spurred the rise of environmental whistle-blowers who have been assisting in the transformation of ground-breaking visions of our collective future into beneficial, responsible and humane interventions through the modification of our views on the traditional nature/culture divide.

The work in Cool Lines is certainly stimulating – however, we must remain cautious. We have yet to see whether our city builders can successfully translate these aspirations into on-the-ground progression, and that the built environment profession can demonstrate genuine ethical acts of human beings towards solidarity with nature. Building upon themes now widely discussed around the world, Cool Lines presents a precious and well-reasoned catalogue for a future, more unified Melbourne.