Last week, Regen Melbourne held a Design Forum at the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation event space. The provocation to the room was: How do we catalyse a wave of regenerative streets in Greater Melbourne? Regen Streets Lead Convenor Nina Sharpe shares her takeaways below.

It was no accident that we chose June 21 as the day to come together for our Regen Streets Design Forum. It was the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year and a day of gratitude. It was also World Localisation Day, a day set by Local Futures to celebrate the power of community. These themes provided the perfect envelope for the event.

We came together ready to listen and share. While we all brought different perspectives and ideas, we also shared a vision, which was expressed as we opened the day. The energy was electric thanks to our master facilitator, mentor, board member and pioneer placemaker Gilbert Rochecouste of Village Well, who supported guiding our purpose and keeping us to task. 

We began by sharing the Regen Streets journey so far as a marker to move into the new phase of organising and insights. The sensemaking continues but now marks a conscious capture of what we know and a move towards what we need to do differently. 

Also setting the pace for the day was Professor Dan Hill, Director at Melbourne School of Design. Dan shared the work he has done in shifting the system in Sweden’s streets, with a goal to ensure that every street in Sweden is healthy, sustainable and full of life by 2030. 

“Over lunch, many people traded contact details to open further collaboration, and there was some debriefing over what we just experienced and exchanges across sectors... Already, new ways of organising were emerging.”

In true Regen Melbourne style, we were armed with post-it notes and ready to draw the knowledge out of the room – and our wonderful participants were more than ready to share! We pinpointed places either underway or ripe for change. We identified systemic layers and leverage points that can catalyse change and we pointed out the values, resources and stories that must wrap around and uplift our efforts. 

Over lunch, many people traded contact details to open further collaboration, and there was some debriefing over what we just experienced and exchanges across sectors – state to council, council to council, community to university, and community to community. Already, new ways of organising were emerging.

The day was closed out with an invitation. While Melbourne has a good history of placemaking and building community, along with a shared ambition to regenerate our streets, what we are doing right now is not working. We are not moving at the scale or with the urgency required to meet the challenges we are faced with. Now is the time to organise ourselves differently to overcome these systemic obstacles. Join us as we move forward to experiment, prototype and build demonstration sites to unblock the hindrances in our systems and allow our streets to be regenerated to their full potential. 

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