Transcript for Water sensitive urban design workplace interview

[Speaker: Todd Berry]

Hi, I'm Todd Berry. I work for the Fishermans Bend Task Force in the Department of Transport and Planning, and I work on sustainability urban design and water projects.

How can we achieve sustainability through water sensitive urban design?

As cities become more urbanised, we need to ensure that our urban spaces are positive, good places to be and good for our mental health. And also physical health.

I'm currently working on the Fishermans Bend Project and have been doing for a number of years. What we're doing is we're taking an area of predominantly industrial sort of commercial land for the last a hundred years, and we're turning it into new spaces of sort of mixed use for populations all the way through to 2050 and later into the century.

It's incredibly important to, you know, look at all components of planning from a sustainability point of view. And in particular water. And I think that we're looking at the whole water cycle, whether it be from, you know, from when it rains through to our water usage, flooding, and all the way through to improving our bays and rivers. Our project will achieve, as Australia's largest urban renewal area, a water sensitive city strategy. Looking at the whole water cycle from detention of stormwater in open spaces, mitigating the need for, you know, traditional infrastructure like pipes and pumps, all the way through to rainwater tanks in all new buildings, which is an alternative water source, water recycling plants, and then also filtering that stormwater through those, you know, rain gardens and swales and the detention basins before it goes back into the river and the bay.

What led you to working in water?

My study path leading to where I am today, I returned to mature age studies in my forties. I studied urban design at University of Melbourne, and I had also done other courses as well in horticulture and, you know, plant design and various things as well within the urban design course. I was very interested in the, you know, the water studios, which, you know, sort of probably took me to where I'm today with the focus on water.

If you're like me and you, you know, sort of enjoy geography, you enjoy a little bit of design as I did at school, and, you know, I enjoyed history and that, you know, the other things, you know, about the urban form, I would really consider a career in urban design because it's so broad that you can go off in any field as I have, you know. I've sort of gone down the water path and the sustainability path. You work with a myriad of different types of people and there's so many opportunities.

What should people know about working in urban design?

I think all Victorians need to be aware that urban design actually has a strong role in the planning of our communities and also our existing communities.

What it does is that you are not necessarily a specialist in any one field. You have knowledge of a number of fields. Everything from engineering all the way through to sort of landscape design. And so you're looking at each situation holistically and therefore you're having a better outcome.

I think a lot of traditional water infrastructure, you know, was sort of built in the same way and have been built in the same way for a hundred years. I think we're seeing a real change in that now due to the scarcity of water and the larger populations that we have. You work with, you know, many different people, from engineers to researchers to planners, and you're really making a difference at the end of the day in our urban spaces.