Categories: Living Local

1 Aug 2011, Comments (0)

Place Making (near and far)

Author: MDC

Has been a while since I blogged onto these pages – no excuses – just busy leading my best life possible.

The consultancy continues along with myself, our core team (Sue and Kathlin) and lots of interesting visitors – spending time on projects which focus on community development, place making strategies and strengthening social and community networks. Included in this is delivering local events, community art projects, establishing a community garden and facilitating lots of community and stakeholder workshops. Here’s a pic which includes one of our client reps Nadia D and Charlotte our community artist friend.  That’s me in the cream hat.

 

 

 

 

 

 
Our key focus remains public open space, community amenity and ensuring ‘life between buildings’ has meaning and adds to the quality of life experienced by all.

Some examples of what we’ve been up to:

BROWNLIE NEIGHBOURHOOD PROJECTS

The team has been working in Bentley for the Department of Housing delivering community development services for about 18 months. We’ve done this through facilitating a series of capacity building projects to support a wider masterplan project to regenerate the area.

We’re very excited about the Bentley Community Garden – which is about to open it’s new site and has SBS completing a webdoc on it and it’s members – who are diverse and energetic.

 

 

 

 
We’ve held two fabulously successful Harmony Day Events which bring together hundreds of people from all walks of life, cultures and backgrounds and we’re planning to do it all again in 2012.  Locals from the Brownlie neighbourhood and reps from community groups put effort into many months of pre-planning and imagining this event.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to all including Sharon from the Salvation Army    who contributed outstandingly to face painting 100′s of f    faces and to Monica and Sarah from the local Division of General Practice for providing water, sunscreen and free blood pressure tests. We couldn’t do it without many others including the local Rotary who bbq 100′s of Halal sausages for us….

Charlotte continues to facilitate fun and sustainable art projects with people across the neighbourhood and in particular those involved with the community garden.   Here’s some fab art assembled into totem poles, made by the 3 local schools under her guidance.

 

 

 

 

 

 


CITY OF MELVILLE CULTURAL PLAN

We collaborated with Anne Goodall consulting to work on an interesting project for the City of Melville developing their cultural vitality plan. This included a school art project, a photovoice process, an online forum and lots of conversations with staff and community members about the culture of Melville and the quality of life they enjoy and want to maintain.


 

 

CITY OF FREMANTLE YOUTH PLAN

Again in collaboration with Anne G, we’ve been involved in assisting the City of Fremantle to check-in on youth needs and aspirations.  This has included one to one interviews, an online survey, dialogue with educational institutions, youth agencies and the community.  I’m always amazed and re-assured about the number of amazing people out there, working hard to make a difference, in particular to help out those who find themselves in difficult life transitions and situations.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CITYOF SUBIACO, PURPLE LOUNGE CONVERSATIONS

Following hot off the heels of our ‘red lounge conversations’ carried out for Town of Claremont. The City of Subiaco approached us to implement a similar process on their mainstreet with a focus on a bigger visioning process labelled Think2030. With the wonderful expertise of Gerald A we undertook filming in various locations, engaging people on the street (with the help of team member Sue’s excellent spruiking).


 

 

 

 

 

 

COMMUNITY/STAKEHOLDER FORUMS

This is core business for us – here’s a sample of some of our clients and focus areas:

  • Headspace Planning Day – mental health support and education for young people
  • Department of Education – youth transition and participation in education
  • City of Rockingham – urban art…balancing youth capacity building and the aesthetics of public amenities
  • City of Subiaco – local business input to developing public market guidelines (this included research on best practice and trends related to public markets)
  • Western Power – Mundaring Substation design workshops (this was an innovative approach aimed at improving the look and feel of heavy infrastructure through incorporating interpretive signage, art and public amenity) note: great exercise but the substation isn’t going to be built in that area after all…good lessons learnt though

PROBONO AND LOCAL PLACEMAKING

I consciously involve my self in local placemaking and probono opportunities. This allows me to ‘practice what I preach’ and experiment with ideas that may benefit clients and communities in the future.

Most fun and enjoyment was summer 2011 when I was involved with the Cappuccino Strip Street Club in Fremantle (check out Linda Blagg’s video ‘at home on a fremantle street’).  Influenced by our mate David Engwicht (world class place maker and authority on giving streets back to the people) and supported by City of Fremantle Council who dropped red tape to allow it to happen. Over 4 summer evenings we were able to play in various streets linked to South Terrace and in the end the mainstreet itself.  This was done by a group of volunteers who simply wanted to provide a blank canvas and invite the community in to come and enjoy the space. I was also interested in experimenting with different uses of the street (as I was chairperson of the South Terrace Improvement Group at the time – which has since reported to Council and included some of the lessons learnt that summer).  It really proved to me that people can self-organise and can feel perfectly comfortable in their own place if we let them be themselves and simply enjoy life.  Some of the most memorable things for me were:

  • lots of children and families feeling safe
  • people laughing, dancing and connecting
  • someone bringing a birdbath, teaching people to mosaic and having the project finished on the night
  • someone bringing her canvas and painting in the middle of the street
  • a sewing machine set up and people making ‘why we love Freo’ flags which got strung up on the spot
  • lots of costumes and opportunities to engage people passing by encouraging them to try on a wig or crazy outfit
  • the lovely Claire being our official ‘free hugs’ gal and the look on the faces of people visiting the street when they got one
  • flash choirs, dancers and ukulele bands
  • fake green grass as markers for ‘shared space’ and cars slowing down or re-routing in order to help make it happen
  • local business agreeing to let it happen and local council helping making it happen (they cut red tape and provided a seeding grant of $2,000 of which we spent about $800 because so much time and spirt was donated)
  • the ease in which we set up for 5pm and set down at around 9pm with the street going back to it’s usual purpose

The Cappuccino Strip Street Club ‘experiment’ was noticed near and far and other precincts around Fremantle have since taken on parts of their streets or public spaces for easy and low cost activities – such as bocce at the Round House and ping pong in Kings Square.  I love the fact that sometimes all you have to do is ‘give permission’ and then see what happens.  Involves some trust but after all isn’t that what makes the world go round!  I also love the notion of ‘use before design’ which allows us to test how people feel most comfortable using a space before big infrastructure is built or lots of $’s spent.

Watch out for more fun next summer and possibly sooner.

 

 


10 Dec 2010, Comments (2)

Where’s my place?

Author: MDC

A few weeks off Xmas and am working on some life/work planning and some personal remodeling for 2011. Have always been a bit of a chameleon and like to change my approach to things and even my look, whenever I feel I’m getting stuck in a groove. I guess it’s about place making on the inside – practicing what I preach.

How can I expect others to embrace and want change if I don’t experience it myself?

Also feel like I need to work on my own personal resilience – so am focussing on goals and ideas which:

- keep me healthy and fit
- maintain and build my social network
- enhance relationships
- experiment with creativity
and
- allow me to think global and live local

Watch this space to hear more. To help me along the way am talking to people I trust and developing some decision making criteria. I need this to know what to say YES and NO to. All of this will help me work out where my place in the world is and how I can contribute best – whilst learning, growing and having fun!

18 Sep 2010, Comments (1)

2010 the busiest most abundant year yet!

Author: MDC

I haven’t blogged for a while because I’ve been busy living my best life!

We sold, found our new property and moved earlier in the year to South Fremantle.  We’re settled into our new home and our first short term accommodation guest arrives next week.  We now have 3 businesses in the family – Forrest Menswear (John also has a new shop which is gorgeous in Hay Street, Subiaco), MDC Places Group (core business for me) and Green Door Hideaway (the short term accommodation cottage on our property).  All 3 businesses allow us to meet many, many wonderful people and continuously grow our relationships and networks.

Thanks to all those who have supported us over the past months and helped us maintain some balance and fun.  We love, love, love living in Fremantle – it truly is a great place and is continuing to grow and change daily.

I will be blogging more often now and really want to catch people up on some fabulous work and life projects I’ve been involved with.  My time over the last month has been taken up with:

1.  A cool Town of Claremont project where we have been interviewing people about their mainstreet – Bay  View Terrace.  We did some of this sitting on ‘fatboy bean bags’ on astro turf which was filmed and is currently being edited!  It was the most fun and really proved to me that you can evoke what’s possible by infusing places with color and vibrancy on a temporary basis.  It’s got me really thinking about use before design ie. demonstrating ideas to people before the big bucks get spent on buildings and infrastructure. It also confirmed how projects can run very smoothly if all involved do what they say and work as a team.  Thanks to Sue, Gerald, Mark and Michael and all those who agreed to be interviewed.

2.  Art in Bloom which happens bi-annually at the WA Art Gallery in spring.  I collaborated with our fabulous community artist team member, Charlotte O’Shea and we created a huge papier  mache cake.  It was a homage to the artist Vivienne Binns who was a leader in the feminist and community artist movement.  We were given a painting to respond to with an installation (along with another 120 folk who were allocated different art pieces).  The painting was called ‘memory of the unknown artist’ and was a statement about the value of both high art and art in everyday life – we all have an opportunity to create, whether we are doing craft, choosing what to wear or even baking a cake!  Art in Bloom is also an amazing place making event in that it brings people to the gallery and in touch with art who don’t usually do so.  Am off there again tomorrow with my 7 nieces and nephews and it will be great to see the children’s response to an art gallery full of flowers, color and the amazing smell of spring.  Thanks to Charlotte for sharing her studio, knowledge and abundant creativity.  We enjoyed the collaboration so much we are onto another project idea already!

3.  When I arrived in Fremantle, I was very conscious of what kind of contribution I might be able to give. Some of that is living locally and spending my money there in unique home grown businesses, rather than franchises in a big box shopping centre.  It’s been great fun exploring all the fab shops, cafes and happennings.  As part of of emersing myself I nominated for a City of Fremantle Council committee and am now the Chair of the South Terrace Working Group.  Along with other community  and business reps, we are coming up with short and long term strategies for enhancing the cafe strip. At the moment I’m hatching the idea of a ‘wishing booth’ which will happen as part of the Fremantle Festival in November aimed at capturing ideas from the general public, which will further inform our strategy development.  I’ll tell you more as the project grows.  I used the idea of ‘wishing’ a lot in our work.  We often ask communities what their ‘greatest wish’ for their area is.  People respond well and reading other people’s wishes connects community members and inspires them.  Dublin have done it through Designing Dublin a not for profit group who have asked citizens to wish for the future of that city   http://design21c.com/wishes.  Have a read and do some wishing of your own.  I believe in the power of positive thinking, visualising and imagining what’s possible.  Wishes have come true for me many, many times. It’s a powerful thing.

That’s all for now gotten get on with cleaning house – general life chores get left behind when one is busy – but it’s important to keep my own place comfortable and fabulous too!  ciao for now.  M

17 Jun 2010, Comments (0)

A place to call our own…

Author: MDC

Am sitting on my South Fremantle back balcony, contemplating the sunset amongst a dark moody pre-rain sky,  with some cool instrumental contemporary jazz playing on the IPOD and thinking life is good.

Haven’t written a post for a while – we’ve been busy creating our new home.  This has included – moving in, very slowly unpacking, finding and being around for lots of tradespeople (we’ve in the main used locals – who are becoming friends) and getting to know the neighbourhoood. Carrying on with life and work during a period of change and transition is full on!  We’ve also been incredibly social, with lots of friends coming to  ’have a look’ and catch up and had many invites to spend time with people in their own spaces and places too.  We recently spent a weekend with our friends Murray and Sue in their ultra contemporary home on the Estuary in Mandurah and recently went down to Margaret River to a surprise birthday party at Vasse Felix put on by Fea for her hubbie Michael – all good fun.  This activity has kept me busy and sometimes extremely tired, which I love, as it means I’m living life to the full – I’m also terrible at saying ‘no’!  The long weekend at Bunker Bay relaxing did help us rest and re-energise for a final month of finishing off before we move upstairs to our permanent residence.

South Fremantle is a vibrant community hub (which includes lots of children and dogs!) and we are loving it.  Working from home has turned out to be a particular challenge however, particularly when trades work being completed is noisey – this has resulted in many hours next door at La Vespa cafe (both alone with my laptop and phone or with others having ‘meetings’). Copious cups of green tea have been consumed (gave up coffee ages ago), as have loads of yummy pasteries (my current favorite being the mapple and pecan danish).  John and I have also regularly frequented lots of the restaurants down the road and beyond, as living in a not quite completed house with packing boxes is not conducive to cooking.  We really like the local Vietnamese “Song Tam”,  which feels like it could be anywhere in the world, is not very fancy but has warm friendly service and hot spicey dishes.

Having old and new friends around us has been a particular pleasure as we bump into each other down the street – although I drive to meetings out of Fremantle, walking and catching the CAT (Central Area Transit) free bus means lots of chance meetings.  I’ve even reconnected with a friend from 20 years ago, who is now a neighbour – Annie and her husband Joseph. Our good friends Sue and Steve are just around the corner and last weekend we enjoyed a great dinner with new friends and gallery owners Bess and Steve…

Bess is a renowned glass artist and I’m hoping to include a piece of her work in our new house. Here’s some of her work and if you’re im the neighbourhood do go and visit – Fremantle Contempary Art Gallery.  Daily meeting new folk, lots of cultural creatives and global citizens with stories to tell all living in the one big melting pot which is Fremantle.  We really feel  like we can truly be ourselves here and that it’s ok.  Promise to keep up the writing. M

24 Apr 2010, Comments (2)

Fremantle musings

Author: MDC

As lots of you know we have moved to Fremantle.  It happened this week and we are now living in a neat little cottage on the ground floor with a small garden complete with 3 olive trees and fish pond.  Our bird Bubbie has setttled in but the cat Astro is a little bit spooked!

It’s already fabulous in Fremantle with almond croissants and a cuppa next door at La Vespa most mornings and testing the restaurants that meander down our road each night!  Will need to watch our weight though and I intend to get into some of the local yoga or pilates soon.  Regular walks down to South Beach and a bike ride or two should sort things out.

Have to say it feels completely different to the apartment (which I was very sad to leave – particularly some of the people we met there).  The main points of difference I think are:

- a sense of history both regards to our property and Fremantle in general vs something recently built (although we will be moving to a contemporary space upstairs eventually)

- uniqueness vs codified sameness (which does happen in apartment complexes as beautiful as they can be)

- ability to create our own space and story vs needing to go through a corporate body to make changes

- an already vibrant mainstreet vs an area with lots of potential but many hoops to jump through before change happens (now now my good friends at the City of Melville, you know I’m on your side and will continue to  help with your great place making ventures)

- friendly local shop owners who we are already getting to know after only a few days and local trades people who have been quick to respond

- feeling like we are back with our ‘tribe’ given we are pretty eclectic and a little left of centre vs being in a gentrified place (mind you John and I are good at fitting in anywhere – which we also experience when we go travelling.  I think it’s because we consider ourselves global citizens and ageless!)

Must get back to the packing boxes now…    

18 Mar 2010, Comments (2)

Places in the country…

Author: MDC

NEWS FLASH!  Over 100 Goomalling folk came to the project launch and local business expo on Thursday night.  That’s 10% of the area population.  Fantastic…

My team and I are currently involved with a lovely project in regional Western Australia (WA).  It’s focussed on regional resilience and helping little towns to thrive and grow into the future. It’s called Living Towns or Living Communities.

With WA so heavily reliant on the resources boom (mining and big business), we are already seeing little places that have put all their ‘eggs in one basket’ suffer when those global multinationals move out of town.  Couple this with the lure of the big city and large regional centres (particularly for young people) and the picture for some towns is unclear.

Living Communities aims to help build the resilience of towns by working with local people to create a community vision that includes social entrepreneurship and new business ideas.  We are embarking on a first pilot in Goomalling in Western Austalia’s wheatbelt 132 kilometres east of Perth.  The local community and Shire have been wonderful in welcoming us and teaching us that little places can have big hearts and dreams.  We are launching the project tonight with a community information evening and will keep you posted as to our regional adventures. We are hoping the model will spread and be applicable to other regional towns.  Check out Greg Winning’s blog for more about new economic approaches to living life in 2010.  Here’s a pic of some of the team including local Steering Committee members (our t-shirts say ‘help plug Goomalling’…

and Sue Crock and I at the local lovely caravan park…

Gerald has done a wonderful job of interviewing locals…

More to come soon. M

10 Mar 2010, Comments (6)

Authentic Place Making

Author: MDC

When you’re a place maker like me – there is a challenge and need to be authentic – that is, practice what I preach!  I’ve long known this and I’ve supported my key skill as a facilitator by lots of personal development work.  It is hard to work with other people, understand and be sensitive to their needs without being clear about yourself and how you communicate.  Of course, I am open to more learning every day but I also understand the need to put learning into action.

I’ve long been pondering my own home – where I live.  I’m in a beautiful apartment on the river in Mount Pleasant.  Very spoilt with dolphins occassionally floating by and lots of bird life.  I wake up to beautiful sunrises and the full moon on the river is absolutely stunning.  I’ve also enjoyed a sense of being ‘cocooned’ from the world and our 1st floor apartment is a little like being in a houseboat – which has been fun.

I am all for density and low to medium rise dwellings which add to vibrancy and offer different housing types – however in my experience it’s harder to create your own space and place.  Apartments tend to be ‘codified’ and highly secure.  From the outside everything looks the same, neat, pretty, architectural.  Security means safety but also a certain amount of being ‘cut off’ from the surrounding community.  One of the things I have done during our 4 years in the apartment was to join the Corporate Body.  I tried to act as the community connector and through this we have had the occassional newsletter and quarterly sundowners including at xmas.  Some lovely people live here and we have made great friends.  We have however had a niggling feeling of frustration over being able to reshape our space and put into place new and sustainable ideas that reflect our values.  For example, if we wanted a rainwater tank or solar cells we would need to convince 31 other apartment dwellers.  We know there are some folk here with similar desires but our sense of urgency about putting such things in place probably wouldn’t get met easily.

A few days ago we were successful at auction in securing a mixed use space which we move into in a month or so and where we are keen to have a go at practicing the authenticity I’m talking about.  It will allow us to think about and implement more sustainable solutions eg. we will have a vegie patch for the first time!

It’s in Fremantle and for those of you who know that City – it is diverse, active and fun.  Being landlords of a mixed use space will also give us an opportunity to create a place others want to come to.  There is a shop which is leased to a graphic designer and 2 studios where we intend to welcome visitors for short term stays.  We are looking forward to the adventure and I’ll keep you posted as to how we go with things.  I love this picture of my husband John at the gate – it’s symbolic to me of a new way forward with lots of plans and I’m sure unknown surprises.  Much like place making projects!

7 Feb 2010, Comments (3)

How big is a ‘place’ ?

Author: MDC

I’ve been pondering – “how big is a place?” .

In the work I do, it’s often a town centre or mainstreet and sometimes a whole suburb or town.  I reckon though it can be much smaller and bigger.

A ‘place’ I think can start in the heart

How I feel on the inside, my sense of self and my connection to people and the places I frequent.  I really believe in doing the internal work to get to know yourself – who you are warts and all!  The life journey for me is about becoming my own best friend and then challenging myself to grow.  The more I do, the more comfortable I become with myself, how I relate to others and being authentic in my work as a facilitator and place maker.  You can’t ignore the self and how it impacts on how we move into and out of our daily life and spaces.

On the other hand, I think a ‘place’ can be huge!  the World, Australia, Western Australia, Perth – the Universe…

I like to think of myself as a ‘global citizen’ a ‘world explorer’ and I do feel connected to those I know around the world and to those I haven’t even met.  The link between my personal self and the rest of the world impacts on how I walk my daily life whether with those I love, my neighbourhood, at work or in the public places I spend time in.  It’s at the end of the day about ‘respect’ for all that is beautiful – other people, our environment and the interesting social spaces we create that bring meaning, joy and sometimes pain into our lives.

I love the Hindu greeting ‘namaste’ – it has a number of meanings including “I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of love, integrity of wisdom and peace.  When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One”.   In simple terms it can be a form of ‘welcome’ or even ‘gidday’ and is usually said with the head bowed and palms to forehead.  I often whisper it when I see a stranger or even a living thing that isn’t travelling so well.  I’d like to say it to you too…

NAMASTE!

  • Mary Del Casale

  • Mary Del Casale

  • Lead consultant of mdc places group
    We’re a small but energetic consultancy focussed on creating more meaning and vibrancy in the ‘third’ place - the social and community settings people spend their lives in. I’m also passionate about food and sustainability matters and I’m a frequent national and international traveler from my base in Perth, Western Australia, to discuss and collaborate on these issues. Find out more >

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