Hansen Partnership’s ‘Streets for People’ Feasibility Study for Darebin Council seeks to reorganise this precious ‘street space’ in the inner urban context to enable greater priority to more sustainable modes of movement, principally pedestrian and cycle access. This does not mean dismissing motorized access but seeks a more efficient and enticing street space that embodies equitable ‘movement and place’. This initiative is a quintessential model of the marriage between strategic planning, and urban and landscape design.

Hansen Partnership’s ‘Streets for People’ initiative is not just a streetscape urban design program – rather it is a practical strategic review of movement to and through an inner Melbourne municipal district. The program seeks to ‘Reclaim the Street’ and transform the physical environment in a way that enables a sharing of sometimes confined corridors and spaces between all users. The study represents an innovative model strategic design and readily transferable approach that can be applied to other municipalities in the inner city and beyond.

The Study sought to strike a balance between the demand for local private movement and other more sustainable modes of movement, while considering rational and cost-effective outcomes within the existing profile of the streetscape.

The project output represented a highly graphic, user-friendly report to ensure the design ambitions could be fully understood by Urban Designers, Transport Planners and engineers, Councillors and the local community.