Why a single block? It seems to make sense to operate on this scale. It’s small enough so that people can initiate change locally; outside centralised institutions, but large enough to be able to consider bolder interventions like back water mining or changes to the streetscape.

If you were to imagine a descending scale in which you might consider the application of ecologically sustainable design – starting at the ‘big end’ it probably would read something like this: The planet: the pacific region: the state: the catchment area: the region: local council area; my neighbourhood; me.

Everything higher than my neighbourhood feels like it’s totally out of my hands. Is probably not really, but that’s certainly how it feels – so that brings me back to me, and to my neighbourhood.

I read somewhere recently that anyone can imagine a utopia the secret is to imagine a something that’s do-able. I suspect that’s not entirely true either (the bit about anyone being able to imagine a utopia, I can think of a couple of people at least who would have trouble imagining a Bombe Alaska if they hadn’t seen one lately), but I do think it’s important for me to restrict this project to existing technologies, and proposals that are likely to be approved within existing planning processes and legislation (unless the game is worth the candle, and seems important to challenge existing legislative structures).

In Dan Chiras and Dave Wann’s book ‘Superbia!’ they say that cohousing research indicates...


that 25 – 40 households is an optimum number for running collaborative projects. Any more and it gets too difficult to communicate and to share facilities – and basically, I guess, it’s just too hard to get to know each other well. I imagine that any less than 25 would make it difficult to have the numbers to reach a critical mass, in terms of raising capital or organising ‘work parties’ etc. If I want to follow those recommendations the neighbourhood block I defined in the first post is much too large – roughly 137 households (not sure how many are in each block of flats).

Hmm, what to do? I could just redefine the ‘neighbourhood’ to a block of around 40, but then it’s starting to get too small to consider making changes to stormwater or streetscapes. Perhaps what I can do is divide my neighbourhood into four proposed ‘Neighbourhood Communites’ – each with about 30-35 households…

Ok that doesn’t work when you actually draw it up, not if I stick to including the streets in the divisions (to reflect the existing relationship patterns I have with my neighbours). Dividing into 3 makes the groups too large.

(click on image to see it larger)

If I make the overall neighbourhood block smaller by leaving off the houses on the other side of Wellington, that makes sense, because Wellington St has a lot more traffic, and acts as a barrier to relationships (people living opposite each other on Wellington would be unlikely to know each other, whereas I do know the people who live across the road on Hotham St). See diagram from Superbia! (pg.24) by David Engwicht – the traffic & community guru (click on image to see it larger).


Then the new Neighbourhood Block and smaller Neighbourhood Communites would look like this:

(click on image to see it larger)

Of course I’m doing this now so that I can go ahead and design a practical/theoretical case study. In fact the best way for these divisions to be decided would be by my neighbours – and then the divisions would reflect actual relationships as well as practical & spatial considerations.

The other reason why it makes sense to work on the level of a ‘block’ is that the neighbourhood block is, if you like, the basic building block of the city. So if we can make one block ecologically sustainable, then in theory at least, we should be able to apply the same changes right across Melbourne (and elsewhere).

Well… fingers crossed.