Classic space with no signage, not even recognised on google maps as a public space. I happened on it completely by accident. As you can see, perfectly serviceable but no investment other than cutting the grass. See it on google maps here.
A record of field trips and other explorations of a particular urban design element - the internal reserve - a 'pocket park' surrounded on all sides by residential housing but accessible by pedestrian pathways from the street. They are exclusive, secluded, sometimes neglected, sometimes celebrated, suburban spaces. This blog welcomes contributions: comments, images, memorabilia. Please email nicholsd@unimelb.edu.au
Saturday, July 16, 2022
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Miranda Place Playground, Melba, A.C.T.
This is a beautiful, very hidden reserve on a slope with some play equipment (see it on google maps here). Not much more to say but without wishing to sound awfully twee, the awfully twee review on the google maps page for this park that suggests its 'trees and bushy gardens' make it feel 'like it has fairies hiding nearby' has got it pretty right.
Thursday, February 10, 2022
L. Sonck, unrealised plan for Töölöö, Helsinki, 1898
I gather Sonck was somewhat beholden to the ideas of Camillo Sitte, at least for a while, and he justified his plan on that basis. These two blocks clearly contain something within them, the left block probably has a church or some kind of statue, the right one seems to be just a dog-leg pathway with perhaps what was later called by Patrick Geddes a 'street room'. You'll see in the first picture there is something similar to the south of the left block.
Thursday, January 6, 2022
munksnäs-haga/munkkiniemi-haga
'The first garden city experiment in Finland was Eliel Saarinen's Munkaniemi-Haaga plan of 1915, but it was so much ahead of its time the owner of the estate did not dare to carry it out'. Leo Aario, 'The original garden cities in Britain and the garden city ideal in Finland.' Fennia 154, 1986 pp. 157-209 (p. 157)
The image below (original here) is a 2017 visualisation of the plan. Apparently the buildings 'are imaginary, but the street lines follow Huopalahdentie and Munkkiniemi park road.'
I can't tell what, if anything, in this plan constitutes an internal reserve but I suspect that the majority of the plan is apartment blocks (with interior courtyards) and some low-rise housing at the bottom and a lot more at the top, with a few genuine internal reserves dotted throughout.
Kabbera Central, Kelso, NSW
Look at it here. Kelso is essentially a suburb adjoining the regional city of Bathurst but it has an identity greater than mere adjacent su...
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A search on something else entirely led me to the June 1927 issue of one of Florence Taylor's publications, Construction and Local Go...
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Comparison between the above from a relatively new UBD street directory and the current Google Map shows some disparity in the shape of t...
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A place I have not yet visited but hope to within the next twelve months. An attempt to contextualise it historically can be found here . Go...