In the face of a changing climate and growing population that are both putting pressure on our built environment, three of Australia’s peak bodies have signalled their intent to pursue a deeper collaboration that will strengthen their collective advocacy with the aim of helping to deliver more resilient, liveable cities.
The Australian Institute of Architects, the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) are looking to strengthen their long-running alliance for the benefit of Australia’s communities.
Collectively, the three organisations represent over 20,000 built environment professionals working across Australia and overseas.
Following the announcement last week of the 2019 Australian Urban Design Award winners, the CEOs of the Institute, PIA and AILA have said that they plan to work even more closely into the future.
‘Each of our organisations has worked collaboratively at a state level in a number of jurisdictions for many years now,’ Institute of Architects CEO Julia Cambage said.
‘That joining of forces has been hugely successful, enabling us to provide a compelling, united front in conversations with government as well as partnering on research to provide the evidence base for our position.
This public policy work done by the Institutes covers difficult and confronting areas such as tall-building quality and the challenges of novation, the need to nurture the social licence for growth and renewal of our suburbs, creating a vision for what we want Australian cities and towns to look like, and the understanding of the critical role of green & blue infrastructure.
‘We are now focussed on expanding and deepening that engagement at a national level as we seek to drive better outcomes in our built environment for the communities we collectively serve,’ said PIA CEO David Williams.
‘What binds us together is pure public interest, as this lies at the core of our purpose as we work together to help shape the resilient, liveable and high-functioning cities Australians expect as our population grows.’
‘We share not only serious concerns but a strong commitment and bring a sense of urgency to act in the face of catastrophic climate change and its impacts, not least the devastating biodiversity loss we are currently witnessing,’ said AILA CEO Tim Arnold.
‘We believe that together we can help advocate for and inspire the action needed to address the challenges head on and implement solutions that will drive meaningful change.
‘The awarded and commended projects in this year’s Australian Urban Design Awards clearly demonstrate the powerful outcomes that can be achieved from a strong alliance between architects, planners and landscape architects.’
For media enquiries contact:
Fiona Benson
On behalf of the Australian Institute of Architects
+61 (0) 407 294 620 | fiona@fjpartners.com.au
Cameron Ross | National Communications Manager | Planning Institute of Australia
+61 (2) 6262 5933 | +61 (0) 406 072 106 | cameron.ross@planning.org.au
Tim Arnold | Chief Executive Officer | Australian Institute of Landscape Architects
+61 (0) 419 109 340 | tim.arnold@aila.org.au
