The ability of engineers and architects to positively influence the way people use amenities and feel about the spaces they live and work in has been largely overlooked in an era of building to a price and where all factors had to have an immediate or at least measurable pay back period.
However, last Friday’s launch of iC Central at the Innovation Campus has raised the bar for commercial building construction in the region and together with the new ahm head office in Market St set a new standard in prestige commercial space.
Hopefully the other major projects currently in the planning stages will embrace this new enlightened approach and it will mark the beginning of a renaissance in architecture in a city which has suffered more than its fair share of ‘butter boxes’ over the years.
The Sea Cliff Bridge is another local engineering triumph in the sense that the RTA resolved a major geo-technical challenge with a structure which not only resolved the immediate engineering obstacles but did so with a solution that was both elegant and visually inspiring.
It must be said the Nien Tien temple at Berkeley is probably the most striking landmark in our region and its traditional approach underlines the attractiveness of cultural diversity in architecture and is the antithesis of the sameness so characteristic of eastern bloc countries and unfortunately many parts of modern Australia.
If we can embrace this new found appreciation for well considered design the next logical step is to address our two most pressing city planning issues, viz. transportation and parking.
For what it’s worth here’s my Top 10 ‘beautiful’ ideas on this subject - although I must hasten to add that beauty, of course, lies in the eye of the beholder and this is probably a 20-year time horizon:
1) Introduce a Very Fast Train service to Sydney (and Canberra/Melbourne)
2) Open up the mall to slow moving vehicular traffic
3) Revitalise the city centre and improve retail outlets
4) Upgrade the western end of Crown St with focus on the rail station
5) Build at least three well placed major parking buildings in the city centre
6) Introduce a free loop bus to move people around the CBD and link to trains
7) Upgrade WIN stadium to an all-year multi-sport venue
8) Turn the old Dwyers site into a giant carpark
9) Progress the West Dapto development
10) Move the so-called Blue Mile to Bellambi
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The real cost of fuel
Paying more for petrol at the bowser is only the tip of a hidden iceberg of fees and charges
Most drivers, who actually pay for their fuel, take notice when their weekly trip to the service station jumps, in a space of a few months, from $45.00 to $70.00 - and of course that’s only for a moderate usage of a reasonably economic motor vehicle.
If, for example, you have a 4WD and/or travel a fair distance each day the numbers involved can be many times this amount and hikes of $100.00 per week or even more are becoming increasingly common.
Unfortunately that’s only the beginning of our problems with other associated costs of higher priced fuel hitting our back pockets in a multitude of differing ways.
Most basic food staples all have a significant transport component. Often items not only travel from the original producer to a processing plant but from there go on to a distribution centre of some kind before being finally delivered to a retail outlet. And some items have a lot more steps in their distribution chain.
Each time transport is involved the increased cost of fuel is added together with the usual overhead percentages plus any related government charges and taxes. In fact, there are very few items in our modern lifestyles that don’t include some transport / petrol cost component.
Big ticket items such as air travel are already heading north and some companies are stepping up the use of web based conferencing tools and re-evaluating the traditional shuffling of executives between branch offices on a weekly basis. A decrease in
face-to-face selling and a renewed emphasis on phone based telemarketing is also being considered by many organisations.
Perhaps most insidious is the slowing of the economy with previously disposable dollars now being re-deployed to cover the relentless on-going rise in fuel costs. A slowing retail sector in turn impacts on other associated areas and has an increasingly negative effect on business confidence and overall spending patterns.
In an economy where growth is stalling corporate managements inevitably focus on cost reduction as a means to achieve their budgets and this type of strategy can set in motion further initiatives, such as outsourcing overseas, which either compound the problem or simply move the pain elsewhere.
To try and paint a picture of improving our ecology or environment through the reduction in fuel consumption may seem attractive to some of our more idealistic central planners and ‘green’ economists but, realistically, thinking about longer term solutions does not address the very real issue of just surviving the present fuel crisis in all its various permutations.
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