Virtual Lab
Systems Thinking for Street Regeneration
It’s frustrating when your efforts to revitalise streets are met with roadblocks.
You can influence the future of streets. You just need to see them as part of a larger system.
It’s time to look beyond infrastructure to see why our streets are languishing and how you can change it.
This 90-minute workshop, facilitated by Dr Laura Aston, is for champions of people-centred streets who are interested in exchanging perspectives while growing a repertoire of street innovation tools.
Thursday 25 September (90 minutes)
Is this familiar?
You have great ideas for people-centred streets but anything that takes priority away from cars is met with trepidation at best and vocal opposition at worst.
You know that streets have a role to play in creating safe, inclusive, prosperous and resilient communities; but you’re stuck planning in a silo that prevents this beautiful potential from being realised.
You are busy reacting to community feedback with incremental fixes which prevents you from addressing the root of the problem.
You yearn to work more collaboratively with users and with other stakeholders, but lack the opportunity to do so.
You’re asked to deliver outputs, even though you can see intermediate steps to build momentum for unfamiliar solutions that put people at the heart of streets.
If so, it’s time to work smarter.
It’s time to find leverage.
Join Laura for a 90-minute virtual laboratory that gives you all you need to apply a systems approach to influence street regeneration.
During the session you will:
Learn what systems thinking is and how it applies to street design
Gain an introduction to different tools for making sense of systems and what each helps you learn about the system
Develop empathy with people who bring a cross-section of perspectives on street design
Apply system innovation to a project or challenge that motivates your work
Receive feedback and spark new ideas.
Virtual labs offer a small group setting in which to learn, exchange perspectives, develop empathy and practice the skills needed to regenerate streets.
About your facilitator
Laura is a transport planner, systems thinker, designer and facilitator. With experience across government, research, consulting and advocacy, Laura has worked in transport and sustainability from many angles, giving her a sense of both the opportunity as well as the challenges, of collaborating for systemic change.
Laura completed a PhD at Monash University that explored the impact of urban design and land use on public transport ridership allowing her to deepen her understanding of how the land use-transport system is part of a broader socio-economic system.
Laura is also a mother, advocate, inner suburbanite and a deeply curious human being. All of this shapes how she see the world. She believes the work of community regeneration asks that she bring all of herself to work; listen deeply and trust in the reciprocity of people and systems to nurture change.
This is your opportunity to influence people-centred streets.
After the session you will:
Understand what lies beneath the paradigm of car-centric streets
Feel comfortable applying systems tools to build consensus among stakeholders regarding the costs and benefits of shifting from car-centred to people-centred streets
Know how to motivate the action required to realise a shared vision
Be able to design interventions that offer lasting benefits by addressing root causes rather than symptom
Find new ways to work collaboratively which unlock the diversity of views with the potential to regenerate streets.
“I am part of the system I want to change. So are you. ”