Transcript: Vibrant Streets: Good for Businesses and Their People (Regenerative Streets Podcast S1E3)

Transcript of conversation between host (Laura Aston) and guest (Claire Bowles)

First aired: 15 December 2025.

S1E3 - Vibrant Streets: Good for Businesses and Their People, Regenerative Streets Podcast © 2025 by Laura Aston is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: I think traditionally, and it's shifting, but traditionally businesses, have a transactional relationship with the streets that their offices or studios are on, and I wanted to see what would happen if that relationship, was changed into more of a relational, participatory role.

HOST [LAURA]: Getting outside our homes and enjoying the everyday encounters of the street is something we should all be able to enjoy. This podcast is for people who feel life has become rushed and who are curious about what might change if their own street felt more joyful, welcoming, and alive.

It's also for planners, designers, and decision makers who think about streets at work and are ready to explore how those ideas can shape real life. Starting at home. What if streets were a source of joy and wellbeing? Supporting natural systems while nurturing communities? In this podcast, we speak with people who are using streets in inspiring ways, connecting neighbours and places to regenerate human, community and environmental health, one small experiment at a time.

My name's Laura Aston, and I'm the host of the Regenerative Streets podcast. Today I am with Claire Bowles, director of Okana ANZ, who believes our streets and buildings can actively support health. Okana's recent report, "Health As Place's Competitive Advantage", explores how the design of the built environment helps people and communities thrive.

In this episode, we talk about Greening Cromwell Street, a project initiated by Claire and her team at i2C Architects, as an example of how each of us can help make the places where we work feel a little more alive. We are recording this in Cromwell Street in i2C Architects' studio, which is located on Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Country.

i2C is one of the founding partners of Okana, where Claire works now. Welcome Claire.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Hi Laura. Thanks for having me. Uh, delight to be here.

HOST [LAURA]: Claire, tell us a bit more about your business and the work that you do.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: So I am part of i2C Architects here, and I've been leading their purpose strategy for probably the last four years. And I'm a regenerative practitioner, which means that I see the world as, uh, a living system and everything is inherently in relationship and interconnected. My role here at i2C Architects has really been to bring that mindset into the organisation and into projects that we work on. And I am, as you mentioned, currently working for Okana. Who are our global built environment consultancy partner, and I'm bringing Okana's sustainability services and place shaping services into our local markets here.

HOST [LAURA]: That's very exciting work, and I love that you describe yourself as a regenerative practitioner. That's very inspiring. What then inspired you to bring the street your studio is based on here in Cromwell Street, to life? 

 GUEST [CLAIRE]:  I think streets are a really exciting and practical scale for regeneration. So when you start to think about how you can enable agency and people to participate in the places where they are, streets are small enough for the participants to have some lived experience and they're also a, a scale that's possible to trial things that have not been done before in ways that potentially have not been experienced before. So I think with our street, we had an opportunity to, to shift the traditional ways that businesses view streets and the places where their studios are. I think traditionally, and it's shifting, but traditionally businesses, have a transactional relationship with, the streets that their offices or studios are on, and I wanted to see what would happen if that relationship, was changed into more of a relational, participatory role.

HOST [LAURA]: What did you hope would be the benefits of bringing your street to life?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: I think there are probably twofold benefits. One is that I believe that healthy streets lead to healthy environments and healthy workplaces for our teams. So they enjoy coming to work every day. And there's also the secondary element, which is around us really practicing what we preach. So we work closely with clients to, to ensure that the places that they're designing have the ultimate outcome in terms of health and wellbeing within cities and precincts.

HOST [LAURA]: Well, it's great to see it played out in real life by you. There's certainly some inspiring examples in the report by Okana including another local one. The swimmable Birrarung example, many examples about hospitals and wellness precincts.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Just want to add something there. Whilst we normally talk about health in terms of health precincts and health service provision, I think what's really interesting, um, within the piece of work that we've done through Okana is really positioning streets as the powerful infrastructure for wellbeing. They're the everyday infrastructure for prevention , for social connection, for resilience and accessibility. And more and more I think the discussion of health is shifting from this sort of hospital, health infrastructure, to more of our everyday interactions and how we come together in our streets.

HOST [LAURA]: And that starts to take the conversation towards one of prevention, doesn't it?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Correct.

HOST [LAURA]: Let's get to the example here and what you actually did. So in this project, greening Cromwell Street, how did you go about it? Who was involved? What? What came out of it?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: So it came about as a result of conversations with wonderful people at street, the social enterprise and food systems transformation organization who are just down the other end of Cromwell Street.

HOST [LAURA]: We were chatting, both Beck and I, and we realised that there's so much inherent possibility within the street in terms of the businesses that are on the street, and what if we came together to, to dream into what could be possible and so that we could build the social connections between businesses, create some pockets of green along the street.

And who knows because when you bring other businesses together, there may be potential other business opportunities or other future collaborations that come out as a result. So we started small. In fact we collaborated with cultivating community for a small grant from the City of Yarra. It just gave us enough to bring together some of the stakeholders on the street.

We actually door-knocked, said what we were doing and would they like to get involved and then brought everyone together for a workshop to envisage you know, what the potential could be.

HOST [LAURA]:   Just drawing it back to what you said earlier about practicing what you preach, you are really talking there about not waiting for someone out there to bring together the fellow tenants, the people on your street. You're going and you're connecting. You've demonstrated that it just takes the initiative of even one person to go out and door knock, like, like you said. And from that, a little idea, or even a sort of disconnected, not really knowing the other people where you live or work can become a much more welcoming place to work, and an idea can come to fruition. But let's get into that. So you had grand plans.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Yep.

HOST [LAURA]: You got some grants. Others on the street were taken by the idea. What happened next?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: We had some some great workshop days where we all came together. So there were probably five key organisations really driving it. So a team of people and here from i2C, we, had put some voluntary hours aside for team to be able to participate. We did some great things. We cleared out all of the beds. We planted in native planting, which is looking great actually as I came in today.

We did some propagation workshops, for example, which just connected people with an understanding of how plants grow. Seems like a really basic thing, but actually it's a really beautiful lesson that people could then take home. Um, and in fact, there's been further propagation in our studios of the plants we have here as a result of that, which is really lovely.

So it was, it was a success, in the sense of bringing some greening to the street and connecting a few of the businesses in a way that still remains, that we have a strong relationship. I think where it fell down and where things often do fall down is in the governance. So really having a structure that supported the engagement to continue.

And I think it's important to have that lesson of what's required to maintain the energy of a project. And I think we are now looking at it and considering what, what would the governance mechanism need to be on a street to make it viable? Because what happened with us was we had key actors in individual organisations, and when those key actors left to go on to further career opportunities, the energy fizzled, right? Yeah.

HOST [LAURA]: Could another word for this governance that you're talking about be stewardship and even succession?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Absolutely. I think though effective stewardship needs to be grounded in some kind of governance structure.

HOST [LAURA]: Mm-hmm.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: I feel like it was that, um, almost that system that wasn't quite, established.

HOST [LAURA]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I'm remembering a conversation that I've had on a, on a previous podcast about verge planting. Which reminded me that it's actually about the process and you've talked about the winds that you had connecting with people, connecting them to plants and how plants grow and nothing can take away from that. And that is really, you know, that's really a victory. But now you are, you are looking to sustaining that, and how do you sustain the stewardship of the street, which also means sustain or maintain the greening efforts out there because they require ongoing care. And that's where governance has to come in. But I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate that, you know, even the the connection and the process sounds like it really did a lot for street.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: I think, yeah, I think when you work in regenerative practice, often what we're trying to do is shift the mindsets of people and the way they see the world and the way they interact with the world. And I think the only way you can do that is through lived experience and even small things like the lived experience of planting plants out on your own street can shift the way a person feels and the way they view their work and the way they view each other. It's those small things, those small bits of lived experience that can really have quite a big influence in their work in the world.

HOST [LAURA]: So the impact of Greening Cromwell Street is not only what Cromwell Street looks like now, which is to say it's got welcoming spaces for people to, I guess, slow down and feel comfortable and really appreciate the street. But every person who is involved in the project takes away that experience of connecting with nature and place and who know, you know, that can have untold ripple effects.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Yeah. The ripples and echoes can go so far that you wouldn't even know where they've gone. Fantastic.

HOST [LAURA]: We've sort of touched on, on the challenges of maintaining it. I'm just wondering where you think it might go from here. What's on the horizon?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: I think for me, something that I really wanted to get into through the Greening Cromwell project was the essence of this place. So actually, what's some of the story behind Cromwell Street? And to find a way that we could potentially co-create some art or something that was really powerful for the street, for its place identity, and sort of speak to the uniqueness of this place. So I think if we were to do a second stage or to further continue the story of Cromwell Street, I think. The best or an interesting pathway could be to co-create some art on the street, to sort of document some of the history and life that exists here.

HOST [LAURA]: That is a wonderful idea and I'd love to come back and chat if it goes ahead.

One of the other features that this greening Cromwell project. Looked at and tried to, to realise was the idea of dwell time, people spending more time in the street. Can you talk to us about that?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: I think when you have the capacity to create a healthier environment, people will, it's proven in multiple research studies, people will linger longer, so they'll take their time, they'll walk slowly to go and get their coffee. They might bump into someone they feel comfortable enough to stand. Or sit and, and have a, a rest or respite. We saw that on the streets. We actually saw that, you know, especially in the areas that are more green on the opposite side of the street, there's definitely people lingering around , but it's something that we see very much in our retail work. There's big drivers for creating environments where people want to dwell for longer, and ultimately it means that they will be spending more within their, sort of retail visits. And so there is the economic driver, as well for people to stay within a street, um, or a precinct.

HOST [LAURA]: I've not known that terminology for it, but I too think about how if we want people to enjoy the street, the street has to offer them something that competes with all the other things that are vying for our attention.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Absolutely.

HOST [LAURA]: And I think you've explained it really nicely there. They need to be places that people want to be.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Exactly. And that's why we're seeing a shift from, uh, retail as a, as a transactional activity to retail as an experience. Wonderful.

HOST [LAURA]: Now for the practitioners in our audience, who, with whom the idea of regenerative design resonates, where might they start if they want to create places that offer preventive health pathways?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: I think one of the worst things we've ever done is sort of homogenized place, and I think one of the best things you can do from a practitioner perspective is take the time to really understand what's unique about the place that you're working within. Because that time that you take to uncover some of the layers and patterns that have existed over time in that place can really help inform your strategy. Whether that's in urban design, design, whether it's, considering tourism and which economies are best suited there. I think, each place is unique. Either unique things have happened there over time, there's unique ecologies in place. And so I would always say do some really good place research upfront as a first step.

HOST [LAURA]: Maybe go and regenerate the street in question for starters.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Correct. Or at least definitely walk and talk and interact with the place that you are working on, if possible. Because often we're sat behind our desks and that just that sensing that we can do as human beings is something that we forget to do, or we're time constrained and so don't do, but there's value in actually visiting a place and asking people what it's like because that lived experience, really helps.

HOST [LAURA]: Wonderful. And for anyone listening who works on a street, which I'm sure many of us do, uh, what might be their first action to bring their street to life?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Maybe just have a walk, find out where the energy is on your street. So it could be that there's one particular cafe where people congregate or, um, an area on the street where they congregate and maybe start a conversation. Start to see what's alive in that place and, and what could be built on. Build some relationships.

HOST [LAURA]:  It's so practical and. Often if we're thinking in the space of design, we jump to technocratic solutions and it's just really great for you to ground us in that reality, the practical reality that it starts with a relationship and with a conversation. So thank you for that reminder, Claire.

Now if people want to learn more about healthy built environments or even the Project Cromwell Street that we've talked about today, where might they look?

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: So there are some bits of information on the i2C website and there's some links to our Healthy Cities report, which is on the Okana website.

But otherwise there are some great built environment resources for regenerative design specifically, and healthy built environments. The Living Future Institute, I always recommend highly, they have some great resources and great case studies. Also in terms of place, there's something called the Project for Public Spaces, in the U.S. and they have, some really great resources around participatory design and practical involvement in your own places and spaces.

HOST [LAURA]:  Well, Claire, thanks again for sharing that with us today. I'm excited now to go and have a walk downstairs through the street.

Thanks again.

 GUEST [CLAIRE]: Thank you so much for having me.

HOST [LAURA]: You've been listening to The Regenerative Streets Podcast, a show for people who want to move from lives of haste to a slower, more meaningful rhythm of local living, grounded in the people and places on their doorstep. Whether you are a resident, a practitioner, or both, these conversations are an invitation to bring the ideas home and try something small on your own street, just like the tiny experiments we heard about on Cromwell Street.

If this episode has sparked ideas for your own street or the one you work on and you're ready to take some tiny first steps, you can head to bringyourstreettolife.com to find simple ways to start where you are.

For regular stories, tips, and inspiration from people doing this in their own neighborhoods. You can also follow along on Instagram @StreetMakerLaura.

 I'm Laura Aston, your host, and this show is produced by me in connection with Better Streets and Regen Melbourne. You can find more information about both these projects in the show notes.

The music in this show is Carefree by Kevin McLeod, sourced from incompetech.com and licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0.

Thanks for listening.