Tonight was the second Sustain/Create held at the St Pauls Gallery, AUT. Three speakers, Michael Trudgeon of VEIL, Colin Meurk of Landcare Research and Xavier Meade of Wintech spoke on how we might create and nurture the relationships to ecology within urban development. Each presenter offered their thoughts on the biggest challenges we face in implementing change, as well as what some of the opportunities are. All three had powerful and important perspectives, and Colin’s insights into biodiversity and life ‘post’-earthquake in Christchurch were particularly valuable. Michael Trudgeon of VEIL also offered a pretty exciting perspective on the role of design in particular, talking about the potential for designers to reimagine how we can reuse spaces in better ways, and then use our skills in visualisation and story telling to then share those visions as part of creating space and momentum for change. Michael suggested that, rather than waiting for change from government level, the movement for change towards more sustainable ways of building and living in cities and urban spaces (such as converting our garages into cafes) might need to become like PUNK: a DIY phenomenon that went global.
I’ve storified snippets of the evening
n.b Blog Post Updated 24 May with a working storify link!
