Deicke Richards Director Peter Richards and urban designer Cassie Boyle participated in this conference. They joined a number of national and international designers at the forum which focused on master planning the Northern Territory’s future city of Weddell. Located about 40km south-east of the Darwin city centre and 6000ha in size, Weddell is expected to house up to 50,000 people.
To progress planning for the city, the Northern Territory Government hosted the ‘Weddell: Tropical, Sustainable, Liveable – Towards 2030 Conference and Design Forum’ in late 2010. The conference included an invitation only enquiry by design process facilitated by Wendy Morris from Melbourne’s Ecologically Sustainable Development. The Weddell site has a number of constraints including flooding and biting insect impacts from the mangroves lining the Elizabeth River. Eight scenarios were developed and tested over the four days by a 60-strong team, which included specialist consultants and representatives from government, industry and the community.
The outcomes of the forum were presented to the community on the final afternoon and formed the beginning of the design process for Weddell.
