Tonsley Urban Design Protocol wins Planning Excellence Award

Adelaide design firm Oxigen has been awarded a Planning Excellence Award for its work on the Tonsley Urban Design Protocol at the 2013 Australian Institute of Landscape Architecture Awards.

The biennial awards seek to advance excellence in the design of landscaped communities in South Australia. The judges recognised the Tonsley Urban Design Protocol for its ability to guide public and private development at the former Mitsubishi site.

The Urban Design Protocol is an overarching guide for built form and public realm which reflects Tonsley’s rich history while capturing its future vision.

Renewal SA Project Director for Tonsley, Vince Rigter, congratulated Oxigen on the award. “Through the Tonsley Urban Design Protocol, Oxigen has established an important framework which honours the site’s agricultural and industrial history and points to its future of innovation. This protocol provides a set of goals and underlying principles to guide decision making now and as the project evolves,” he said.

Tonsley is planned as an integrated development that reflects best practice design and a commitment to world-leading social, economic and environmental benchmarks.

Informed by the Australian Government’s national policy ‘Creating Places for People – An Urban Design Protocol for Australian Cities’, the Tonsley Urban Design Protocol follows the national model by articulating broad principles for urban design that factor in the project’s unique characteristics.

The Protocol guides the development of Tonsley’s public and private buildings, streetscapes and landscapes which include:

• A commitment to the use of low-carbon and climate-resilient systems and materials
• A high quality built environment which is efficient, vibrant and supportive of the precinct’s mixed use nature
• Open spaces incorporating walking and cycling paths that promote health and well-being through physical recreation and outdoor living
• Stormwater and recycled water use and energy-efficient buildings.