Extreme Heat and Urban Design: How can urban design policy play a greater role in mitigating heat-health risks?
Ryan McNeilly Smith - University of the Sunshine Coast
With growing awareness of the impacts of heat and heatwaves, Ryan McNeilly Smith investigated how urban design policy can play a greater role in mitigating heathealth risks. Noting the limited policy response to this growing issue, McNeilly Smith argues that with the current climate emergency, planning and urban design’s role cannot be limited to discretionary guidelines – rather, it must include statutory policy.
Involving a mixed method approach including policy review and engagement with built environment professionals, McNeilly Smith’s work highlighted the relevance of heat and heatwaves to planning in Queensland in the context of how other natural hazards are managed, and examined the contribution that planning and urban design (through statutory policy) can play in mitigating this issue. The work identified challenges with practitioner’s knowledge of this issue, and advocates for greater professional development opportunities in heatmitigation urban design strategies.
The judges found McNeilly Smith’s Extreme Heat and Urban Design: How can urban design policy plan a greater role in mitigating heat-health risks? to be an outstanding tertiary student project, noting particularly its relevance and application to contemporary planning practice and built environment outcomes.