ENVI Micro Urban Village
degenhartSHEDD architecture + urban design, Nicole Bennetts, Urbis, Civity
ENVI Micro Urban Village is a great example of innovative and practical planning which illustrates great promise in achieving the vision of planning excellence in Queensland. It is a worthy recipient of the 2021 Wendy Chadwick Encouragement Award.
By seeking to combine urban design and affordable housing, the project team for ENVI Micro Urban Village shows the planning community new ways of increasing density without compromising liveability, human scale and community. Applying the philosophy of “compact village living with a lighter footprint” has resulted in a diverse development that fits into its local community and offers residents the benefits of good design.
The project shows that small planning projects can bring significant improvements to local communities by showing new ways of achieving a common planning objective: in this case increasing housing density and diversity.
The courage of the team in taking the risk to create this project as a demonstration of what is possible is acknowledged. ENVI Micro Urban Village has the ability to inspire others try something new. The judges applaud the project team and the assessment managers for working together to take detailed planning in a new direction to provide an example that has the potential to be applied widely across Queensland.