Codesigning a safer and more inclusive health precinct for everyone

Codesign ‘walkshop’ captures perceptions of safety

A foundation of the Safer Cities program is codesign, including ‘walking workshops' or 'walkshops’, with community and stakeholders. Our multidisciplinary team of security consultants, transport planners and lighting designers led a walkshop during daytime and night-time with the Precinct’s staff and community members to understand how we can design more inclusive and safe spaces. 

As we walked around different spaces in the Precinct, we asked participants a series of questions about how they felt in each space to understand their perceptions of safety. Each participant recorded their responses in a booklet we collected at the end of the walkshop.

Through this process, we identified six overarching challenges: wayfinding, ambiguous and uninviting spaces, lack of community access and poor pedestrian experience, vulnerability and inconsistent lighting. 

Our participants told us:

“The footpath is only wide enough for a single person to walk – it is uncomfortable to walk side by side or overtake.”

“Coming out and being involved in the process to highlight what I found scary was confronting, but it was also comforting to know there are solutions to help me feel safer at night.”

“The atmosphere could be made more fun by painting the walls colourful or putting fairy lights in the trees.”

Designing a creative lighting masterplan

Using the findings from the walkshop, together with RHIP. Arup created five principles to design a creative lighting masterplan for the precinct with actions:

1. Reduce vulnerability: ensure clear sightlines, reduce glare and install creative light installations.
2. Lighting for night-time wayfinding: accentuate the environment as it changes throughout the seasons and imbue wayfinding elements with cultural significance to create meaningful landmarks for the local community.
3. Increase quality of open spaces: illuminate vertical elements such as walls, emphasise the entrance and exit points and create a warm atmosphere by warm white accent lights such as fairy lights.
4. Clarity of public spaces: consistent colour temperature for furniture, low-level lighting, and lighting incorporated into landscaping elements.
5. Pedestrian experience: activating open spaces, low-level lighting, and paintings on the ground to help slow down the traffic.

The masterplan will inform a holistic, site-specific approach to improve placemaking, wayfinding, activation, and perceptions of safety for users of the precinct. Our work is helping RHIP shape their priorities for lighting artwork commissions, design briefs, laneway transformations and redevelopment.

^{1 Safer Cities Survey Report: Perceptions of safety in public places and transport hubs across NSW}