Location: Ipswitch QLD, Australia

Located southwest of Brisbane, the Ripley Valley is a new land release within the metropolitan development boundary.  The 100 square kilometer area will need to house over 150,000 new residents in the coming decades.  The project represents the largest new City Plan in Australia since Sweetwater, also designed by the firm in 2005.   Roberts Day hired the firm to prepare the strategy and structure plan during a 7 day charrette held in Ipswitch.

Understanding the regional forces informed the strategy for the initial conceptual structure planning.  While Ripley Valley represented a sizable new City, it was learned that the greater Ipswitch area included additional communities, one a large suburban master planned development called Springfield and a large amounts of property zoned for industrial park development.  In fact the future employment capacity of the immediate are totals over 100,000 and represents the largest concentration of ready to go business development land in Australia.

To serve as a catalyst for sustainable growth, the Ripley Valley structure plan was based on the principles and techniques Transect Neighborhood Design.  The Transect allowed all the elements contemplated by the previous work to date to find their logical and practical applications within the site.  As with any community design at this scale, the most important task of the planner is to allocate the many elements of community into arrangements that sustain growth in commerce and society, while balancing the need to protect and nurture the natural environment.  The various neighborhoods proposed were all “transit ready”.  The central CBD neighborhoods were designed around passenger rail stations.  

click here for development website