A great afternoon with the University of Melbourne Planning Student’s Association out in the rainy streets of the CBD on Friday.
The objective?
– To facilitate exchange between recently enrolled students, those in second semester and final year of study.
– To learn about the CBD as a place influenced by people from different cultures, walks of life and sustainable policy and planning directions
35 students met at Mid-City, once a Hoyts cinema, now a shopping arcade. There was a fabulous diversity of backgrounds: people from New South Wales, Mauritius, north west and north east China, Vietnam, Melbourne north and south of the river, people who had heard Rob Adams speak three times or more, people who didn’t know where Little Collins Street was, people who loved Brutalism and people who’d been learning about green infrastructure.
The most surprising stop for most students? … a laneway off little Bourke Street with tip top waste management. The most fascinating? … the ‘Perfect Tree’ in Russell Street.
‘You opened our eyes,’ said a number of students, with one adding, ‘you got us thinking about things that we’d usually only glance at.’
Photo credit, Perfect Tree: Alexander Sheko