Landscape Architecture Australia — February 2018

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Community consultation

played a big part in the

preparation of the Viengxay

Town Master Plan.

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A workshop being led by

Hansen Partnership’s Craig

Czarny in Vietnam.

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The character of Viengxay

was being threatened by

international development

• the masterplan sought to
  empower the local community
  in managing the growth.

which exceed our own, somewhat basic, appreciation of place

• such as learning of the many credible types of “informal
  housing” that may have otherwise been wrongly classified as
  “slums.” T his iterat ive excha nge is it self bot h rewa rding a nd
  influential in our daily operations in the region.

The evolving nature of this continuing knowledge exchange is
embodied by three Hansen Partnership projects in particular.
They demanded quite different planning and design
methodologies in sometimes rapidly changing physical
contexts.

In Nor t her n Laos, t he Vieng xay Tow n Ma ster Pla n (2007)
for the United Nations World Tourism Organization and
Netherlands Development Agency sought to introduce a grass
roots community-driven approach to land and environmental
management under the threat of burgeoning international
overdevelopment. As we were working with a place of national
natural and cultural heritage significance and a site of
unimaginable wartime trauma, our processes (in tandem with
Deakin University) and design suggestions required extreme
sensitivity.

In the Con Dao archipelago in Vietnam’s East Sea, we prepared
an innovative urban and landscape management program for
the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province and Vietnam National
Government. The Con Dao Tourism Master Plan (2014) was
prepared as a basis for protecting the island’s outstanding
natural (land and marine) assets in the face of tourism

overdevelopment. In collaboration with the Vietnamese

counterparts, we generated new methodologies for evaluating

and protecting “remoteness” where few safeguards exist in the

local regulatory regime.

More recently, work in partnership with Singapore University

of Technology and Design on the Surabaya Urban Corridor

Development Strategy (2014) for the City Government of

Surabaya in Indonesia and the World Bank introduced

concepts of strategic design and frameworking for urban

transit systems, at a time and place where detailed

architectural masterplans were the dominant force. Finding

this sweet spot in the development planning process has aided

the city immeasurably in coordinating infrastructure and

development investment in a rapidly shifting social and

economic context that demands a more durable strategy.

Our approach to projects in the Asia-Pacific region over the

past two decades has evolved significantly, along with the

changing nature of the place itself. I have long held that the

pract ice’s work in A sia demonst rates t he impor ta nce of sha red

Australian planning and design intelligence (if aptly executed).

Vitally, the work genuinely informs our own sensibilities and

approach to local projects. In this regard, our projects have

been more than just a transfer of expertise, but rather a worthy

and rewarding exchange of ideas.

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LANDSCAPE ISSUE 157 038 — 039

PRACTISING IN ASIA