What is Design Excellence for Casey?
As one of the fastest growing Local Government Areas in Australia, we are looking to build out future value on design excellence. We plan to become A Design City. Our city will be a place that is renowned for design excellence that enriches community life. A place where by design, our people and environment thrive.
Program Overview and Objective
The City of Casey has developed a reputation for high quality and design innovation in public buildings. As Casey continues to transform in physical form and density, the need to extend this high expectation of quality to projects within emerging precincts and established areas arises. In February 2021, City of Casey endorsed the idea of ‘Casey becoming a City of Design’ and the benefits of fostering a culture of design excellence in Casey to advocate for good designs in our community, which marks the starts of Casey Design Excellence Program (CDEP).
Benefits
Good design is essential in developing communities to help engender a sense of civic pride, improve quality of life and equal opportunity. To create great places for Casey, the City of Casey and the development sectors will need to elevate the role, importance and value of design, towards finding solutions to today’s pressing challenges that will benefit all our communities. Key benefits of CDEP include:
- Better design processes for projects.
- A stronger design culture within the organisation and active engagement with development sector and industry groups.
- Capacity Building - empowering staff and external partners to champion design and influence the creation of great places.
Components
Casey Design Excellence Program encompasses three key components:
Casey Design Excellence Guide
The Casey Design Excellence Guide sets our pledge in 10 commitments to achieving high quality design across all elements of the built environment. The commitments are based on the fundamental values of good design identified during the stakeholder workshops. Achieving design excellence occurs incrementally and the Design Excellence Guide should be used rigorously to inform, guide and make decisions on the planning, design and delivery of major Council and key partnership projects, master plans, strategic sites, and projects of public significance (infrastructure). The ultimate aim of the Guide is to improve the quality of buildings, public places and spaces for the benefit of the community.
Casey Design Excellence Panel
The Casey Design Excellence Panel is an initiative to formally implement the aspirations and directions of the Design Excellence Guide for major Council projects. Design review by the Panel would be an independent and impartial evaluation process in which multidisciplinary experts from across all aspects of the built environment assess the design of a proposal. The EOI process for Panel members commenced in early 2022 and the establishment of the Panel was completed in March 2022. The Panelists are selected for a term of 4 years. A number of Council key place making projects have been identified for Panel involvement.
Casey Design Excellence Awards
The inaugural Casey Design Excellence Awards was held at Bunjil Place in September 2022. The tri-annual Awards celebrate high quality designs in Casey and provide a platform to connect with like-minded organisations and agencies in recognising design excellence in the private sector and public developments across Casey. The next Casey Design Excellence Awards will be held in late 2025.
More information
For more information, contact Council's City Design team on 9705 5200 or caseycc@casey.vic.gov.au.