Leederville Connect won the coveted Place Governance Award at the annual Placeleaders International Asia Pacific awards ceremony, held virtually on the 4th of November 2021.

Leederville Connect was awarded for their ‘Design Resources’. The Design Resources are the output of a two year process, designed and run by Leederville Connect’s design group.

In anticipation of major development arriving in Leederville, Leederville Connect wanted to get on the front foot and shape our future. The design group created a highly collaborative urban design process that made enriching the experience of living in Leederville the highest priority. While the traditional planning, urban design or architecture industries are fundamentally about facilitating site by site urban development the Design Resources project occurred ahead of any major development or requirements for consultation about a specific project.

Over the two years of the project, the Leederville Connect design group had more than 50 volunteers from developers, planners, architects, citizens, and universities involved.
“It’s great to get recognition through this award”, said Dr David Galloway chair of the design group, “but more importantly it demonstrates how citizens can take control of their own destiny even to the level of defining, in considerable detail, the shape and style of our cities. For too long the future of our cities has been dictated by developers, planners and bureaucrats. While these people can do good work, and their input was invaluable in our process, their role should be about efficient delivery rather than dictating thought leadership”.

Chair of Leederville Connect, Ms Anna Kelderman, who also had a major input to the process, said “this is a massive well-earned achievement for Leederville Connect. The City of Vincent is now using the Design Resources as a major input to their precinct structure plan and developers are using it to guide their developments. The Resources give a clear statement of what the community wants and provides demonstrable ways of how development can contribute to the community and the structure of Leederville,” said Ms Kelderman. “ Most of the other PlaceLeader International awards went to major developers or large local governments with big budgets and dedicated consultants”, said Ms Kelderman, “we were definitely one of the few awards that went to local community organisations with a limited budget and were still able to deliver an amazing outcome,” she said.

If you would like to know more about the Design Resources, this can be found here.

If you would like to be involved in the conversation of the future of Leederville, Amendments to the City of Vincent planning scheme to support the precinct plan are open for comments from the community till December 15, 2021.

If you would like to be involved on the Leederville Connect design team or other sub-committees, please contact us.