Once a ghost town, Melbourne dared to reschedule its future

Melbourne is not the most distinctive of Australia’s cities. It does not have Sydney’s sandy beaches or Brisbane’s rugged, “Crocodile Dundee” appeal. Lying on a flat plain, crossed by a meandering river, it is an urban agglomeration of some 10,000sqkm – six times the size of London and 12 times the size of New York City – consisting of a dense urban core surrounded by sprawling suburbs.

Yet Melbourne often tops international quality-of-life rankings. It has a rich street culture and a thriving arts scene; the central business district (CBD) is crowded at all times, as are the new public spaces created from the conversion of former brownfields, such as Federation Square and the South Wharf area along the Yarra River.

The story of Melbourne’s success can be traced to a municipal master plan and one of its main proponents, Rob Adams. Born in Zimbabwe, Adams studied architecture at the University of Cape Town, where he developed a singular concept that would turn him into a key player in the transformation of Melbourne.

During Adams’ time in Cape Town in the late 1960s, the university was preparing for a significant expansion of its student body and faculty. The typical approach would have been to extend the physical campus by creating new buildings or enlarging existing ones. But perhaps out of concern about protecting the university’s identity, or simply due to the topographical constraints of its location on the slopes of Table Mountain, the administration instead opted for an unprecedented solution: to expand across time rather than across space. By adding evening classes and adjusting the academic calendar, the university increased its capacity without becoming physically larger.

Having witnessed this process as a student, Adams was eager to bring the rescheduling ethos to the urban environment. When he arrived in Melbourne in 1983 to work in the municipal administration, the city was struggling. The CBD, in particular, had been reduced to a ghost town by economic uncertainty and mass emigration. To change the city’s trajectory, Adams recalled the principle of rescheduling he had learned at university. At the time, Melbourne’s CBD infrastructure was active only from Monday to Friday, from around 9am to 5pm. This limited period seemed natural – it was the norm for business districts around the world, owing to the modernist urban planning dogmas of strictly separated functional neighborhoods. But Adams wondered if this setup made the best use of the city’s resources.

Encouraged by Adams, following the property market crash of the late 1980s, Melbourne began converting empty office buildings into new residences and reimagined cultural spaces – rescheduling the stagnant district. Over the course of a few years, the face of the CBD began to change. Increasingly, it was occupied at every hour, every day of the week. The transformation gained international attention in 2002 with the establishment of Federation Square, a huge public event space built on the site of an old railway yard. This 24/7 cultural centre has been an overwhelming success.

Such efficient, frugal interventions can seem inconspicuous – not unlike Melbourne itself. But the lessons of this transformation are at the centre of current urban planning discourse. The twentieth century left us with inefficient peaks-and-troughs urban infrastructure that has disrupted life and harmed residents in ways large and small, from traffic jams to strained electricity grids and overwhelmed hospitals. We can no longer afford to waste resources, given our existential battle against climate change. Rescheduling our cities and increasing their densities and mixture of uses is one of the most powerful ways to make them more sustainable.

Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT, is co-founder of the international design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati.