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Andy Fergus

@andy_fergus

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Last Friday, we announced the winners of our Ideas Competition, Sub-topia: a clustered vision for living at the urban fringe, at the RMIT Media Portal. ⁠
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A BIG thank you to our values-aligned event sponsors, Ample, Verve, Oculus, and Fieldwork, for your inspired competition support. ⁠
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Congratulations to the winners for your excellent proposals! ⁠
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Emerging Category ⁠
WINNER: ‘A Seed for Housing’ Audrey Avianto, Caleb Lee, Flynn Eady- Jennings and Tom Hastie.⁠
RUNNER UP: ‘ Common Interest’ Oliver Harris, Quinlin Meaden, Arlo Sutcliffe and Will Walker.⁠
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Student Category⁠
JOINT WINNER: ‘Blackwood Fields’ Tyson Murray, Joshua Monks, Lik Teck Lee and Benjamin Roe. ⁠
JOINT WINNER: ‘Murnong Yaluk’ Ella Grant, Eva Shen, Bridget Casey and Afrouza Sabiela. ⁠
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You can explore the winners and shortlisted entries online via the link in bio ^⁠
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Thank you to the 116 participants who entered the competition as part of a multidisciplinary team - we applaud your big ideas and commitment to practice. ⁠
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We'd also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of our incredible jury: Megan Glass (Today), Leah Wittingslow (Mesh – A Veris Company), Dan Brady (Development Victoria), Gavin Ashley (Hip V Hype) and Simone Bliss (SBLA).⁠
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Our gratitude also goes to Izzie White for hosting our competition podcast and contributing some words of inspiration at the awards ceremony. ⁠
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Sub-topia is an initiative of Urban Design Forum Australia and Robin Boyd Foundation, in partnership with AILA, VicHealth, CASBE, MAV, and National Growth Area Alliance.⁠
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Thank you, @phamstapham, for capturing the celebrations.⁠
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Slide 2 and 6: ‘A Seed for Housing’ Audrey Avianto, Caleb Lee, Flynn Eady- Jennings and Tom Hastie.⁠
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@urbandesignforum_au⁠
@robin.boyd.foundation⁠
@fieldwork_architects⁠
@vichealth⁠
@aila.victoria⁠
@oculusstudios⁠
@municipalassociationofvictoria⁠
@fieldwork_architects⁠
@oculusstudios⁠
@todaydes⁠
@meshplanning⁠
@hipvhype⁠
@sblastudio⁠
@developmentvic⁠ by @andy_fergus

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2 months ago

by @andy_fergus

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4 months ago

How do we deliver density with amenity not years later but alongside growth 🌿🏙️

As Melbourne continues to intensify around activity centres and transit corridors, the conversation around public realm, liveability and community infrastructure has never been more important.

Join us for “Density Without Amenity? Public realm delivery in the context of the Activity Centres Program” a facilitated discussion exploring the challenges, opportunities and delivery mechanisms needed to ensure our growing neighbourhoods remain liveable, connected and people focused.

📍 GLAS Landscape Architects, Brunswick
🕖 6:00 to 8:00 pm
📅 Monday, 1 June 2026

Featuring panelists
• Andy Fergus, Sole Practitioner
• Jasmine Ong, GLAS Landscape Architects
• Joanna Bush, Brimbank City Council

Moderator: Matthew Tibballs, NH Architecture

What tools, tactics and planning mechanisms can help deliver better public realm outcomes sooner rather than later? And what can Melbourne learn from elsewhere in Australia and abroad 💬

Looking forward to an engaging discussion with practitioners across strategy, design and delivery.
Follow the link in our bio for tickets 🔗

Image: MADA West Courtyard for Monash University, by GLAS Landscape Architects.

@andy_fergus
@glaslandscape
@brimbankcouncil
@nharchitecture by @andy_fergus

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4 months ago

🌟 Mentor Forum is back! 🌟

Urban Design Forum is excited to announce that Mentor Forum returns this June and will run until August.

This year we are kicking off the program with a gathering for all mentors and mentees on Wednesday 10th June.

Similar to last year, sessions are tailored to participants at similar stages in their careers.

🤝 Meet our 2026 mentors:

Andy Fergus
Audrey Lopez
Benjamin Driver
Brogan Bradfield
Dan Brady
Danielle Cull
Erica Orfanos
Fae Ballingall
Kate Cavanough
Larry Parsons
Leanne Hodyl
Orlando Harrison
Tim Parker

✨ Categories for mentoring:

- Urban Curious (0 years – students and those exploring urban design)
- Emerging Practitioners (1–5 years)
- Established Practitioners (5+ years)

🗓️ Kick-off event Wednesday 10th June. 3 x session between 11th June - 8th August 2026

Mentor Forum is open to all UDF members and is one of our most popular events — spots fill fast and are first come, first served!

Make sure your membership is up to date and head to the link in our bio to read the program outline and book your place now.

Let the learning (and connection) begin! 💬👥

Follow the link in our bio to register 🔗

@andy_fergus
@audrey.leonore
@hodyl_
@hodyl_
@urbanfold
@urbis_au
@cityofmelbourne
@brogan_bradfield by @andy_fergus

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5 months ago

Northern Beaches - day 2 - southern half from Collaroy to Queenscliff. Now up to 64 nsw ocean pools 😍

An incredible density of ocean pools to match the increased population density of this section of coast. Even on a drizzly morning they were in incredibly high use.

Over a short 8kms stretch there are 6 pools in quick succession, with a higher concentration of lane marking and decent circa 50m length compared to other sections of coast. So much more lap swimming focused than bathing.

The approach to and experience of North Curl was a highlight, a stunning worn sandstone and boardwalk path down to an unusual headland pool with a central rock feature, with incredible sea life. Given its remoteness there is very little ability for Council access or maintenance so it is much more reliant on the tidal / wave flush. by @andy_fergus

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8 months ago

The ocean pool adventure continues - after an inactive year. Northern section of the Northern Beaches

Features - seeing cleaning and pumping and chatting to council maintenance crew, chats with charming elderly polish women about why clinging to nation state borders is a disaster in multi-ethnic regions, lots of chats to confused people why a melburnian is in their local pool, and a close up Osprey fishing experience!

Of course shout outs again to @nlarkin_design for inspiring the mission to visit marginal pieces of coastal edge civic infrastructure that are so crucial to their communities and our post contact cultural heritage!

All the more timely given the @mala_studio and @brunsdon.studio Portsea concept! by @andy_fergus

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8 months ago

Join Urban Design Forum Australia for a guided walking tour with City of Merri-bek and GLAS Urban 🚶‍♂️🏙️

Starting at Jewell Station (Wilson Ave), this walk explores how Brunswick along the Upfield Rail corridor has transformed since 2010 — from a light industrial area behind the Sydney Road spine into a rare example of high density, mid rise urban development in Melbourne.

Clusters of development at Wilson Avenue (Jewell Station) and Breese and Ovens Streets (Anstey Station), along with opportunistic new infill public space projects by the City of Merri-bek, have turned the area into a petri dish of experimentation — revealing both positive lessons and cautionary tales for the future impacts of the Activity Centre upzoning program.

Led by local resident and UDF Committee Member Andy Fergus, with Merri-bek Urban Designer Thea Roberts, two groups will spend 90 minutes walking from Jewell Station to Anstey Station, visiting recent private and public projects before finishing with a drink in Bulleke-Bek Park 🍻🌿

And yes, there will likely be impromptu chalk drawings explaining floor plans on the pavement ✏️🙂

📍 Meet up location: Jewell Station
🗓️ 18th February, Wednesday
⏰ 6:15–7:45 pm (arrive 5–10 minutes early)

🎟️ Open to members and friends (non members welcome). 50 person maximum — get in quickly!

Click on the link in our bio to grab your tickets 🔗 by @andy_fergus

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8 months ago

Cityplot Buiksloterham - urban concept by @studioninedots w @delva.la

After seeing this on the drawing board for many years it was incredible to visit the completed complex networks of courtyards, pedestrian lanes and streets of the Buiksloterham iteration of Cityplot.

Using subdivision within a 100x100 grid structure to generate urban complexity within a city block, a simple U shape loop road provides service access and drop off while all private cars are stored in a parking hub located on the perimeter roadway. In a few hours wandering around with @sundermann and @willpriestleyaus I saw about 3 cars within the block, mostly for families packing for summer camping trips!

All people arriving by car distribute from the hub on foot through the network of pedestrian streets and courtyards to their front door, creating an intimacy and interiority within an increasingly busy precinct of Amsterdam.

From theory to neighbourhood - it’s pretty clear that if you actually try, you can create a new piece of city with the complexity of the old city, simulating difference in typology, scale and housing tenure, along with super effective architectural diversity. This extended to intentionally seeding a few self build row house plots within the courtyards to create some further authentic, resident led variety.

A bit more mixity in use would help elevate the precinct even further, avoiding the risk of a dormitory, although it’s important to note that some businesses are carefully positioned at the canal edge and busy road, intentionally keeping a quieter domestic environment internally - which is pretty effective.

Get cars out of individual buildings!! It’s such a neighbourhood killer! Precinct mobility is so critical to trip reduction and claiming back neighbourhood streets for public life 💙 by @andy_fergus

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9 months ago

Byhusene, Islands Brygge Copenhagen.

One of my favourite streets of 2025 travels - a bit late to the party given it was finished in 2016 - designed by Vandkunsten.

This is an essay in child friendly neighbourhood design and how to achieve low rise high density close to the city with exceptional private AND public amenity. The carpet of homes riffs off the traditional Potato Row housing of old Copenhagen (Kartoffelrækkerne) with the addition of a car free promenade to a small, child friendly beach on a shallow spur from the main harbour canal and a more urban north south spine that links bikes through the various projects that make up the neighbourhood.

The degree of agency and freedom of movement of children is partly cultural but there is no car street of more than 20kms per hour inside the living zone, with only a peripheral street to the east buffered quite intentionally by slab apartments - so the risk is super low.

Tight streets with delicate interfaces ensure intimacy while providing privacy to occupants, who also have private fenced yards to the rear.

Streets are full of toys, chalk drawings and balls, cars are banished to the edges with parking ‘tubes’ slipped under each of the 3 level townhouse rows within the block.

47 dwellings per hectare including internal streets and open space but not perimeter. 1.3ha area.

Some photos mine, others @vandkunsten by @andy_fergus

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9 months ago

Back teaching @msdsocial for the first time in a while has been a delight so far! Hybrid Archi and UD - focused on the practice of making a new piece of city - with emphasis on the use of tactics from a fine scale to inform precinct scale moves.

Define the experiential ambition of key spaces, sample successful precedent liberally, then make the plan fit - none of this top down rubbish.

This workshop riffed off @studioninedots Cityplot - 100x100 urban blocks which are intentionally too big for pure perimeter and require greater sophistication and spatial layering as a result. From individual blocks the students then bring together two, then all four and adjust the strategy as their thinking scales up and each block comes into tension. 1:400 proved a perfect scale with a precut catalogue of mixed use / housing typologies.

It shouldn’t be a surprise but more was learned from the tactility of this exercise than weeks of drawing ✌️ models for thinking not display!

Fun! by @andy_fergus

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a year ago

The degree of damage caused to Tbilisi’s built fabric after independence in just a short period of time was extraordinary. Independence was followed by a decade marred by civil war, conflict with separatist regions and the dual effects of economic isolation and poor planning / building regulation.

In this context - government efforts to repair districts of high significance in Tbilisi are fascinating, with a series of areas chosen for disproportionate effort for improvement to both the private and the public realm. From Sololaki to Chugureti / New Tiflis, a series of areas were identified where public money is provided to either upgrade or detonate and replace buildings, and facilitate new ventures which would make economic use of these structures. Existing owners are provided with rent during the period of works and opportunities for economic development on completion.

It is hard to ascertain as an outsider how ‘fair’ these processes are - are they state sponsored gentrification? What happens to renters? Are the new hotel owners in any way connected to who once lived here? These questions are complicated in an environment where the buildings are objectively unsafe and risk the life of their occupants.

What is extraordinary is the complexity of this urban operation - bringing both private and public repairs together in a coordinated way that in my home city would be impossible. This could be the highest bar in urban design to repair a district while retaining its occupants in Situ! All of this in a fiercely individualist cultural context that couldn’t be further from the strong state context such as Denmark.

The jewel in the crown for me was Gudiashvilli Square (last images) in Sololaki which turns a prospective shopping mall proposal into one of the best new public spaces in the city - a successful shared zone and new buildings lining and activating its edges.

Take one step behind though - and is it all just a Potemkin Village mirage? Locals described it to me as being about face and the touristic image alone. The first image just steps away from one district shows the extraordinary contrast of the repair and the decay. by @andy_fergus

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a year ago

A surprising highlight tagging along on @sundermann ‘s research tour of Nordhaven was this exquisite little part of the Den Røde or ‘red district’ in Aarhusgade.

As part of the masterplan this district of adaptive reuse was complemented with an exquisite collection of intimate lanes and urban spaces with little green ‘rills’ at the building line and bridge thresholds. A palette was prescribed for all of the buildings to work from the base brick and render tones of the warehouse - without being a pastiche.

New infill buildings complete the pattern as a transitional scale of 2-5 while much taller form is located at the edges and barely visible from within. The @entasisarkitekter Kanonhuset office is a highlight among these infill elements.

This is such an incredible example of how small and intimate can and should co-exist with larger grain higher form. It brings use diversity, continuity and memory into a new type of urban space.

There were things I didn’t love about the shapeless hardscape moments of public realm in Nordhaven but this little sub district is completely rad. Obsessed by @andy_fergus

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a year ago