Blue is the new green
Why blue space is the driving force behind Sydney’s sense of place
The benefits of green space are now well versed; it has become an established phrase in the placemaker’s vocabulary. Perhaps accelerated by the lockdowns of the pandemic, ‘green space’ is today considered to be part of the golden circle of home-buyers’ needs: it is good for mental and physical health, it is good for community, and it is good for property values.
But what of ‘blue space’?
As a city blessed with both ample parkland and an abundance of water, Sydney is well placed to cash in on the rising popularity of ‘blue proximity’. And indeed, this popularity really is rising. While availability of green space is becoming a hygiene factor for new residential and commercial places, proximity to water – rivers, lakes, seas and reservoirs – is still a much sought-after rarity. In fact, Knight Frank’s Prime Waterfront Index estimates that in the UK, buyers are prepared to pay up to 80% more for a waterfront location.
Yet in Sydney, the value of blue space transcends just the monetary factors. In this Emerald City of dreams, water plays a critical role in Sydney’s wellbeing, identity, heritage, and interactivity. Here’s how:
Blue wellbeing
Recent studies into wellbeing have increasingly focused on blue space as a cornerstone in good mental and physical health. In particular, this has centred around access to coastline.
The BlueHealth project at the University of Exeter explains this through three lenses: firstly, that proximity to the coast often means access to more sky, sunlight and vitamin D; secondly, that people who live closer to the coast also tend to be more physically active; and finally – and most importantly – that there is rhythm in the lapping of the sea that has a naturally restorative effect on the human mind. As the study finds, people who spend time at the water’s edge, are more likely to be able to gain perspective and let go of their stresses.
Sydney is a city that boasts 150 miles of shoreline, with plans currently underway to connect a third of this into one continuous waterfront walkway. Already, the paths from Barangaroo to the Botanic Gardens are populated with runners and cyclists daily, the iconic Bondi and Manly beaches attract visitors year-round, and waterside therapy sessions are springing up throughout the city.
Evidently, Sydney’s health is intrinsically linked with its coastline.
Blue identity
Any city or place around the world is defined, in part, by its natural geography. Mountainous terrain, chalky soil, limestone cliff-faces, ancient forestry – all have an implicit impact on the way that spaces are used and thought about.
This is particularly true in the case of water. The river Thames, for example, slices London in half and creates a powerful dynamic of North versus South. In Singapore, meanwhile, the city’s network of bays, waterways, beaches and riversides gives it a distinct identity of island-city-on-the-water.
The same is true of Sydney. As a harbour-side city with beach-culture at its core, water does not only give Sydney a striking visual identity, but also a distinctive behavioural identity: people spend time by the water here – eating, drinking, playing, and exercising.
In Sydney, the water shapes the way people use their city.
Blue heritage
Specific to Australia is the complex and challenging relationship between place development and place history. There is a reality here that this land was once taken from indigenous communities – and used in ways that run counter to the Aboriginal honouring of ‘Country’.
While placemakers today are working conscientiously to incorporate indigenous values into urban spaces, respect for land can often be difficult to square against the city’s continuing urbanisation.
For this reason, the ocean is of particular cultural significance in Sydney. It is a middle ground, where different cultures can come together in their mutual respect and enjoyment of the water. While land usage remains disputed, most can agree on the conservation and spirituality of the sea.
Blue interactivity
If the harbour-side reigns supreme in Sydney’s sense of place, the influence of water does not stop there: it continues to run throughout the city and its neighbourhoods.
In fact, water features, water play areas, and water installations can be found in almost every park and playground in the city ¬– and they make for truly interactive and playful places. Even in mid-winter, children cannot resist a run-through fountain; adults will peacefully enjoy the trickle and roar of tumbling water; people of all ages will roll their sleeves up and plunge into tactile water games.
Perhaps it is Sydney’s proximity to the sea, that inspires this cultural closeness to water in-land.
But perhaps it is something even more innate than that: a natural human connection to the ebbs, flows, flexibility and tactility of blue space. Indeed, around these smaller water features and installations, locals may not be benefitting from the broad skies and active lifestyles of the oceanside, but they are still privy to the restorative repetition of lapping and falling water.
If Sydney is to teach us one thing, it is that no matter how big, small, natural or artificial: blue space can make places.
