... because we humans can only work for a future we can imagine.

A TANK FARM BECOMES AN URBAN VILLAGE

FROM THIS: The Mobil tankfarm at Altona photographed by Andrew Shannon, environmental planner with the City of Hobsons Bay. This image was used by Snowden Craven Architects in developing their retrofit design shown at left.

TO THIS: The Altona tankfarm is transformed into an urban village of apartments, offices, public buildings, gardens and and open space, by architects David Craven and Philip Snowdon.

As we move towards a post-fossil fuel economy over the next 25-30 years, tank farms will no longer be required for their original purpose. These extraordinary structures are so quintessentially 'western Melbourne' however, that they can be expected to have great heritage value to local people -- and even perhaps, to the National Trust!

For this and other reasons, Imagine The Future Inc commissioned David Craven and Philip Snowdon, of Snowdon Craven Architects, Melbourne, to develop conceptual drawings showing how the Mobil tankfarm at Altona could be transformed into an urban village which is much more ecologically and socially sustainable than any existing buildings on the site.

In the imagined future represented by the Snowdon Craven drawings, the tanks have been decontaminated and retrofitted as homes and work spaces for several hundred people of all ages and from a diverse range of backgrounds, who actively participate in the governance of their community. The historic tanks that once were filled with oil or petroleum, now harvest rain and sunlight -- which means that the village is largely self-sufficient in both water and energy, as are most communities in this imagined future. And of course, all the grey water and organic material, including sewage, is recycled on site and used to maintain the public and private permaculture gardens. The archaic notion of 'waste' has almost been forgotten.

Many of the plants in the community's gardens are endemic species that are grown for their beauty, for food, for their medicinal properties, and to provide habitat for the native birds and animals which, for most of the twentieth century, were considered extinct around Altona. It is not unusual now to see small marsupials scampering around local neighbourhoods instead of cats and dogs. Many orchids and other plants have also been rescued from the brink of extinction, including the Small Golden Moths Orchid which now thrives in the re-created and restored grasslands that surround this urban village of the 21st century.


Left: The Snowdon Craven concept drawings of the Mobil tank farm, commissioned for 'Painting the future real' by Imagine The Future Inc, November 1996.

LEGEND:
1. Water catchment, solar panels, solar hotwater, header tank
2. Roof garden
3. Water storage tank/thermal mass
4. Residential apartments with attached green houses
5. Retail
6. Commercial/mixed use
7. Residential zone with North orientation
8. Retail, commercial/mixed use precinct with south orientation
9. Pedestrian street
10. Civic/municipal precinct



LEGEND:
1. Water catchment, solar panels, solar hotwater, header tank
2. Roof garden
3. Water storage tank/thermal mass
4. Residential apartments with attached green houses
5. Retail
6. Commercial/mixed use
7. Residential zone with North orientation
8. Retail, commercial/mixed use precinct with south orientation
9. Pedestrian street
10. Civic/municipal precinct

[Page history: created and first published on www.ecoversity.org.au as part of Painting the future real (1995-97), the prototype for Redreaming the plain (1998-2002); taken off-line in 1998 and re-posted in its original form in July 2004 as a web archive. For more information contact redreaming@rmit.edu.au.]

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