Landscape Architecture Australia
Penrith Green Grid
Tract
Aboriginal Nation
Darug
Location
City of Penrith, New South Wales
Client
Penrith City Council
Jury comment
Penrith is Greater Sydney’s hottest urban area. On a day in January 2020, it was the hottest place on the planet, with a temperature of 48.9 degrees Celsius. It acutely suffers the effects of global warming and is in dire need of actions to ameliorate the impacts.
The Penrith Green Grid Strategy provides the spatial, economic and social scaffolding to plan and build a “greener,” cooler and more equitable city. This scaffolding is underpinned by a detailed understanding of the local “green grid” to identify missing connections, a pragmatic program of projects to catalyze change, and a commitment to canvassing the community to “map the strategy into reality.”
The principles established by the Sydney Green Grid have been influential in this work; Tract has refined and amplified the concepts, creating an exemplar for other cities.