Robert John Adams is an Australian

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes based on geographical location. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, city, ...

er based in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. He worked at the

City of Melbourne The City of Melbourne is a Local government in Australia, local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the Melbourne central business district, central city area of Melbourne. In 2021, the city has an area of and had a populati ...

, Australia for 40 years, 24 of those as Director of City Design and Projects. He won multiple awards as the leader of the revitalisation of the

Melbourne central business district The Melbourne central business district (colloquially known as "the City" or "the CBD", and gazetted simply as Melbourne) is the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As of the 2021 census, the CBD had a population of 54,941, and is ...

and surrounds, helping to create a vibrant city streetscape with innovative design features.

Early life and education

Adams grew up in

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in Southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as South ...

(now

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

) and gained a B.Arch at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

(1966-1971), South Africa. He later did a Masters in Urban Design from

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (OBU; formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Th ...

in England (1974-1977).

Career

He helped establish an urban design course in Zimbabwe in 1978-80, before moving to Australia. From 1983 he worked at the City of Melbourne, going part time from 2020. He is a regular lecturer at

RMIT The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (abbreviated as RMIT University) is a public research university located in the city of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia., section 4(b) Established in 1887 by Francis Ormond, it is the seventh-o ...

and at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

, where he has been a Professorial Fellow since 2004. He runs his own consultancy, Adams Urban.

Urban design in Melbourne

In 1985 the city centre of Melbourne was in need of revitalisation, with retail trading and cultural activities lagging behind its counterparts elsewhere in Australia and in Europe. Adams helped to write, and to put in place, the first comprehensive urban design strategy for the City, based on the idea of creating a vibrant and well-populated streetscape profiting from the city's multi-mode transport system. He guided the strategy's implementation in several projects, which took place as the city recovered from economic recession in the late 1980s and was prepared to invest in the built environment. These included

Postcode 3000 Postcode 3000 was a planning policy for Melbourne, Australia coordinated by the City of Melbourne and supported by the state government, under newly-elected Premier Jeff Kennett. The policy, which began in 1992 and ran throughout the 1990s, was a ...

(bringing redundant buildings into use, particularly for apartments in the city centre), the redevelopment of

Swanston Street Swanston Street is a major thoroughfare in the Melbourne central business district, Victoria, Australia. It was laid out in 1837 as part of the original Hoddle Grid. The street vertically bisects Melbourne's city centre and is famous as the wor ...

as a pedestrian-friendly street, the QV development, the creation of a new riverfront park called

Birrarung Marr Birrarung Marr is an inner-city park between the central business district in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and the Yarra River. It was opened in 2002. The name refers to the bank of Birrarung, the 'river of mists', in the Woiwurrung languag ...

from under-used rail sidings, the Queensbridge Precinct, the Turning Basin, and the CH2 building which was the first purpose-built office building in Australia to achieve a maximum Six Green Star rating and which has passive heating and cooling, power generation and blackwater treatment. He has also overseen the installation of kilometres of detailed bluestone paving across the city, opened up laneways for retail use, redesigned the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower st ...

frontage with walkways and new pedestrian bridges, installed street furniture and art, new lighting, signage and extensive tree planting. Adams' urban revitalisation work in the urban core has assisted Melbourne to become one of the world's most liveable cities. Comprehensive urban design programs over two decades has seen a reversal in the way the city, and particularly its centre, is perceived. By the mid-1990s Melbourne was ranked highly in indices of desirable cities - as of 2010 Melbourne took second place in the 2010 Economist's World's Most Liveable Cities Index and rose to first in 2011, and second again in 2020. Adams has also promoted the arts and culture of Melbourne through projects such as Blue Line, Travellers, and Birrarung Wilam. He has expanded the City’s cultural program through venues such as ArtPlay (a venue for children's art and teaching activities), MeatMarket, ArtHouse and the Town Hall Gallery. In the latter years of his tenure at the City of Melbourne he turned to accommodating over a million extra people within the existing metropolitan boundary. He advocated medium density, 5+storey development for housing and commercial uses along the major tram and bus corridors leading out of the centre, but only in locations with rear access to properties. Accommodating these numbers in new residential developments and existing suburbs would avoid further

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted ...

. Significant greening and reorientation of roadscapes would accompany these measures, which were outlined in the 'Transforming Cities' report of 2010. In 2020 he also argued the pandemic would leave central city office space also available for conversion for housing.

Awards

*The City Design Division at the City of Melbourne led by Adams has received over 150 state and national awards for design excellence since the 1980s *RAIA Walter Burley Griffin Award, Urban Design of Melbourne City, Urban Design Branch,

, 1992 *

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...

(AM) in 2007 for services to urban design, town planning and architecture. *Melbourne Achiever Award,

Committee for Melbourne The Committee for Melbourne is an apolitical, non-profit, member-based organisation based in Melbourne, Australia, that works to benefit the city's long-term future. History The committee was founded in 1985 by Pamela M. Warrender, daughter of S ...

, 2007 *Prime Minister's Environmentalist of the Year, 2008 (Australia) *Sidney Luker Medal, Planning Institute of Australia NSW, 2009 * Australia Award for Urban Design for ''Transforming Cities'' report, 2009 *Honorary Doctorate, University of Melbourne, 2016 *Australian Institute of Architect’s National President’s Award, 2018

References

External links

Video: featuring Adams and his designs
by

Streetfilms OpenPlans is a non-profit that advocates for making the streets of New York City livable for all residents. Open Plans uses tactical urbanism, grassroots advocacy, policy and targeted journalism to promote structural reforms within city governmen ...

Video: Thriving or surviving: Urban challenges for this century. Melbourne Conversations event, September 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Rob Zimbabwean people of British descent White Rhodesian people Zimbabwean emigrants to Australia Members of the Order of Australia Living people Urban designers Victoria (state) architects Architects from Melbourne 1948 births