About this pattern
Accessible Water is a pattern that promotes the integration of water for play, drinking and cooling into the public domain, to enhance space cooling effects through evapotranspiration and personal cooling through contact with water. In low humidity, peak ambient temperatures can be reduced by three to eight degrees Celsius (Guide to Urban Cooling Strategies).
It might be in the form of splash pools or small rills and misting. It is an important infrastructure of care, enabling people to move comfortably out and about on hot days or nights and a way to enhance the quality of outdoor play spaces, particularly during summer. It requires thought about how people move through the city and where and when they seek to gather, as well as the nature of the space where the water is made available, so as not to create any harm to people. For example, water play spaces should meet the NSW Everyone Can Play guideline.
Accessible Water is an addition to swimming pools and Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) features that are important for retaining water in the environment. Measure of success for these public spaces include maintaining full accessibility and operational up-time, and also maximising attendance.
In addition to WSUD features, making the most of access to existing natural assets is another important means by which neighbourhoods can benefit from coolth. In particular, still water bodies such as lakes, ponds and pools provide opportunities for people to relax and cool down by padding or swimming. Ideally public water bodies will be most easily accessible from the shallow end.*
Still water provides opportunities for the community to relax around the water edge, for instance, stairs can provide seating for water places that have a slope. Seating also allows for natural surveillance, which aids safety.
Pattern Conditions
Enablers:
- Strong community support for accessible water across different delivery modes.
- Cooling and liveability city plans (e.g. Penrith City Council, 2015; Parramatta Ways Walking Strategy, 2017) and academic research (Mellick Lopes et al 2016; Mellick Lopes et al 2019) signal accessible water as a key consideration to enhance community cooling, participation in the commons, and urban walkability.
- Availability of a natural water area such as a lake, pond or river that can be retrofitted for public use.
- Artificial features such as ponds can be adapted for access if they have shallow access points and slip resistant surfaces. Pond surrounds can often be easily adapted for safe use.
Constraints:
- Drought conditions may limit water for play.
Usability and toxicity of still water needs to be assessed and meet safety guidelines. - Material and finishes selection must consider slip and trip hazards.
- Risks of ultraviolet radiation and sunburns if shade is not available will need to be actively managed by those responsible for the common.
- Opening hours of most parks and water play areas currently limit evening use.
- The community may have varying degrees of comfort with delineating human, animal or shared use of the common.
- Still water quality must be suitable for public access. Some water bodies become more polluted following rain. This should be signposted to ensure safe access and use.
Commoning Concerns
Accessible water is a key infrastructure of care to support commoning.
Access: Designing for equitable access is an important consideration and should apply Universal Design Principles wherever possible. Decisions will need to be made around the shared access with animals.
Use: When the common is typically enabled by the land or asset owner for improved amenity, its use would not need to be negotiated by the community. In some instances, in the case of still water reserves for instance, swimming, paddling, resting and socialising with friends and family might be negotiated with communities involved.
Benefit: All residents, visitors, birds and animals benefit. Space can be provided for wildlife; a place for the community to paddle, swim and cool down.
Care: Shared between asset owner (i.e. maintenance, repair) and commoning community (monitoring and some day to day care and maintenance related to still water resources). Local Bushcare groups can play a vital role in some bushland water bodies.
Responsibility: While the asset owner would have a legal responsibility, the commoning community would be required accept the risks associated with the use of the potentially dangerous common.
Ownership: Local government; National Parks and Wildlife Service. The systems which ensure the safe operation of the infrastructure, along with the asset itself is typically owned by a local council.
A commoning concern will be tolerance for shared use, human and animal.
References
Clarke, J. (2010). Living Waterscapes: The practice of water in everyday life, Performance Research, 15(4): 115-122
Coutts, A., Tapper, N., Beringer, J., Loughnan, M., Demuzere, M. (2012). Watering our cities: The capacity for Water Sensitive Urban Design to support urban cooling and improve human thermal comfort in the Australian context, Progress in Physical Geography, 37(1): 2–28
Everyone Can Play. Sydney, Australia: New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment, https://everyonecanplay.nsw.gov.au/
Miaux, S. & Garneau, J. (2016). The sports park and urban promenade in the ‘quais de Bordeaux’: An example of sports and recreation in urban planning, Loisir et Société / Society and Leisure, 39(1): 12-30.
Osmond, P. and Sharifi, E., (2017). Guide to Urban Cooling Strategies. Sydney: Low Carbon Living CRC.