Urban Design

Our urban design team brings valuable creative insight and wide-ranging experience to developments that connect people and places.

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Ratio Urban Design

At Ratio, we believe successful projects require a comprehensive understanding of the site and context, as well as planning policy drivers, statutory controls, community imperatives and natural features, to inform a holistic overview.

Our team’s experience spans urban design, planning, architecture and landscape architecture. Our insight and professional judgement are informed by technical capabilities in 3D massing and modelling, and visual impact analysis.

We are regularly engaged to provide detailed site assessments, design principles for complex sites, and preliminary urban design assessments as valuable risk management.

These tools can guide architectural design responses to the context, planning objectives and commercial drivers. We frequently collaborate with our internal Planning and Transport teams to deliver an integrated service to our clients.

Our Urban Design team’s skills are highly sought after throughout the planning process to appraise and inform the advocacy of proposals and prepare urban design expert witness statements.

35-37 Corio Street Geelong

Wyndham Stadium Precinct Concept Master Plan

Hudsons Road Streetscape Masterplan 3D

Progress Jetty

Services

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Site Capacity and Feasibility

Urban Design

We regularly assist landowners and potential developers to explore the development capacity of their site.

Testing site capacity helps overcome the challenges of finding a site for your project, assessing the feasibility of an existing site, developing a planning approval strategy, and providing clear design direction for the project architect.

Working alongside our Planning and Transport team, we analyse the potential of your site, and provide advice on possible risks and opportunities to inform an achievable development outcome.

Urban Design Statements

Urban Design

We prepare urban design statements to accompany a range of planning applications.

An urban design statement can assist to represent a site, its context and design influences, set out the design rationale for the project and discuss its merits with visual support.

This also allows for design issues to be anticipated at outset of the planning approval process.

8 Egan Street, Carnegie

Master Planning/Subdivision, Strategies and Frameworks

Urban Design

Our Urban Design team has experience preparing concept masterplans for greenfield, brownfield and infill new community developments.

We specialise in smaller-scale subdivisions, high-level strategies, and frameworks for townships and activity centres. We regularly work with professional project teams and understand the importance of effective and timely communication.

We understand the practical challenges of meeting civil engineering and road network requirements. Our team listens to our clients, identifies challenges and opportunities for each setting and applies our extensive multidisciplinary experience in designing sustainable master-planned communities.

Through our innovative design solutions, we respond not only to our client’s requirements but also to the changing needs of an emerging communities and markets. Our layouts balance the need to maximise yield with the necessity of delivering high-quality planning and design outcomes.

Expert Evidence

Urban Design

Our expertise across a wide variety of development types and scales forms a strong foundation of knowledge that is regularly sought for the purpose of expert testimony to Civil and Administrative Tribunals, Planning Panels and Advisory Committees.

Our urban design experts regularly provide specialist urban design analysis and advice at the RFI stage of the planning application process as well as for the settlement of plans at mediation or compulsory conferences.
Prior to forming advice, we undertake site and context analysis, and a detailed assessment of the architectural plans is to inform our expert opinion.

Peer Review

Urban Design

Peer reviews are commissioned by a range of stakeholders during the approval process, including the private development sector, lawyers, decision makers and advisors.

Independent peer reviews are carried out for a range of project categories, from small-scale infill developments, built form assessment and visual and shadow analysis, to masterplan and subdivision proposals.

Our review and recommendations can result in the preparation of a revised masterplan or subdivision layout or an amended built form site planning approach.

Built Form Modelling

Urban Design

Built form modelling can test the capacity of the site and potential impacts, and demonstrate the effect of a proposal as part of an urban design statement or expert evidence report.

We use a range of 3D techniques to explore the form of buildings on a site and to place them within a built form context.

Visual Impact Assessments

Visualisation

Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) is a multi-step systematic process used to evaluate the potential visual impact of proposed built forms on their surrounding environment.

Our VIA services assist our clients in ensuring that proposed developments contribute positively to the urban fabric and maximise objectivity throughout the decision-making process.

Public Realm Analysis and Design

Urban Design

We undertake a range of public realm analysis and design exercises.

Our team adopt a people and place approach that ensures streets and public spaces are accessible, safe and attractive for all.

We are highly aware of the interactions between movement and place and frequently collaborate with our Transport team on streetscape studies that consider a full range of users and transport modes.