About

Back to the Future – North Arm Cove is a student research competition that seeks innovative multidisciplinary proposals for the future regional Australian settlements, with an example of the North Arm Cove, NSW.

The objectives of the competition are:

a) to incite research skills and explore:

• Historical context of North Arm Cove, local and global

• Ideas behind “ideal city” of Port Stephens and assessment of those ideas in today’s context

• environmental, economic, and social context of North Arm Cove today

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b)  to provide recommendations and answers to:

• Anticipated challenges in the next 20-30 years related to:

  • the changing climate,

  • new technological advances,

  • changing core values, way of living caused by COVID-19 and likely similar events in the future

• Innovative ways of addressing those and other future challenges.

Having faced bush fires, floods, and a pandemic all in the same year, we have all identified persistent problems from varied sources at different levels; starting from individuals or communities all the way up to a national and global scale. Moreover, these problems greatly vary in nature broadly covering social, environmental, and economical aspects. Evidently, problems that are so diverse, call for varied skills, expertise, and ideas from more than a single discipline.

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If design is about solving problems, planning is about anticipation of the future, identifying future problems and opportunities, and acting now to be ready for both.