Urban Design, Placemaking and

Technology & Data for Safer Places

ENE.HUB recently had the opportunity to participate in the NSW Government’s Smart Places Acceleration Program with a pitch that responded to the Safer Public Spaces for Women and Girls innovation challenge.

We didn’t make it to the next phase unfortunately, but we learnt a lot and it provided us with the opportunity to refine a new product – the SAFETY.NODE.

The Challenge offered the perfect context for this product evolution – the vulnerability that women and young girls face in public places across Sydney, and the impact it causes when they are subject to harassment.

But this was more than just a single product, but rather a precinct-wide solution. By combining best practice urban design overlayed with meaningful and human-centred technology, we believe we can create the conditions for greater urban safety in our public places and spaces.

Working with our urban design team, product and software designers, landscape architects and place makers, we scoped a series of public place installations that ‘in aggregate’ generate a sense of activity and safety. This included installations such as lighting, sculptures, murals and interactive elements.

Throughout the precinct and on the SAFETY.NODE, a queen bee icon was used to be a strong visual icon of what we called the SAFETY.PRECINCT.

We invite you to review our concept below and share your views with us.

We are keen to enhance the concept and work with Council’s and land authorities to pilot a SAFETY.PRECINCT as part of an urban renewal or Main Street project.

View our SAFETY.PRECINCT video below.