Imagine ripping up a street and turning into a public park, working with your neighbours to spruce up a nearby laneway, or taking that unused piece of land around the corner and making a public barbeque.
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These were just some of the ideas that saw Jennie Curtis and her colleagues win a competition held by the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects for their "Stomping Grounds" proposal on Tuesday night.
The Remaking Lost Connections competition was aimed at fighting the effects of climate change in Canberra while still making community connections.
Ms Curtis, along with Barbara Payne, university student Chris Curtis, social scientist Dr Carolyn Hendriks and Lyneham High students Sophie and Sam Heinsohn, took it way out of the box.
"We have a slightly more daring scenario," Ms Curtis said.
But the landscape architect said one of the biggest hurdles for those hoping to do small community landscape projects was regulations.
"There's so many hurdles for them," Ms Curtis said.
"How could the government step out of the way but still be able to manage things like overarching public safety?"
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She said those from marginalised groups in Canberra would struggle even more with the bureaucratic process required to undertake simple projects in community spaces.
One of Ms Curtis' more "daring" ideas would see homeowners on adjacent blocks form a joint block together, so neighbours living back-to-back would only access their homes from one street.
That way the now unused street could have its bitumen ripped up, trees planted, a bike path installed and become a community green space for the neighbours.
"What that street turns into depends on the group that wanted to adopt it, but they would be codesigning it with government so it's a real shift in power," Ms Curtis said.
The other proposal was for communities to be able to find pockets of unused land in their neighbourhood and turn it into a garden, barbecue or something else.
But what's the difference between the government installing a barbecue and the community putting one up?
"The difference is the local people are actually deciding what they want," Ms Curtis said.
All of this is centred around Ms Curtis' and her colleagues "Stomping Principles", which are focused on the co-operative aspect of these projects, the importance of being inclusive and engaging more locals.
"When a group identifies something they'd like to do they actually have to sign up to these principles," she said.
The other idea was to see neighbours turn dreary laneways into heavily vegetated walkways for the whole community to enjoy, complete with a street library or larder - where people leave and take excess produce.
She said she and her team had found a lot of spaces across Reid, Kingston and Yarralumla which could be prime sites for some of their ideas.
"There's quite a lot which is quite surprising," Ms Curtis said.
"We're actually hoping that we can find a way to do some sort of of pilot or demonstration."
"We only won the competition [Tuesday] night, we're looking for suggestions and ideas."