What is the Adelaide Design Manual?

The Adelaide Design Manual was developed by City of Adelaide and co-funded by State Government Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure through the Places for People Grant program. It provides technical and strategic guidance to ensure that the City of Adelaide’s public spaces are high-quality, flexible and sustainable, and encourage city life and growth. It was created to ensure consistency across multiple city projects at all scales and contribute to an attractive, comfortable and engaging city.

The approaches outlined in the Adelaide Design Manual celebrate Adelaide’s diversity and local character in an inclusive, safe and easily accessible manner that can adapt to daily life, new experiences and promote a sense of civic pride.

Who is the Adelaide Design Manual for?

It is primarily for developers, consultants, council officers, design professionals and community groups to use when working on projects that will impact public space in the City of Adelaide in any way.

What does the Adelaide Design Manual cover?

There are seven sections in the Adelaide Design Manual: Introduction, Street Types, Street Design, Greening, Furniture and Materials, Building Frontages and Lighting.

These sections provide a toolkit for approaching design projects for the City of Adelaide, guiding principles to allow consistent design across small and large projects, a range of approaches, palettes and suites of furniture, materials and other elements to use in certain locations throughout the city, design standards and technical specifications (currently under development).

What are the outcomes of the Adelaide Design Manual?

  • Ensuring the city’s public spaces are attractive and actively used and Adelaide remains globally competitive, sustainable, liveable and well placed to meet future challenges and growth.
  • Ensuring the city is inclusive of all abilities.
  • Ensuring best practice standards are applied with regards to the preservation of cultural heritage and context sensitive design principles for new projects.
  • Providing a consistent and consolidated set of materials and fixtures for public spaces, taking it account life cycle and value for money in terms of procurement, constructability, maintenance, the look and feel of the city and environmental benefits by minimising the city’s impact on the environment and reducing the use of non-renewable energy.

How does consultation take place on the design of projects?

The Adelaide Design Manual is a toolkit of sustainable and appropriate treatments for the public realm across the city, but each project still undergoes community consultation on a case-by-base basis, guided by Council’s engagement approach. This helps Council to develop the detail of each design using the palettes and approaches established by the Adelaide Design Manual at a local level, ensuring meaningful community input.

Who do I contact if I have more questions?

Contact the Adelaide Design Manual team by emailing us at [email protected] or completing the online form in the Contact Us section of this website.