Helpful shade resources

Resources for planning and designing high quality shade

• Our Sun and UV at School videos offer a quick guide to about designing high quality shade for beginners.
• Cancer Council NSW Guidelines to Shade: A practical guide to shade planning in NSW (.pdf) is a practical tool for individuals, organisations and councils to increase availability of quality shade in a range of settings, such as playgrounds, pools, sporting venues, beaches, parks, schools, childcare centres and backyards. 
• A shade audit is an important first step to designing good quality shade as it helps identify the path of the sun, how people use the space and the best position for the shade. You don't need to be a design expert to assess an area. A good place to start is with a visual shade audit using the following shade audit tools: 
  • Cancer Institute NSW shade audit tool (.pdf) 
  • Cancer Institute NSW shade design planning considerations (.pdf)
  • Cancer Institute NSW shade priority checklist (.pdf)
  • Cancer Council Victoria SunSmart Shade Comparison Check
• NSW Street Tree Planting Guide 2021.

Shade resources for Council

Make shade a planning priority in your Local Government Area. 

• Shade. A planning and design priority that helps prevent skin cancer (.pdf) is a two page visual resource that provides an excellent overview of why shade is so important and the key elements of good quality shade.
• Shade advice flyer (.pdf) providing advice to councils on the siting and design of permanent shade (including built, natural and shade sails) to maximise shade.
• Shade: Bringing Planners and Health professionals together to provide Critical Infrastructure (.pdf) article is a two page summary of shade for UV protection for registered planners.
• The Shade and UV inclusion in NSW local government planning policy (.pdf) report is a project completed by the Cancer Institute NSW to increase provision for shade in local government planning policy, specifically Local Strategic Planning Statements written by  local government areas in 2019-2020.
• Look up Melanoma incidence and mortality rates to make the case for shade in your LGA. 
• Let’s start using Shade Diagrams (pdf) Shade diagrams are the calendar opposite of shadow diagrams and can be used to show continuous cover of shade when UV level is 3+ (eg. midsummer, September and March equinoxes).
• Useful resources from Victoria:
  Shade: a resource for local government (.pdf) provides shade case studies and approaches for local government from the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV)
  Shade design for public places (PDF) from MAV is a companion document to the above Shade: a resource for local government 
• Useful resources from Queensland:
  Healthy Places, Healthy People: Shade Tree Guidance
• The Healthy Streets Design Check Australia is a tool for designers and engineers to make a basic assessment of a street against 10 Healthy Street Indicators including shade and shelter..
• The Healthy Built Environment Checklist is a practical tool  to evaluate built environment factors that affect health and suggests ways to improve health outcomes. Includes shade for protection from UV radiation overexposure.

Shade resources for children and teenagers

• Our Sun and UV at School videos resources offer information for school-aged children and teenagers tp help them learn about designing shade for UV protection:
  • Sun and UV at School videos
  • Create a cubby house or hat activity (.pdf)
  • Shadow puppets activity (.pdf)
  • Light and shadows activity (.pdf)
  • UV exposure experiment (.pdf)

Case studies

• How schools, councils, community groups and sporting organisations created shade case studies (.pdf) developed by Cancer Institute NSW provide examples of well-designed built shade.
• The UV Smart Cool Playground (.pdf) at Memorial Park in Western Sydney is an example of best-practice design when it comes to providing shade for UV and heat protection in playgrounds. 

NSW Shade Working Group

The Shade Working Group of the NSW Skin Cancer Prevention Strategy aims to improve access to adequate shade in NSW through a collaborative stakeholder approach. A key focus of the group is to reinforce the importance of good quality and well planned shade to reduce exposure to UV for skin cancer prevention. 

Membership of the Shade Working Group includes:

• An independent Strategic and Social Impact Planner
• A Landscape Architect and Strategic Advisor
• Cancer Council NSW (Chair)
• Cancer Institute NSW
• An academic from the University of New South Wales City Futures Research Centre

Read document about the Shade Working Group: 
Integrating shade provision into the healthy built environment agenda: the approach taken in NSW, Australia

To get in touch with the Shade Working Group, please email:
CINSW-skincancerprevention@health.nsw.gov.au.