The state of urban design in Queensland
Current and future challenges for our cities
The aerial image above sets the scene for this article, highlighting a lack of cohesion and negotiation of fundamental urban design principles. For example, Australia's most popular pedestrian mall is book ended by a gaping bus tunnel, inappropriately located in front of the Treasury Building (a significant piece of heritage listed architecture), blocking open pedestrian movement across Reddacliff Place. The bus tunnel is fed by Victoria Bridge, which is often grid locked by buses and cars during peak travel hours. It is a noisy and crammed experience for pedestrians walking across the bridge between South Bank and the CBD. Underneath lies The Riverside Expressway, forming a barrier to the river edge in order to connect the sprawling suburbs to the North and South. Towering around the odd patch of unshaded green and concrete are skyscrapers; what they lack in public amenity they make up for in height.
Urban Design is the process of shaping our cities and urban environment; it is concerned with the anatomy of buildings, streets, public spaces and neighbourhoods. Urban Design has the potential to re-imagine our cities as inclusive places for people that have direct economic, social and environmental benefit. City leaders are increasingly looking to urban designers to guide place making outcomes as population growth, new infrastructure projects and development put pressure on liveability standards.
In Queensland, however, creating healthy people places and promoting good urban design has not been a priority for policy makers. Perhaps Queensland lacks the necessary incentives given its cities benefit from mining windfalls, sunshine and are less susceptible to problems regarding population growth, energy and housing affordability compared with the likes of their Southern counterparts (Sydney and Melbourne). While this may be true, there are other contributing factors, which are outlined below.
Current context — city cramming and urban sprawl
- Universities have stopped training urban designers in Queensland. Why? Universities typically pursue profits; small class sizes and low industry demand limited cash flow, forcing urban design degrees (like at Queensland University of Technology) to be discontinued. There has been minimal investment by developers in urban design due to insufficient government mechanisms in place. Policy wise, urban design is not a priority for local or state government, limiting opportunities for urban designers who have not been educated or gained experience working internationally.
- A new planning ideology — the rules of the inner city ring were thrown away in favour of a performance based planning system and a vision for Brisbane to literally grow up was put in place. The intention was to prioritise flexibility instead of prescriptive planning codes, however, the impact assessable criteria arguably favours ‘upside’ flexibility. Brisbane’s skyline is quickly becoming reminiscent of Pudong in Shanghai, a collection of beautiful objects that do little to enhance the public realm.
- In 2014, the Kangaroo Point Residents Association lost their bid to stop a 23-storey development, called Riverview Towers. The Planning and Environment Court ruled in favour of Brisbane City Council (BCC) and the developer despite the site being zoned for heights of up to 10 storeys. Setting a precedent like this means anything goes — three years later, construction projects across the city blatantly exceed building height limits.
- We are nearing the end of 13 billion dollars worth of investment in private car infrastructure in South East Queensland. This is on top of the billions poured into underground road tunnels and postponement of the Cross River Rail (CRR). At least we are all benefiting from a really good merge into traffic off the Gateway Motorway!
- These billion dollar stretches of bitumen mentioned above exist partly to transport Queenslanders by car to faraway sprawling suburbia. Peter Spearritt’s observation of a potential ‘200-kilometre city’ from Noosa to the Tweed has become a reality.
- Benign government is adverse to making decisions and would rather do nothing than bring about reform to make positive change.
- Displacement of green space through urban consolidation— lot infill and huge amounts of apartments have been added to the inner city without the accompanying public space to offset the increase in residents. Brisbane has the smallest amount of open space per resident (6m²) compared with Sydney (13m²) and Melbourne (27m²).
- In parallel, the obesity epidemic affects 63.4% of adults and 25.7% of children in Australia (2014–15 National Health Survey). The direct and indirect costs, such as physical inactivity, costs the Australian economy billions of dollars every year. Our cities do not promote health and physical activity despite an ‘old and fat’ demographic. We have designed exercise out of our life and removed the open green space to facilitate it. Research shows there is a strong correlation between nature and health.
- Essentially we have lost the plot; density does not necessarily translate to quality design and using inner city cramming to offset urban sprawl is not good urban policy.
A shifting mentality
The good news is that there is a shift occurring. The Queensland State Government‘s swag of new initiatives and policies have the potential to influence change as they gain traction.
- Draft Regional Plan ‘ShapingSEQ’ references the value of design and for the first time the term uses the term “good design” in the document. The final version is set for release in mid-2017.
- Urban Design Trigger (State code 24) forces projects to be referred to the Queenland Government Architect office for projects above a certain size. In Brisbane this is 25,000m², Gold Coast 35,000m² and 50,000m² in regional areas.
- Deputy Premier Urban Design Awards is a new initiative to recognise projects with an urban design focus. Interestingly, this year Beenleigh Town Square in Logan City Council won the highest honours, transforming a six way roundabout into a defined community civic centre. Growth corridors like the City of Logan are seeing the benefits transformative urban design to promote investment and community driven places for cultural exchange and activities. Similarly, Ipswich City Council plan to redevelop its CBD to include a new civic plaza and revitalised shopping street.
- Queensland Urban Design and Places Panel (QUDaP), established in 2016, is made up of 18 professionals across Australia representing key design disciplines. QUDap offers stakeholders, consortiums and developers the opportunity for early engagement and advice on significant projects to ensure the delivery of high quality public realm. Notable projects already being reviewed by QUDaPP is Queens Wharf Brisbane (QWB) and the Cross River Rail (CRR). Queensland Government Architect Malcolm Middleton notes, “Being able to comment early in the life of a project significantly increases the potential to add value to projects and help deliver better built environments which generate economic value.”
Future initiatives
In addition to the points above, there are a number of other initiatives that will be announced over the coming months.
- Inner City Strategy — non-political independent piece of advice.
- Density & Diversity Done Well design competition is similar to that launched by the NSW Government to address the ‘missing middle’ housing problem which currently faces Australian cities and refers to the limited housing type options different to detached single dwellings or multi-residential tower developments. Submissions were due on 13 July 2017 with the winner announced on 30 August 2017.
- Healthy City Initiative — The Lancet “Urban Design, Transport and health” will help guide outcomes for this. Currently in Queensland Health there is only three people responsible for healthy cities.
- Q Design (yet to be released) will contain urban design guidelines and principles for development and is aimed at local government, architects and developers, similar to the ‘Buildings that Breath’ design framework document. The work of architects Richards and Spence will feature heavily in this document as examples of good urban design and street activation.
On the horizon are iconic projects such as the Queens Wharf Development and Howard Smith Wharfs, which I believe will have a positive urban and economic impact on Brisbane and kick start further urban growth and investment in the region. Overall, I am optimistic about Queensland's ability to regenerate its cities into world class people places, however, issues that might prevent progress are complex and rooted in our sense of the Australia Dream.
