Creative Placemaking Designers, Placemaking Design and Construction

Creative Placemaking Designers

“Nobody else can do what POMO does”.
David, Landscape Architect.

We are specialists in designing and delivering art and artistic bespoke outcomes in the public realm. We work alongside landscape architects and others involved in public realm projects. We create layers of meaning and expression that generates very real connections between places and people and makes measurable contributions to local economies.

Interpreting themes of people and place through a design process we artistically express those themes in public environments. Creative, artistic placemaking helps to create successful public places, it excites communities and it leaves a meaningful legacy.

Working from inception through to delivery our unique creative placemaking design and delivery process unifies people around a shared vision. Our technical skills in all facets of the design documentation & construction process allows us to deliver high quality creative outcomes that meet all standards yet remain true to their original vision. We work with a wide range of artists and specialist makers across Australia including First Nations artists.

We are relationship oriented, easy to work with and are always looking for collaborations of any shape or size.

Other Projects

High Street Armadale Melbourne

POMO worked with local Melbourne contractors and suppliers in Queensland to build and install the final outcomes in the street.

Winter Street Malvern Melbourne

This early work set the foundation for a design development process where POMO developed a place-driven community minded response for the park that catered to the different user groups in a practical and spatial way.

Miles Streetscape

POMO was engaged to collaborate with FourFold Studio and Vee Design in the revitalisation of the main street in Miles Western Queensland. Our role was to delve in the cultural history of the town and then design a number of bespoke creative elements in the landscape that express the uniqueness of the town.

Nambour CBD Creative Renewal Program

Through a grant from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts POMO was engaged to deliver a city-wide creative placemaking renewal program in the Nambour CBD. The aim of the project was to creatively enhance the town’s night time appeal, encourage foot traffic and visitation.

POMO Bush Studio

When we set out to design our studio we approached it like any design project, we began by identifying the priorities and creating a strategic framework to guide the decision making.

The initial priority was to create something simple to build, something sustainable, creatively inspiring and something that was cost effective. Through research it became clear that achieving these things was not necessarily difficult.

Southport Broadwater Parklands Play Attractor

This project was unveiled in August 2022, having been in the making for over three years. POMO was first involved in the project before it was awarded, then involved in placemaking design and later delivery of a range of custom playground items.

Palmwoods Town Square

Working with the landscape design team POMO were able to create a number of key design initiatives that would contribute to the locally inspired placemaking program and deliver on practical community needs.

POMO was engaged to design and construct a number of landscape elements. Each element was custom designed and born from the uniqueness of Palmwoods, they reference local history, using locally sourced materials and were being made collaboratively with local craftspeople and artisans.

Underlying this was a larger design and management process run by POMO involving construction design, design reporting, engineering certification, construction and project management and installation on-site. A true multidisciplinary and multi-skilled program with a wide range of stakeholders and projects participants.

The project won the Excellence Award at the 2018 Queensland AILA awards for Civic Design. It also won gold in the same category at the national awards.

Cribb Street Landsborough

POMO was engaged to work alongside the Sunshine Coast Council in the renewal of Cribb Street - Landsborough’s main street. The project was part of a larger master planning process being run by council.
Specifically we participated in the community engagement process to help ascertain community attitudes and expectations around the revitalisation project.

C-Square Nambour

Wayfinding is the process of finding one’s way through an unfamiliar environment; signage is one part of a wayfinding strategy, the part that most of us rely upon. In this project, POMO was engaged to create a comprehensive wayfinding strategy for what was arguably the Sunshine Coast’s most difficult to navigate urban precinct.

The owners of the precinct identified wayfinding as a very real need that, is addressed properly, could help improve people’s experience of the space and play a key role in creating of a more vibrant urban centre.

108 Wickham Street Fortitude Valley

POMO was engaged by principal contractors Buildcorp to undertake the detailed design and fabrication of a number of placemaking elements at 108 Wickham Street Fortitude Valley Brisbane.

The public space between two commercial buildings was being revitalised be lead designers AECOM and POMO worked alongside AECOM to inject meaning, history and locally appropriate stories and overlays into the space

Maroochydore City Centre

This project involved the detailed design and construction of smart city digital concrete signs for the new Maroochydore City Centre. These signs hold large format digital touch screens which advertise community events and wayfinding information for the new Maroochydore town centre.

The signs are currently in operation at the new Maroochy Town Centre.

Terry Summers Recycled Book

Terry Summers is a Brisbane based practising visual artist and sculptor. Terry wanted to create a coffee table book that would be a retrospective of his life’s work focusing on the years 1999-2009.

Sippy Downs Entrance Statement

POMO was engaged to work closely with the Sunshine Coast Council on the development of ideas for the entry statement to Sippy Downs. Concepts for this project had been developed earlier though a co-lab process with the University of the Sunshine Coast.

State Library of Queensland

Marking 100 years since the First World War, the State Library was tasked with putting on an important exhibition that told the personal stories of Queenslanders’ involvement in the First World War. POMO was asked to assist in the design of this important event.

USC & Sunshine Coast Council Co-lab Studio

In early 2019 the Sunshine Coast Council funded a cutting edge experimental design studio which was run as a capstone industry based subject for students at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Students were given the chance to work collaboratively with industry professionals to design something that would be built in a public place.

Sandgate Kids

The environment in which this project was undertaken was a child care centre that had been renovated and changed a number times throughout a long period of time. The centre has a number of distinct areas of care, separated into sections for children based on age plus a number of staff rooms and administration offices. This method of expansion coupled with the need to direct people to distinct areas in a confined space configuration presented a special wayfinding challenge.

Sunshine Beach Noosa

Sunshine Beach is one of Queensland’s most beautiful seaside villages. It has a long history as a surfers’ coastal enclave nestled against the pristine Noosa National Park. This project aimed to upgrade a local public park using a placemaking process and gathering views through a community engagement program.

A 20 Year Vision for Downtown Nambour

POMO spearheaded a pro-bono urban renewal project for the benefit of the local Nambour community. The project involved the creation of a sustainable plan aimed at revitalising the downtown Nambour CBD re-shaping the future of Nambour.

Nambour is expected to grow in population by 50% over the next twenty years. With this change comes immense opportunity for Nambour to revitalise and recreate itself as a sustainable and unique Sunshine Coast community. This change must be managed carefully in order to retain the unique character of the township as well as accommodate the changing demographic and land use patterns that will invariably occur.