Case Study: Noosa Sunshine Beach, Public Park Upgrade, Our Placemaking Process

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.

The Process & Outcomes

The Sunshine Coast Regional Council identified a large public park at Sunshine Beach as a key site to undertake revitalisation activities. This program would involve upgrading facilities, landscape architecture and creative initiatives. POMO was engaged as part of a multidisciplinary project delivery team to participate in a placemaking program. Placemaking was the method chosen by council to facilitate the revitalisation program in a way that would incorporate the stories, memories and experiences of local residents in the program.

POMO’s role was to help facilitate this placemaking program that involved working on an engagement team with the local Sunshine Beach community. The engagement team was lead by ‘Plan C’, a brisbane based community and social planning consultancy.

A community engagement process was undertaken to give the local residents, park users and general community & stakeholders a voice in the master planning process. POMO was tasked with the process of coordinating a creative response working group which was designed to feed in the views of artists, curators and craft designers into the master planning process. Participants were asked to walk through the public space and put forward their views on how the renewal project might incorporate artistic, creative responses. “The aim was to collect a whole range of perspectives as to how the park could change and incorporate artistic, creative ideas within that broader process.”

POMO then wrote a Creative Opportunities Report with feedback from the stakeholders through the engagement process, this was used to guide and inform the overall master planning process.

Project Delivery Collaborators:
> Plan C
> Sunshine Coast Council
> Conlon Birrell Landscape Architects

Project Outcomes

SUCCESSFUL ENGAGEMENT

Local community successfully engaged for masterplan process.

ART OPPORTUNITIES

Creation of commercial opportunities for local artists and makers.

IMPROVED AMENITY

Successful revitalisation of public space incorporating local feedback.

Social Sustainability Outcomes

Community-Led Placemaking: The project’s core methodology was placemaking, which was chosen specifically to ensure the park’s revitalisation would incorporate the stories, memories, and experiences of local residents. This grounds the project in the community’s unique identity.
Inclusive Community Engagement: A formal engagement process was undertaken to give the local residents, park users, and other stakeholders a voice in the park’s master planning process. This empowered the community to have a direct say in the future of their public space.
Empowerment of the Creative Sector: A “creative response working group” was specifically formed to gather and incorporate the views of local artists, curators, and craft designers. This valued and integrated the local creative community’s expertise into the planning.
Strategic Integration of Creative Ideas: The engagement process resulted in a Creative Opportunities Report, which was used to guide and inform the final master plan. This ensures that community-generated artistic and creative ideas were strategically included in the park’s renewal.
Multidisciplinary Collaboration: The project was delivered through a partnership between a community planning consultancy, the local council, landscape architects, and creative facilitators. This collaborative approach brings diverse professional expertise together for a community-focused outcome.

Other projects

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Dandenong Community Engagement

This project is currently underway in 2025 and is a collaboration between POMO and Fourfold Studio.

The team was engaged by the City of Greater Dandenong to run a targeted community engagement process. This engagement will result in the identification of locations, community champions and ideas for community-led interventions in various public places in the CBD.

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At the time, the community was frustrated by a lack of vision, a lack of action and a lack of cohesion around the way forward.

The team created a strategic vision for Nambour which unified the community, inspired local government and represented a 100% authentic 100% bottom up approach driven by the idea that the people who are most directly affected by a town’s problems are the best people to generate solutions.

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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.

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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.

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POMO worked alongside AECOM on the design of this major infrastructure project, handling the placemaking design.
The project focused on opportunities for bespoke place-driven interventions at each of the platform stations along the route.
We began with a detailed analysis of the areas through which the light rail would move and began to unlock cultural histories, local stories, imagery and assembled a report which identified key narratives and history from each area.

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Nundah Placemaking

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Understanding & Applying Place Character

The Sunshine Coast Urban Corridor

Its not everyday that we can lay claim to a world first but as far as we know this is the first report of its kind in the world. So what is it exactly?

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.

Dinosaur Sculpture

Bringing an Australian dinosaur to life as a found object metal sculpture.

We were given the job of creating a prehistoric art piece for a project led by our good friends at Vee Design.

We researched the right species, worked out all the anatomical details then created a design for an Australovenator Wintonensis metal sculpture (a uniquely aussie dinosaur unearthed in Winton Qld).

Mooloolaba Concept Design

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We were asked to create a series of place-driven design concepts that would tie in with the landscape design of the Mooloolaba Foreshore. These concepts took everyday objects and elements that were to appear in the revitalisation and applied a place-driven artistic lens to their design. This process occurred after a place analysis was conducted and local themes and narratives were identified for expression.

Nambour Placemaking Analysis

This report analyses the unique place context for a city wide urban renewal design process in the town of Nambour Queensland.

This document, running to 158 pages, offered the urban design team a detailed insight into the town so a revitalisation could be created in a way that was driven by Nambour’s unique qualities, represented its culture authentically and positioned it for future demographic changes.

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.

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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.

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.
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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.

Birtinya Library Placemaking Analysis

Birtinya Library & Arts Development Space Placemaking Analysis

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The report also laid the foundations for a series of short term concepts for activating the currently empty land before development.

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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.

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.

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Sunshine Beach Noosa

Placemaking Design Studio, Urban Placemaking, Placemaking Design and Construct

Placemaking – Design and Construct

Our Environmental Commitment

POMO has been actively rehabilitating the land upon which its studio HQ sits.