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 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
Local community successfully engaged for masterplan process.
Creation of commercial opportunities for local artists and makers.
Successful revitalisation of public space incorporating local feedback.