Case Study: USC Co-lab Studio, Urban Design Project

The Project

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.

The subject was “Creativity, Design and Communication” and was a cross-disciplinary collaborative workshop that attracted students from courses as diverse as psychology, creative writing, media and screen production, urban planning, communication design and game design. The students came together to learn how to use design to help deliver a real world urban design project. The co-lab was inspired by the City Studio run from Vancouver Canada.

The urban design project was part of councils streetscape upgrade of Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs being the area in which the university is located. The students were given the task of designing a gateway entrance to the Sippy Downs suburb.

The Process & Outcomes

POMO was engaged to help guide the students through a process that would deliver place-driven urban design concepts. The students also gained access to two artist consultants, an indigenous consultant, a landscape architect from council and were supervised in the subject by two university staff, one from communication design and one from urban design and planning. Together this team worked closely with the students across an intense eight week period and together undertook:

A cultural immersion tour to understand local indigenous history
A lecture and input from artistic consultants to understand the role of creative practice and art in public places
A formal lecture and mentorship from POMO to outline a design and research methodology that would help students to create realistic place-driven urban design concepts

Students were required to keep a creative journal, write a return brief which responded to the design challenges and prepare and present their final refined design concepts.

The outcomes from the students proved the value of cross-disciplinary thinking, contextualised to a local place and driven through POMO’s placemaking methodology.

Social Sustainability Outcomes

Real-World Educational Experience: The project was a capstone university subject that gave students a unique opportunity to work on a real-world urban design project. This provided practical, industry-based experience in designing something to be built in a public space.
Professional Collaboration and Mentorship: Students worked collaboratively with a diverse team of industry professionals, including design consultants (POMO), artists, an Indigenous consultant, and a landscape architect from the council. This partnership provided direct mentorship and guidance on creating realistic, place-driven design concepts.
Cross-Disciplinary Skill Development: The studio brought together students from a wide range of courses, such as psychology, creative writing, urban planning, and game design. This cross-disciplinary approach proved valuable in fostering innovative thinking and collaborative problem-solving.
Cultural Education and Immersion: A key part of the process was a cultural immersion tour, which helped students understand the local Indigenous history of the area. This ensures that the design outcomes are culturally informed and respectful.
Community Placemaking: The ultimate goal of the student-led project was to design a gateway entrance for the Sippy Downs suburb as part of a council streetscape upgrade. This contributes directly to strengthening the local community’s identity and sense of place.

Other projects

Mackay Place Strategy

This project was a collaboration between POMO and Four Fold Studio and involved the creation of the Mackay Waterfront Place Strategy. This strategy is an actionable road-map to the revitalisation of Mackay’s waterfront and city centre areas.

Mission Beach CBD Revitalisation

This project is underway in mid 2025 and will completely change the public realm of the entire oceanfront area of Mission Beach in North Queensland.

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.

Community Led Place Strategy

POMO led a process with a small group of passionate professionals and community members to create solutions to problems in the town of Nambour.

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.

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.

Dura Gunga Sculpture

Dura Gunga by Lyndon Davis is an important First Nation artwork that was unveiled at the entrance to City Hall Maroochydore by the Sunshine Coast Council. POMO has been working secretly on this project in 2023/24 with local First Nations artist Lyndon Davis.

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.

Temporary Placemaking NSW

This project involves the creation of a concept design for a temporary placemaking installation in a public space in NSW.

High Street Armadale Melbourne

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

Montville Creative Lighting

This project involved the design and delivery of a series of specialist coloured lights in a public park. The park is used by community groups for a range of purposes and they had a desire to improve the night time appeal through lighting.
POMO carried out schematic and detailed design of the lighting works and integrated an existing council-sponsored upgrade with this community program for maximum efficiencies.

Gold Coast Light Rail

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.

Dixon Reserve Creative Placemaking

This project is a collaboration between POMO lead landscape architects Aspect Studios. It involves the creation of a major park in Pimpama Gold Coast.

Nundah Placemaking

This project was commissioned by the Brisbane City Council and involved creative programming of a community engagement event. The event was designed as an opportunity for the local community to have their say on proposed designs for a public space upgrade. The space was situated in front of a group of shops and a cafe and currently being used for car parking. This was a classic case of pirioritisation of motor vehicles over people and council had prepared a urban design response to reclaim the space for community use.

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

Creative Placemaking Design for the redevelopment of Mooloolaba Foreshore

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.

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.

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.

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

The purpose of this project was to inform the architectural design team of the specific culture, identity and history of the Birtinya area so a design could be generated that was deeply connected to the place.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.