POMO Community Engagement Consultants Melbourne

POMO. Community Engagement Consultants

POMO are award winning placemaking consultants with offices in Melbourne and Queensland.

As a specialist placemaking practice, we have been involved in a range of community and stakeholder engagement processes for local government. We work in close collaboration with our engagement partners Fourfold Studio.

We have a community engagement process that:

Brings people together around a shared vision whether this be community members or internal stakeholders
Uses place narratives, culture and place identity to develop unique “people and place” focused outcomes
Collaboratively develops the engagement program with our clients, and where relevant, threads those engagement outcomes through a design and delivery process and into tangible outcomes

We can be engaged directly by local government or via Vendor Panel (search The Trustee for The Burton Family Trust) or through Local Buy. Often we work as sub consultants as part of larger teams led by other urban design professionals.

We have received a number of state and national awards, we are driven to create long term relationships, we are easy to work with and we have a common sense and flexible working style.

What We Do

Our process for creating unique artistic urban outcomes

About POMO

Number of Awards Since 2016

We have received state, national and international awards in a number of categories ranging from design to community benefit. This means our work is peer recognised and consistently represents best practice over many years.

Locations in Australia

We have offices in Sunshine Melbourne and Nambour Queensland but work anywhere in Australia.

20+

Years of Experience

Founded in 1997 we have delivered hundreds of successful design projects.

Placemaking Projects

Miles Main Street Revitalisation: Regional Placemaking & Urban Renewal

Regional town centres often struggle with generic urban design that fails to resonate with local history or encourage economic “stickiness.” In the heart of the Western Downs, the town of Miles required more than a standard streetscape upgrade; it needed a strategic revitalisation that could express its unique cultural heritage while fostering a renewed sense of community pride.

Palmwoods Town Square: Delivering Community Identity through Creative Placemaking - Bespoke Urban Infrastructure

For decades, the physical centre of Palmwoods was defined by a sloping asphalt car park that offered utility but no community connection. The Sunshine Coast Council identified the need to transform this functional void into a genuine town square.
The challenge was not simply to build a modern park, but to deliver a “civic heart” that felt established and authentic. The community did not want a generic urban upgrade; they demanded a space that reflected the town’s timber-getting history and agricultural heritage. The mandate was to create new infrastructure that felt like it had been there for a century and fit with the historical buildings that surrounded it.

Southport Broadwater Play Attraction: Delivering Place-Based Creative Play Infrastructure

Destination playgrounds are increasingly vital for urban activation, but they often rely on off-the-shelf equipment that lacks connection to place. For the Southport Broadwater Parklands, the City of Gold Coast required an iconic play attraction that was not only fun but deeply rooted in the ecological narrative of the Broadwater Estuary.

Mackay Place Strategy: From Vision to Activation

Mackay’s City Centre and Waterfront were facing a common regional challenge: despite significant investment in infrastructure, the public realm lacked the “stickiness” required to drive economic activity. The opening of a nearby major shopping centre and changing consumer habits had drained life from the streets.

Nambour CBD Creative Renewal: Activating the Night-Time Economy

For regional centres like Nambour, the “night-time economy” is often hampered by poor lighting and a perception of disjointed safety. The town required a strategic intervention to shift the public realm from a transit corridor into a destination that felt safe, vibrant, and welcoming after dark.

Dura Gunga: Delivering First Nations Cultural Art as Public Infrastructure

Integrating authentic First Nations narratives into civic infrastructure requires more than just artistic vision; it demands a rigorous delivery framework that respects cultural protocols while meeting public safety standards. For the entrance to the new City Hall in Maroochydore, the Sunshine Coast Council required a landmark piece that would permanently embed the Gubi Gubi story into the built environment.

Nambour Community Revitalisation: The 100% Bottom-Up Model

Nambour was suffering from a distinct form of regional fatigue: a perception of “too much talk, not enough action.” Despite multiple government-funded planning initiatives, the town remained in economic decline, plagued by high business turnover and social dislocation.

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 Living Neighbourhood: Transitioning to Community-Led Placemaking

In the heart of the Dandenong town centre, the City of Greater Dandenong identified a critical operational challenge. Two key precincts the Southern Gateway (Settlers Square and train station surrounds) and the Northern Bookend (Palm Plaza) were struggling with poor amenity, safety perceptions, and a lack of social cohesion.

Caloundra Community & Creative Hub: Embedding Cultural Narrative in Built Form

The Sunshine Coast Council faced a significant urban design challenge: how to transform the heart of Caloundra into a cohesive “Community and Creative Hub.” The project scope involved integrating major new cultural assets, a contemporary Library and Regional Gallery, with a new Town Square and high street connection.

Temporary Placemaking NSW

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

Montville Creative Lighting: Activating the Night-Time Economy

Montville is a jewel of the Sunshine Coast hinterland, yet its primary public park was underutilised once the sun went down. Local community groups identified a clear need to improve the night-time appeal of the space, transforming it from a dark thoroughfare into a safe and inviting destination for evening gatherings.

Gold Coast Light Rail Stage 3: Creative Placemaking in Major Transport Infrastructure

The Gold Coast Light Rail Stage 3 corridor, stretching from Broadbeach to Burleigh Heads, risked becoming a homogenous transit strip that ignored the rich, distinct histories of the suburbs it traversed. While the engineering requirement was for efficient transport, the cultural requirement was to resurrect the lost identities of the coast.

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 Village: Delivering Placemaking through Tactical Infrastructure

Nundah Village, a vibrant hub in Brisbane’s north, faced a common urban dilemma: a high-quality streetscape dominated by vehicle transit, leaving little room for genuine community connection. Brisbane City Council (BCC) identified the need to reclaim asphalt for people, but permanent capital works required distinct, data-led justification.

Understanding & Applying Place Character: Operationalising the ‘Spirit of Place’

While high-level design strategies often define broad values, they rarely provide the technical detail required for architects to translate “local character” into built form. The Sunshine Coast Council faced this exact “Implementation Gap.” They possessed a foundational vision but needed a practical manual that would allow the development industry to interpret the unique “Genius Loci” (spirit of place) of the coastal corridor. The challenge was to move beyond generic aesthetic upgrades and provide a granular, evidence-based toolkit that could guide design outcomes across three distinct geographic zones: Maroochydore, Kawana and Caloundra.

Mooloolaba Foreshore: Creating Immersive Place Identity

The Mooloolaba Foreshore Revitalisation presented a complex challenge: how to deliver a modern, world-class waterfront that remained authentically connected to its nostalgic roots. The Sunshine Coast Council led masterplan mandated “immersion” as a key design principle. The site required more than off-the-shelf furniture; it needed a suite of bespoke interventions that could withstand the harsh coastal environment while narrating the specific history of the site, from its pre-colonial ecology to its 1970s caravan park era.

Nambour Place Analysis: A Strategic Blueprint for Renewal

Nambour, once the administrative capital of the Sunshine Coast, faced a complex identity crisis following the closure of the Moreton Sugar Mill and the relocation of council chambers. The town suffered from “contested identity,” torn between its prosperous history and a gritty, economically challenged present. The Sunshine Coast Council required a definitive “Source of Truth” to guide the Namba Place Revitalisation Project. They needed more than a standard site analysis; they required a deep-dive forensic audit of the town’s social, historical, and physical fabric to de-risk urban design interventions.

Birtinya Library & Arts Space: Data-Driven Placemaking & Co-Design

Birtinya is a rapidly developing master-planned community on the Sunshine Coast facing a critical urban challenge: creating a genuine sense of “soul” and community connection in a greenfield environment. Sunshine Coast Council required a foundational strategy to guide the architectural design of the future Library and Arts Development Space. The objective was to move beyond generic community centre models and deliver a facility that responded to the specific demographic, environmental, and historical context of the Wallum Country landscape while deeply engaging the future users of the space.