QUEENSLAND CULTURAL PRECINCT DEVELOPMENT

The State Government has released for comment a draft Master Plan for ongoing development of the Cultural Centre at Southbank in Brisbane. 

Full details of the proposals can be accessed here:
http://www.arts.qld.gov.au/docs/2%20APRIL%202014%20DRAFT%20CULTURAL%20PRECINCT%20MASTER%20PLAN%20DRAFT%20LOW%20RES.PDF

Our reading of the document inspires us to resurrect proposals we advanced many years ago (2001) as part of our submission for the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) design competition. We think these proposals remain relevant today.

Our fundamental issue, both now and with these latest master plan proposals, is that the Cultural Centre is, and will continue to be, a homogeneous “Complex” that has largely obliterated the traditional urban street grid in South Brisbane. This has rendered the spatial structure of the area unreadable and has impeded pedestrian movement.

The adjustments we contemplated thirteen years ago would reduce the currently homogeneous “complex” into its constituent parts: each part would have a street address and would contribute to the life of the street and the public plazas which we envisaged as an interconnected series of spaces energized by pedestrian movement. In our view this urbanistically more appropriate model can be realized if the following measures are taken:

• “Scraping off” elevated pedestrian plazas and pedestrian bridges to reveal separate buildings founded on ground and connected to the public domain (in contrast to existing within their own “set aside” spaces).

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• Provision of new identifyable street addresses for each component building.
  
• Humanising the street edges of buildings by externalizing wherever possible many of the support activities (merchandising, interpretive areas, food & beverage etc.) that currently are only accessible from within the component buildings.

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Legible Interconnected Circulation

Progression of Plazas & Promenades

• Reconfiguration of the transportation system in Melbourne Street and creation of “Stanley Quay”, a major orientation space (equivalent in area to Queens Park, King George Square)
• Adjustment to traffic arrangements on Victoria Bridge by centralizing pedestrian traffic (one wide promenade instead of the existing two narrow footpaths) which would link directly to “Stanley Quay”: this raised pedestrian promenade would serve to segregate busway and other vehicular traffic

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Our proposals re-invent in principle the texture and complexity of the original South Brisbane street grid: the public space of the streets is further enhanced by the injection of a progression of plazas and promenades each with a relationship to its parent buildings and to the river and CBD beyond.