Gold Coast: City and Architecture (2018)

State of Australian Cities Conference 2013, 2013

In the Australian landscape the Gold Coast is famous for its development without a plan. The rapid growth of the city was undoubtedly developmentally driven and the white shoe brigade's coalition with the pro-development state government in shaping the city is well known. The Gold Coast is also unusual for not having a traditional central business district but the concentration of high-rises presents a contrasting vision. This paper examines the causes and the consequences of this unplanned urbanisation process and seeks to answer the following questions: How different is the nature of urbanisation on the Gold Coast? What are the factors that make it unique? Physically how does the city compare with similar places in Australia and around the world? How did the lack of planning influence the form of the city and its internal arrangements? How did the shift from ad hoc decision making to more systematic planning efforts affect the city's urbanisation? And finally, what are the factors that shaped the Gold Coast as we now know it? These questions are answered through the examination of the city's past and its effects on its present and the future. In this sense, the morphology of the Gold Coast is viewed as a physical embodiment of past decision making.

Cities have attempted to differentiate themselves throughout history based on their spatial qualities, inhabitant characteristics, social conditions and historical roots. In the twenty-first century, however, media plays a significantly greater role in shaping the perception of cities than it has previously. City governments are increasingly turning to the tool of branding to differentiate themselves from other cities. This is especially true for tourism-oriented economies such as Queensland's Gold Coast. The local print media, together with local television stations and tourism bodies have historically promoted the image of the Gold Coast as a place that is growing and is desirable to visit, live and work in, and continue to do so. Throughout the city's development, the media have sold the Gold Coast to outsiders by focusing on the trinity of sun, surf and sand, and in the early years of the new century, with references to modernity, sophistication and culture. The Gold Coast is often portrayed as a resort town and Australia's playground in a narrative designed to attract the visitors on which the tourism industry depends. The greater frame of reference for the media focuses on growth by promoting large events, ease of development, functionality of infrastructure and the city's potential for population growth. Underpinning both these tourist and growth narratives is the media's emphasis on the potential for future residents to have a relaxed and prosperous lifestyle. Growth and development of the Gold Coast is a goal supported by the power elites, the service workers, the property industry and its boosters. Print and television media have nurtured their special influence on the Gold Coast by supporting this vision. Media support has led to a large number of interstate and international migrants taking up residence and contributed to large-event opportunities such as the 2018 Commonwealth Games choosing the Gold Coast as home. Molotch (1976) proposes that cities are machines driven by an elite group with a vested interest in the success of the city as fuelled by ongoing economic, social and population growth. This elite group of players includes (but is not limited to) local land and small business owners, politicians, local boosterists and media organisations such as newspapers. They participate actively in organisation, manipulation, structuring and lobbying to influence the growth of the city based on their varied personal and commercial interests. The Gold Coast's progression from a series of small tourist towns to a globalising city with multiple economic drivers has been accompanied by the ongoing reflection and visioning of planners, marketing groups and particularly the media.

One of the distinctive features of Gold Coast urbanisation is its historically ad hoc approach to development with little or no strategic planning to guide it. Many have commented on the lack of planning on the Gold Coast calling it 'an experiment in freedom' or 'free enterprise city'. Following a major restructuring of the Queensland's local councils, the 1990s witnessed a shift from ad hoc decision making to more systematic planning on the Gold Coast. Understanding the past is important for shaping the future. This paper reviews the history of regulatory planning on the Gold Coast, encompassing decisions affecting the form and development of its earliest settlements through to its periods of greatest construction and most streamlined decision–making. It focuses mainly on past planning processes, the problems identified in each planning exercise and the interventions introduced, asking whether these were implemented or not and why. The paper positions the Gold Coast as a physical embodiment of this history of decision making, assessing the effects on the city as a whole of specific measures either affording freedoms or insisting on accountability to various levels of regulation. It examines how the absence of some planning measures influenced the form of the city and its internal arrangements and considers how the shift from ad hoc decision making towards more systematic planning efforts affected the city's urbanisation. The lessons that the Gold Coast example provides will resonate with places elsewhere in Australia and the world, if not always in scale definitely in substance.

2011

For many decades the Gold Coast was largely perceived as a seasonally occupied beachholiday resort strip of linked settlements that started life as dispersed service centres for the hinterland. While this was its origins in the late 19 th Century the Gold Coast is now the sixth largest city in Australia and the most rapidly growing. The city has many layers of complexity related principally to rapidly increased urbanisation. Arguably the overarching 'spirit of place' at the Gold Coast derives from its ocean coastline and secondly from river and canal waterway edges. Other characteristics that make Gold Coast special derive from those qualities that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging. As urbanisation intensified with it came growing numbers of small and large businesses to service the new city residents as well as transient visitors. Increased activity and services was the catalyst for visits from hinterland suburbanites and out-of-town trippers seeking to participate in the emerging urbanity as they partake of the natural attractions. At risk is degradation of 'sense of place'. Theoretical constructs relating to 'sense of place' will be explored. Three milestone initiatives are discussed in terms of fixed, semi-fixed and un-fixed elements as well as their functioning and contribution to the city's urban vitality and 'sense of place'. Speculative design interventions are also discussed that could initiate debate about encouraging Gold Coast City to adopt a sustainable healthy balance between urbanisation and sense of place. These respond to the uniqueness of every place.

Urban Policy and Research, 2016

Since ancient times, most cities have been established in locations that possess natural attributes that are essential for the survival and wellbeing of their citizens. Such attributes have included harbours, permanent freshwater sources, forests, fertile agricultural land, building materials and defensible topography. More recently, however, some cities have seemingly transcended these biophysical limitations by exploiting resources found in 'hinterlands' that stretch hundreds or even thousands of kilometres from the urban core. Such cities ostensibly defy the biophysical constraints of the environments upon which they depend. Some of these cities, like Las Vegas, exist overtly for pleasure and commerce rather than industry or culture. Davis and Monk (2007) suggest they are underpinned by the production and marketing of distinctive environmental imaginaries of cornucopian abundance. In reality, these 'paradises' manifest ecological degradation, social polarisation and boom-bust growth. Could Australia's Gold Coast be this type of city?

Fabrications, 2020

Since the nineteenth century a physically distant Metropolis has been invoked to determine the validity of Australian architectural projects and their ideas, and the assumption is this Metropolis sends out resolved principles to a provincial culture. This view assumes that actual immigration to Australia equals cultural erasure. It assumes Australia’s architectural culture is infantile or child-like and must accept a continual and necessarily painful education- the pedagogical focus-to animate local architecture. It is frequently asserted that architects whose capacities do not seem adequately recognised in Australia would always fare better in this Metropolis. The Metropolis proves, on closer inspection, to be nebulous and varied in location. Its constituent countries and cultures, usually associated with “age” and cultural power, have warred with each other constantly, and have consistently driven architects from its perceived membership. Its principles are frequently changing and...

many coastal mass tourism centres have attempted to reinvent themselves as they have grown from informal coastal towns into large cities. lifestyle migration boosts urban growth as these cities become home to 'permanent tourists' attracted by the characteristics that attract tourism. Australia's best known resort, the Queensland Gold Coast, provides a case study of a resort region experiencing similar transformations to those noted in Honolulu, miami and Sitges, Spain. These cities have pursued broader socioeconomic resilience rather than the common strategy of simply expanding or improving their tourism appeal. Using literature review and documentary research, this paper traces how ideas of a 'knowledge city' have featured in Gold Coast planning history since the 1980s, through proposals including an 'innovation corridor' , 'research triangle' , a designated knowledge precinct and the development of universities and hospitals under plans and strategies for economic development. Although implementation has been sporadic, the case study demonstrates a continuity in narrative that has shaped outcomes towards the desired 'knowledge city' , thereby creating a more cohesive urban structure integrating knowledge nodes, town centres and urban transport infrastructure investments. This case study will add knowledge to inform planners grappling with the transformation of similar coastal tourism areas into significant cities. Keywords knowledge based urban development (KBUD), Gold Coast, coastal tourism city, knowledge city, health and knowledge precincts. How to Cite O'Hare, Daniel. "A history of visions and plans for the transformation of a coastal tourism city into a knowledge city: Australia's gold coast". In Carola Hein (ed.

In his Modern Architecture since 1900 (1982 ff.) William J.R. Curtis attempts to present a "balanced, readable overall view of the development of modern architecture from its beginning until the recent past" and to include the architecture of the non-western world, a subject overlooked by previous histories of modern architecture. Curtis places authenticityat the core of his research and uses it as the criterion to assess the historicity of modern architecture. While the second edition (1987) of Curtis's book appeared with just an addendum, for the third edition (1996) he undertook a full revision, expansion and reorganisation of the content. The new edition, it will be posited, does present a more 'authentic' account of the development of modern architecture in other parts of the world, presenting a comprehensive view of Australian architecture. Compared to the additions and modifications of other post-colonial examples, there is scant difference in Curtis' account of Australian modern architecture between the first (1982) and the third (1996) editions. Even in the third edition (1996) the main reference to Australian modern architecture is confined to the Sydney Opera House as well as a brief commentary of the work of Harry Seidler, Peter Muller, Peter Johnson, Rick Leplastrier and Glenn Murcutt. In the years separating the two editions, regionalism in architecture was debated and framed in different ways by Paul Rudolph, Kenneth Frampton and Curtis, among others. In analysing the absence of Australian architecture as a 'golden' example of regionalism, this paper presents a critical overview of Curtis' understanding of the notion of an ‘authentic’ regionalism.

Griffith University-Urban Research Program, …, 2011

The Gold Coast City is Australia's fourth largest touristed city. This paper is a case study of placemaking, 'tourism urbanisation' and its counterpart 'community urbanisation', on the Southport Spit; the last remnant of undeveloped public open space in the Gold Coast City. In touristed cities like the Gold Coast histories of tourism urbanisation predominate and other placemaking histories are largely marginalised or erased. We seek to address this outcome by relating a story of community urbanisation on the Southport Spit, a story that emerged because of tourism urbanisation. The histories related demonstrate that within an overarching, dominant urbanisation discourse local everyday placemaking practices flourish and have effect. The paper concludes with possibilities for recognising and acknowledging these other practices of urbanisation.