Australia’s sixth largest city, the Gold Coast, is often described as a place where beach and surf culture dominate over all other cultural pursuits. With the 2011 draft Gold Coast Cultural Precinct Masterplan, Queensland’s second city is now mapping out an alternative cultural future in time to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
The question of how a cultural precinct might redefine the Gold Coast was considered at Speculator, a recent exhibition by Bond University architecture students in collaboration with CRAB Studio (Cook Robotham Architectural Bureau) in Surfers Paradise. The students created twenty-one propositions as sketch models suspended by a central armature designed by CRAB. Many of the students made propositions that offered additional program beyond typical arts and culture precincts and which considered the process of production. Processes focused upon included tea-making, fish farming and silk manufacturing.
CRAB Studio, designers of Bond University’s Soheil Abedian School of Architecture building, also created a wrap that was suspended from the ceiling; its form echoed the shape of Evandale Lake, the site of the cultural precinct. It was CRAB’s gesture for the future of the precinct: the meandering of the curved walls suggested an intimate enclosure for the existing buildings within the precinct that was in stark contrast to the sprawling urban landscape that surrounds it. However, it raised the question: Does walling in the precinct send the wrong signal, or is the consolidation of civic culture the way forward for the GC?
Coordinated in partnership with the Gold Coast Art Gallery and Gold Coast City Council, Speculator was a free public exhibition (10–18 August 2012) at the Hilton Hotel Arcade, Surfers Paradise.
On 9 December 2012, Gold Coast City Council announced a design competition to turn Evandale into the Gold Coast’s cultural centre. Entries open March 2013. Read more.
