Sunshine Coast Industrial Park

This corporate industrial park north of Brisbane is the perfect example of industry being carefully woven into a backdrop of vegetation and wetlands.

Industrial estates are the parts of our cities that are normally the ugliest and most polluted. In Australia, our industries claimed first our waterfronts for transportation, and then the outback for resources. As cities grew to make their own things locally, factories established themselves in flat lowlands near transportation.

A corporate sign signals the entrance to the industrial park.

A corporate sign signals the entrance to the industrial park.

Image: Scott Burrows

The notion of the corporate industrial park was one of a suite of ideas popularized by the “American Dream” modern city: areas of productivity and mobility removed from the homes and open spaces of the suburbs. They were to reflect the changes in society as power moved from agricultural production to industry, and then onto the cleaner and sometimes virtual industries of IT and human services. Global capitalism created a demand for larger, cleaner and more efficient clusters of production. Industrial estates thus began to have a more public, retail function: a combination of factory, warehouse, showroom and eventually shopfront.

Sunshine Coast Industrial Park is a model example of the evolution of industry toward a clean and green future. Located on the outskirts of Caloundra, north of Brisbane, it comprises 215 hectares, thirty-eight hectares of which is valuable remnant heath wetland. The estate has been developed by the Queensland Government and landscape architect Gamble McKinnon Green (GMG) has been involved from the planning through to construction administration, which alone lasted over six months.

Only a few factories have been established to date, so one could be forgiven for thinking that it is more bucolic than it will be as it develops. Bushland is sprouting up along all the perimeters and lowlands of the site, its fast growth preceding industry thanks to the global financial crisis. It may also be that the tougher environmental demand on industry here is creating a low take-up. By the time it gets going in two or three years, the site will have the appearance of being reclaimed and stitched into its vegetated backdrop.

The main wetland has been constructed on defunct pastures and an old pine plantation.

The main wetland has been constructed on defunct pastures and an old pine plantation.

Image: Scott Burrows

One can imagine the surprise of the workers from a machining factory or a vitamin distribution plant when they walk out for a smoko and stumble onto walkways through wetlands. They can birdwatch while they sit under the shelters and eat their lunch.

There is more to this site than the reappearance of nature. The defunct pastures and remnant pine plantation have been carefully restructured around the movement of water. A large wedge of reclaimed and preserved wetland splits the industrial estate into two. Waterways channel, polish and filter stormwater from roads and lots into a complex series of wetlands, bioretention ponds and detention basins, before passing into the creeks leading to pristine Pumicestone Passage. To get under the main boulevard, there are well-considered fauna and stormwater culverts, which allow the movements of small animals such as the endangered acid frog. There is even a skylight in the central median to encourage animals to move in light.

The main constructed wetland is impressive in a La Notre kind of way – massive earthworks to drop the land to a wetland level, with rectangular vegetated terraces that lend the early landscape a curiously formal air. Soils have been retained on-site to raise the lots, as has the compost material created from chipping pine trees.

While aiming for an environmental outcome, this landscape is more than nature. It is a carefully orchestrated manufactured system. Led by Greg Thomas from GMG, we climbed into the massive chamber that is the gateway for stormwater arriving from the southern roads. This scary catacomb is a trash trapper, allowing water to pass on to the reeds and rushes which will further filter it.

There is some aesthetic ground yet to be claimed in these wetland constructions. The environmental engineers claim the drawing board for these landscape systems and their heavy touch shows in the planting and earthworks. Perhaps this engineered formality could have been strengthened further to contrast with the natural wetland to the north, thus making the manufactured ecology even more evidently expressed. In this instance, the engineering of the waterway has created an unresolved formalism which is at odds with the naturalism applied elsewhere on the site.

Vegetation is sprouting up all over the estate.

Vegetation is sprouting up all over the estate.

Image: Scott Burrows

The remnant wetland areas comprising most of the remaining triangle of waterways appear to be re-establishing well. When walking alongside the heath, the birdsong is rewarding. The streetscapes are very generous with their close tree cover and wide perimeters of bushland. The intended function of these green strips as fauna corridors for birds seems entirely achievable.

The obligatory corporate entry statement has been done well. The boulevard leading off the entry has missed opportunities to harvest water in its median and verges, which is a shame because the conventionality of the civil works does not match the innovation of the green landscape. Despite this, the native trees have fared well and the tubestock trees have nearly caught the bagstock trees after a few years.

This corporate industrial park succeeds in creating bush inside industry, a complete reversal of conventional development. Its state government client has sought and created a very green hybrid of the industrial park typology. Where it has failed relates not to its landscape qualities but to its urbanism – this work cluster is located next to a freeway but distant from any other supporting functions. Workers will drive many kilometres to get a paper or a pie, pay a bill or go home. The industrial estate should have been placed within walking distance of some other existing centre. Its walkways and bikeways would then have somewhere to link to, instead of ending at the estate entry and boundaries. The Sunshine Coast is quickly morphing into a low-density suburban sprawl, which, in its very planning, is creating a carbon footprint failure.

Platform structures allow industrial estate workers to enjoy breaks in natural surroundings.

Platform structures allow industrial estate workers to enjoy breaks in natural surroundings.

We need industry to be as green as this, but we need it in the right places. We need ecology to be a key force in every site. As Timothy Morton reminds us in his challenging book, Ecology without Nature, we no longer need the concept of “nature” to drive our contemporary ideas and forms of ecological expression. Places such as these industrial parks are intentional, manufactured ecological systems. How we express them as places for contemporary living is our ongoing challenge.

–John Mongard

“The Sunshine Coast is experiencing significant pressures from both environmental and social changes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified south-east Queensland as being particularly vulnerable to climate change. Urban encroachment is also leading to species loss and increasingly fragmented habits. In parallel, the region’s population is likely to double over the next twenty years.

“In 1996 the University of the Sunshine Coast was established with a core mission relating to both sustainability and regional engagement in order to address regional and international priority issues. Similarly, the recently amalgamated Sunshine Coast Regional Council has a vision to create the most sustainable region in Australia. Recent attempts to enhance the resilience of regional socio-ecological systems include the creation of Australia’s first United Nations “Man and the Biosphere” Reserve. While the Sunshine Coast will continue to face sustainability challenges, there remains a groundswell of both action and optimism as demonstrated by local community groups like Landcare and the Sunshine Coast Environment Council, industry and regional organizations. The biggest concern, however, is the emphasis placed within contemporary society on economic growth over the sustainability of the systems that support life on the planet.”

–Professor Tim Smith, director of the Sustainability Research Centre at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Credits

Project
Sunshine Coast Industrial Park
Landscape architect
Gamble McKinnon Green Brisbane
West End, Brisbane, Qld, Australia
Project Team
Mike McKinnon, Greg Thomas, Tracey Carbis, Cassandra Rose, Michael Cross, Tom Brook
Consultants
Civil contractor BMD
Engineer GHD
Environmental consultant GHD
Landscape contractor JMAC Constructions
Planning consultant GHD
Project management Projex Qld
Specialist environmental contracting Arborcare
Wetland specialist Australian Wetlands
Site Details
Location Caloundra,  Brisbane,  Qld,  Australia
Site type Suburban
Project Details
Status Unbuilt
Design, documentation 12 months
Construction 18 months
Category Commercial, Landscape / urban
Client
Client name Queensland Government, Department of Infrastructure and Planning

Source

Project

Published online: 9 Jan 2012
Words: John Mongard
Images: Scott Burrows

Issue

Landscape Architecture Australia, February 2011

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