Individual Project One Statement

At the heart of any thriving retail experience lies four key themes:  Connection, Community, Identity and Belonging. By preserving these key themes into the future and strengthening those around the Paddington site can ensure that we preserve the heart of Paddington central, whatever it may become.

There is a growing threat to increase the density of the surrounding suburbs of Brisbane in order to sustain current population growth. But how can you retain the character of the Paddington area, and all other strongly characterised places surrounding Brisbane while reaping the benefits of a dense and sustainable city.

By focusing on retrofitting flexible, usable spaces at highly dense points throughout the fabric of a city and preserving the existing grain of the sprawl can cut costs of building and everyday transport by 90%. The most sustainable building is the one that you don’t build, or the car trip that you don’t take.

By simply changing our perception of the urban sprawl in Brisbane from a template of environmental destruction, to a seed for sustainable living and high quality of life, suddenly changes ones thinking about what the sprawl was and is; to what the sprawl could become.

Similarly, the current use of online media and personal profiling receives comparable negative connotations.  Society’s hesitation behind adopting these technologies lies in the distrust for the people who ‘own’ the information. What if this too were to change? Could information be freely shared across the globe with trust and honesty? How could each single person’s online profile shape their lifestyles in both the physical and virtual realm now that the barriers of distrust and dishonestly have been removed?

Brisbane 2040 can become the ‘new world city’ that we hope it will. By implementing a strategic dispersal of high density nodes radiating out from the CBD can both reap the benefits of high density living from within the existing environment of the urban sprawl.

Simultaneously, technological advancements and quick integration into society based on a strong trust can lead to levels of accessibility never before seen. By creating a virtual overlay of current physical connections each person’s online profile creates a perfect symbiotic relationship between virtual and physical realms.