YARRABAH TOWN CENTRE REVITALISATION

Yarrabah is an Aboriginal beach-side community of 5,000 people located an hour east of Cairns. As the largest indigenous community in Queensland it has a fantastic Council, rich cultural history and is nestled between forested hills and a beautiful beach. Its picturesque setting is however, undermined by poor urban form, a lack of jobs and opportunities for employment, as well as activities for youth within the town. Catherine whiilst working at Hatch RobertsDay was asked to create a Town Centre Masterplan to guide delivery of community and economic development outcomes in Yarrabah.

The Town Centre masterplan work included centre design, place-making, concept design for Bishop Malcolm Park, way finding design and architectural concept design for the retail centre. The ultimate intent of this work is to create a destination for visitors to Yarrabah; expanding its economy, employment opportunities and quality of place. In the interim it is expected that construction work will lead to further employment opportunities for locals. Yarrabah is known for its artworks, therefore, as part of this economic strategy integrated artwork is a central component. It is anticipated that the majority of built work will include artworks that exemplify the rich and diverse cultural Vstories of Yarrabah.

Key Outcomes:

• Indigenous and cultural engagement: Sensitivities to place and culture has led to an informed and responsive engagement and consultation strategy. Extensive engagement over a number of platforms and cultural groups has led to innovative placemaking outcomes, with art, activation, history and placemaking at the forefront. This has opened up placemaking opportunities at the intersection between infrastructure and public art, events and park design and history and way finding.

• Economic uplift strategies: We combined design and place to champion great Town Centre strategies that can be ‘owned’ by the community. These include placemaking interventions which integrate culture within the space and can be created and managed by community.

• Activated Park Design: The masterplan identified a range of strategies to re-activate the Town Centre Park from covered stage design, to a shipwreck playground, sheltered space for ‘sorry business’, as well as new signage, seating, pathways and toilets.

This has been heartily supported by community.

• Early activation, long-term renewal: The work explores possibilities across a range of timeframes, from ‘quick wins’ which can bring life to the Town Centre through to retail strategies to be phased across coming years. The work will provide a framework for decision-making and the prioritisation of interventions.



 

  • Comprehensive engagement and community-led planning

  • Indigenous engagement

  • Addressing controversies and community anger over prior planning

  • Ambitious urban design, density and built form outcomes

  • Production of a masterplan that can be leveraged for further government grant funding to jump start a tourism centre

  • Thank you to YASC for permissions

Sites

Yarrabah, Queensland

When

2017 - 2019

Team

Catherine Simpson working at Hatch RobertsDay and Craig Christensen, Birdy Bird whilst working with Plan C, the Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Council, Andrew Sly whilst working at EDQ and EDQ team members.