Clermont Study
The Central Queensland Highlands town of Clermont was founded in 1862 following the discovery of gold. Copper and coal mining soon followed and the town became a railhead in 1888 and a centre for beef and wool growing. Clermont makes much historical capital from a flood in 1916 in which 61 people died. Much of the original town was destroyed in this event and the remains were physically relocated to higher ground by a steam traction engine that is featured in the local museum. The wool industry has been since replaced by extensive grain and, more recently, cotton growing following construction of the Fairbairn Dam and this has shifted the economic heart of the region to Emerald. Changes to workplace practices for coal mining have also impacted on Clermont because the shift-working miners are no longer an active part of the local community. All of these changes have impacted negatively on the economic base of the town. This project, in collaboration with and sponsored by the Belyando Shire Council, sought to look for new economic opportunities for the town.

Walsh, MacMinn and Amos (2000) sought to develop a Master Plan that established a contemporary future for the town that is diverse, productive and achievable. They explored solutions that were derived from the existing resources within the town and landscape inspirations. A thematic slogan of Rio Bravo, inspired by the movie of this name, recognised that the frontier atmosphere that helped to establish the town was more than capable of realising the opportunities proposed. The Master Plan involved four dimensions of enterprise comprising: new agricultural enterprises; conciliation and arbitration; historical technology; and a recreation destination. Central to achieving the Master Plan’s aims was the concept of the Clermont Training Places, an initiative that [uses] vacant buildings and sites in Clermont for training facilities focused on productivity and development of new community skills and knowledge (Walsh 2000).

Within this strategic framework Walsh (2000) proposed South Yards in a largely vacant area that once housed railway yards, cattle yards, and a rail spur to an old powerhouse and grain silos to house the new Training Places. The site’s proximity to the disused Powerhouse, vacant Rainbow and Paramount Picture Theatres, the High School, vacant service industry sheds and the under-utilised Railway Station and associated buildings to provide the low cost infrastructure required to establish training facilities. The South Yards setting was to be transformed into an attractive and functional core to the town as a focus for Training Places that provides an environment conducive to visitors and stimulates productivity (Figure 5).

Figure 5 – South Park Training Places (Walsh (2000)

An emphasis on research and innovation in alternative technologies provided the driving force behind a Master Plan for Clermont proposed by Barton, Crocker and Tjiandra-goh (2000). Their Kame Koncept was inspired by the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, the inspirational Indigenous artist of the desert region and the Anmatyerre people, who is responsible for the Yam stories which reverberate with her ephemeral spiritual connection and belonging to the Earth. Kame is the tribal name for the Yam which cracks the earth as its tuber ripens. This image informed the three-pronged strategy combining:
• the Yam signifying the latent energy within rural communities and the earth;
• the Cracking Lines signifying the NETWORK or web of complex interrelationships between KULTURAL LAYERS, LINKAGES, and LANDSCAPES; and
• the KAME MASTERPLAN intended to CONNECT, ENMESH and INVIGORATE the Clermont Community with NEW ENERGIES, NEW NETWORKS to inspire a NEW FUTURE.

The latent energy in the earth idea led to a proposal to establish a Hot Dry Rock (HDR) Technology Research Centre and Power Station at Clermont that utilises the earth’s geothermal energy for renewable power generation. This involves tapping the known hotspots in the Great Artesian Basin to access superheated water in a closed cycle that returns the water underground to be re-heated after passing through the turbines (Figure 6). This particular proposal reinforces the idea of a multi-layered approach to regional economics. In this case the attraction was location in relation to a major geothermal energy source that could replace reliance on fossil fuels for power generation when Blair Athol closed operations. Such a project involves major infrastructure investment and would require coordinated support from all levels of government to initiate it.

Figure 6 – The HDR Geothermal Energy Environment (Barton, Crocker and Tjiandra-goh 2000).

Another master plan entitled The New Frontier highlighted the Landscape Studio’s fundamental message of combining design and economic theory at multiple layers to produce a robust strategy for vertical and horizontal integration of social, environmental and economic considerations. It also exemplified the concepts of equity in community, collaboration and sustainability, a position sought throughout the studios. Its authors Erickson, Slade and Swanson (2000) had a vision of:

Creating innovative and explorative opportunities in the town of Clermont and the Belyando region that empowers the community to plan for an economically and environmentally sustainable future. The core of the masterplan is the implementation of ESFIH5 -growth - online, which centrally locates information retrieval and distribution, via internet and video-conferencing in a communication centre. Support from political and government organisations of these ventures, increases integration of rural communities into the national political and economic landscapes. The introduction of a horticultural/agricultural TAFE adjacent to these facilities creates the opportunity to implement research in the field, bringing innovative ideas into reality. The pioneering of these ventures becomes a model for the revival of rural towns, on a regional, national and global scale.

Within this strategic framework Erickson (2000), in her strategy for Clermont Landlines, sought to integrate the Clermont community with their landscape through the subtle insertion of a productive land art. This involved the revegetation of the town and region with contour aligned bands of native species found in the Brigalow belt that merge over time to form natural ecosystems. Trees are planted along road connections to town facilities to enhance legibility. The trees can eventually be harvested for bushfood (Figure 7).

Bands of native species are planted along the natural lie of the land to revegetate the town and broader region

Figure 7– Clermont landlines (Erickson 2000).

River City of the 21st Century Conjectural Studio
The Semester 1, 2002 Advanced Landscape Design Studio explored possible futures of the “River City of the 21st Century”. The studio was based on the conjectural proposition that globalisation, climate change, the need to shift from fossil fuels and generated energy to renewable and sustainable energies, the age of cyberspace, and the emergence of new economies and social dynamics would produce a future river city that is very different from that which now exists. Two recent papers by the noted urban designer Peter Droege (Droege 2001a,b) provided the theoretical foundations for exploration of the possible forms, functions and character of the “River City of the 21st Century” derived from an expanded contemporary urban theory. The ways in which rivers often divide cities provided a particular studio focus aimed at identifying key commonalities and differences this separation might influence and two areas of inner Brisbane on opposite sides of the Brisbane River were selected.

Of specific interest to this paper was one group response to dealing with the West End/South Brisbane side of the River (McGill, Millard, Elms and Scott 2002). This group strongly embraced the concepts of LED as the core of the Theoretical Framework developed to underpin their design development. The thematic title of their Strategy was the Working Suburb (Figure 8) which drew on work of the UK based Urban and Economic Development Group (URBED 1997) to develop practical solutions for regenerating run down urban areas, Rudin and Falk’s work on sustainable urban neighbourhoods (Rudin and Falk 2000) and Peter Latz’s work on the unreal landscapes that follow industry (Latz 2000).

Figure 7 – The Working Suburb (McGill, Millard, Elms and Scott 2002).

Within this framework the following intervention proposals were developed:
• Industrial areas in transition have been targeted to be redeveloped as medium density housing in a Brisbane City Local Area Plan. McGill (2002) argued that the industrial buildings should be retained and redeveloped to provide workshops, studios, and residential units as a low rental “creative village” for community industries associated with the arts. The core rationale for this argument is the site’s proximity to the city’s Cultural Centre (Art Gallery, Museum and Performing Arts Complex), the State Library and the soon to be constructed Gallery of Modern Art.
• Millard (2002) explored Trancik’s (1986) ideas of figure/ground analysis and finding lost space to re-configure the public, semi-public and private open space in two highly strategic locations to encourage both private and community diversification of the availability of goods and services to the West End community.
• Elms (2002) also drew on Trancik (1986) and proposed the re-configuration of the public domain, public transport networks, car parking arrangements and general spatial enhancement to re-invigorate a local shopping node.