The benefits of multi-functional urban open spaces for community wellbeing, leisure and city health are now well researched, understood and globally appreciated. Brisbane City Council have identified this large inner-urban site as a significant city-building opportunity to meet the evolving aspirations of Brisbane’s community.

The site holds a spiritual significance to the aboriginal people originally living on and with this landscape. More recent history has seen it progressively occupied by temporary camps, private housing, schools, hospitals and the Brisbane Showgrounds significantly reducing the accessible open space. In the late 1920s golf links were laid across 45 hectares, further limiting public use of the parkland, although use as a golf course undoubtedly prevented further permanent & intensive land-use encroachment. A steady reduction in patronage of the golf links has been the key driver for council commencing a visioning and master planning process.

 “Victoria Park will be a natural retreat, an urban park for adventure, discovery & reconnection.”

– Victoria Park Vision, Brisbane City Council

The Victoria Park Vision will begin the design process for the site’s evolution over the next 50 years. It will be used as a basis for technical studies that will inform a comprehensive master plan and contribute to reshaping the city around a deeper understanding of history, culture and nature.

The vision has been developed by LatStudios in partnership with, and under the leadership of BCC’s City Planning & Sustainability Major Projects team. Key collaborations included Wilkinson Eyre Architects, an international team of supporting consultants, and in particular, technical teams and specialist leaders within Council.

Community consultation and ideas generation was undertaken by Council over various events and pop-up displays, and through an extensive program of online public feedback conducted over several months. Council also engaged with representatives from surrounding schools, hospitals and other institutions, as well as local Indigenous groups.

The design framework for the new park is shaped by eight strategies that articulate how the vision will be achieved. Strategies consider the park’s unique history, the needs of the city and surrounding communities, environmental imperatives, and opportunities offered by the site’s natural features and location.

Three themes are common across all strategies —

Recognition: Creating a place to respectfully celebrate the connection between culture and nature across past, present and future generations.

Restoration: Celebrating our unique interwoven landscape and ecosystems.

Reconnection: Making transformational connections that stitch the parkland back into the city.

Project Benefits
LatStudios' work:

• Creates a place to respectfully celebrate the connection between culture and nature across past, present and future generations.
• Celebrates our unique interwoven landscape and ecosystems.
• Makes transformational connections that stitch the parkland back into the city.
• Provided the Vision to enable the project at a Councillor level, attract funding for the future park and gain stakeholder and community support.