BRISBANE 2032 OPPORTUNITIES FOR AN OLYMPIC LEGACY. Article 6: Maker, Cultural and Creative Industry Precincts
Abstract
A brief discussion of the emergence of creative industry and cultural quarters as an approach to urban regeneration in the UK, Australia and parts of Europe since 1984. It is argued that this sort of initiative would fit well at the Bowen Hills development precinct in Brisbane, focusing on contemporary arts and design, and located close to the Showgrounds.
About the Authors
Claire Sourgnes is the Chief Executive Officer at Artisan, the Queensland Centre for Craft and Design and the contemporary design lead organisation for Queensland. Contact: info@udal.org.au
Craig Addley is the Urban Design and Development Manager with the Walker Corporation, and the Vice President of the Urban Design Alliance (UDAL). Contact: info@udal.org.au
This article is with John Montgomery, an urban planner, regional planner, urban economist and strategic designer. In the early 1990s he began undertaking projects on developing the cultural industries, creative and cultural quarters and arts and urban regeneration – including major studies of the creative industries across the UK. Contact: info@udal.org.au
Article
Bowen Hills, just to the north of Brisbane’s CBD, has been identified as a growing employment and cultural precinct within the city centre. The are is currently home to the RNA Showgrounds and the annual agricultural show – the “Ekka” – showcasing regional produce, arts and crafts and animal husbandry. The area is also evolving as a sophisticated cafe culture, with key tenancies like Artisan, and the Meat and Livestock Association.
Artisan Gallery, Bowen Hills, Brisbane: Artisan is the lead industry body for contemporary crafts across Queensland, and operates a gallery and shop at King Street, Bowen Hills
Bowen Hills is seen as a place of possible Olympic Games scope –  a location of a ‘Makers’ Precinct’ for contemporary crafts and objets.  This envisages using underused spaces and properties as workshops and studios. Making is a contemporary notion in urban policy, dating from the early 1980s. and evolving from both the creative industries, the plastic arts and contemporary crafts. It concerns the fashioning and fabrication of objects either as one-offs or in small batch production and lited editions. These objects range from jewelry, ceramics, lighting, sculpture, furniture making, musical instruments and more. As well as the objects produced, making is seen as a valuable means of teaching craft and manual skills. This argument was applied in the UK, for example, in the early 1980s in relation to sound recording, film making and photography, modern and contemporary crafts.
Cultural Industry Quarters (or Precincts in Australia) began in their modern guise around 1984 in Sheffield. At a time of large-scale industrial restructuring of the steel industry the newly created Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) at Sheffield City Council made what was then an unusual policy decision: to establish cultural production facilities and spaces in the old Little Meister[i]s area of the city centre, not a five-minute walk from main railway station. This began with opening of Red Tape Studios, run by the Council as a music and recording training facility for unemployed young people. The model was repeated successfully at AVEC (the Audio-Visual Enterprise Centre) and the Workstation managed workshop and incubator, the Showroom cinema, Site Gallery, Yorkshire Arts Space and Studios, and Butcher Works as a design and steel craft workshop.
The Workstation, Cultural Industries Quarter (CIQ), Sheffield, 1995, by John Montgomery: A former car showroom converted into a creative industries managed workspace and art house cinema from 1988
Similar work was being mooted in London, at the Greater London Enterprise Board[ii] as part of the London Industrial Strategy. The argument is that as well as venues to ‘consume’ art – watching, listening, viewing in galleries, theatres and concert halls – a strong arts sector produces new work, notably in music recording, film, the fine arts and contemporary design and theatre. These became the ‘industries of culture’ where the important stress is on work and new work, production, and selling products into markets
Many cultural (later creative) industries tend to concentrate in older urban areas, the zones of transition of old. These tended to be areas of former light industrial factories. There are benefits from agglomeration, shared facilities and workspaces and the proximity of other artists, entrepreneurs and businesses. Early examples in London included North Kensington (sound recording, film and tv) Hackney, Shoreditch (design and architecture), Hoxton, and Wood Green, a feeder for West End Theatre productions.
By 2004 many examples from the UK and the US, and from Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland had sprung up– the Cable, Chocolate and Custard Factories, the Gas Works, the Boston Mattress Factory. In Australia there are initiatives like Metro Arts in Brisbane, the Jam Factory in Adelaide, Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne and Salamanca Place in Hobart. Sydney would later develop Carriage Works. Indeed, this model extended to China, Portugal and Italy.
The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham, circa 1993: This was set up from the early 1990s by the owners of Canalot Studios in North Kensington. Built around creative production, exhibition and performance, it became a mixed use project with flats and an hotel.
The Jam Factory, Adelaide, specialises in glass making. It also has a shop and a theatre space adjoining.
Other such quarters became more mixed, combining production with consumption (venues) cultural events and festivals, café culture, the nighttime economy and urban mixed use. This was notably true of Temple Bar from 1992, Glasgow’s Merchant City and Manchester’s Northern Quarter after 1995. A broadly similar approach was followed in Belfast Cathedral Quarter, and in Dundee[iii].
Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, 1997: An existing project, from 1992 the new building was designed and built. As well as the gallery and workshops, it contains 26 low cost artists’ studios.
Yorkshire Arts Space, Sheffield Cultural Industries: A complex of artists’ studios, workshops and a gallery. The organisation was established in 1977 and the new building opened in 2001.
The Cable Factory, Helsinki: The former telecom factory that manufactured sea-bed telephone cables, was transformed into a creative industries centre in the 1990s.
Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin, 1997, John Montgomery.
Artists’ studios, Salamanca. The adjacent buildings contain furniture designers and makers, as well as studios.
Taking this history as a starting point, we focused on Bowen Hills, an emerging mixed use and residential precinct just to the north of Brisbane CBD and adjacent to Fortitude Valley. The Brisbane Showgrounds district, QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct at the Kelvin Grove Urban Village and the nighttime area of Fortitude Valley are nearby.
Artisan[iv] proposes that Bowen Hills should become a production or makers’ precinct for contemporary crafts, design and visual art. The Bowen Hills Makers’ Precinct would focus on retail, viewing, distribution but also with important activities such as showcasing, brokering and acting as an industry network. Production would be bought in from elsewhere in Queensland. But, importantly, local production would be supported by studio and workspaces, business incubators, facilities houses, start-up loans and grants. There would be a network and cluster of studios, workshops, galleries and other spaces that would house and support an emerging makers’ economy. This would include a proposed 1400 sq m facility made up of studios and workshops. These would be open the public for tours, and available for events, learning and skills development. Classes and courses would be offered in ceramics, jewelry and textiles. There would be residences by international artists, and outreach and community programmes.
The key elements are:
- Resident creative small business occupying design studios
- Supported by a Business Incubator
- Larger studio spaces and workshops
- A First Nations craft and design retail outlet
- Meeting rooms for classes and events.
This facility – the Brisbane Makers’ Hub – would be developed adjacent to Artisan’s existing gallery on King Street. As such, Artisan argues it would act as an anchor tenant connecting Brisbane Showgrounds, King Street and Fortitude Valley. By attracting users and visitors it would also generate cultural tourism and growing precinct vibrancy.
‘The Makers Table’ – examined opportunities to catalyse the emerging makers, entertainment and cultural identity of Bowen Hill, through redevelopment, infill and regenerative proposals. The precinct, historically defined by the RNA and now Kings Street, remains constrained by major road corridors and overpass structures, rail corridors and infrastructure. These imposing structures and corridors create a perception of an area that is difficult to access and navigate, despite it being located within walking distance to both the Fortitude Valley and James Street Precincts. Yet Bowen Hills also boasts significant institutional, transit and parkland assets both within and on its doorstep – QUT Kelvin Grove Campus, RBWH, Victoria Park redevelopment and to the north Enoggerra Creek.  A priority should be ‘opening up’ the precinct through new infill development, new cultural and artistic endeavours and streetscape improvements
The UDAL Charrette Table identified six opportunities to capitalise on Bowen Hills’ strategic location and future potential:
- The delivery of the upgraded rail station as part of the Cross River Rail project
- The future potential of the rail sidings (subject to relocation and flooding constraints) for new development
- The future delivery of the once mooted Millennium Square project on the Newscorp site
- Access to Enoggera Creek through a ‘low line’ parklands project- beneath the M7 and Clem 7 structures
- The delivery generally, of higher density, affordable transit oriented residential development
- A broader branding and communications strategy of the “Bo-Ho Makers Precinct’
Fabrico Santa Thyrso, Portugal: This was a major conference on creating a creative industry and design quarter in Santo Thyrso near Porto. John Montgomery was Keynote Speaker. Other examples discussed included Amsterdam, Lille and Birmingham.
In conclusion, there are two aspects to Thyrso, Portugal: ca Santa promoting Bowen Hills as a Makers’ Precinct. The first is the working up of a concept and sketch plan of the Makers’ Hub as a building and cultural resource. This will include the mix of uses, schedule of required floorspace and fixtures, a preferred location and possible sites, possible anchor tenants, income from rents and fees and so on, leading up to a detailed feasibility study and business plan.
In addition, an Urban Strategy for the wider area or part of it will need to be prepared. As well as addressing the development objectives and issues recognized by the Charrette Table. This will identify key development sites, remediation works, infrastructure investments and a proposed mix of uses, activities, building types, densities, storey heights, street layout, the public realm and more.
In progressing these it would also be important to consider what additional workshops, galleries, studios and other cultural facilities may be introduced into the precinct or an area within it.