Masterplanning for Small Communities

The Studios, convened by James Cook University’s (JCU’s) Tropical Urbanism and Design Lab (TUDLab), bring together JCU’s planning students with local councils, design professionals and the wider community to prepare strategic town centre master plans. The series gives students, as future planning professionals, experience in–and an understanding of—a ‘real life’ urban design process. In return, the client council receives urban design direction that is community- and professionally based with a youthful insight.

Since 2015, the TUDLab team have brought together teams of students to investigate urban design strategies that can bring about regeneration in regional towns. Good urban design can stimulate positive changes such as: attracting tourists and new residents to aging agricultural townships (improving access and signage along highways); enhancing liveability for current residents (providing meaningful urban experiences); and keeping local youth engaged and participating in civic life (providing lively streets and civic spaces).

Although the issues each town faces appear similar on the surface, stakeholder workshops in each place reveal different visions for each town and different means for achieving them. Towns vary due to natural characteristics, community backgrounds and sense of place, but commonalities throughout suggest the process evolved by the TUDLab team has a wider significance for rural towns across the country. It is a process that has potential application in other areas and could be repeated in other parts of rural and regional Australia.