In August of last year, we began a series of design talks with John Armstrong of Harbinger Consultants (http://harbingerconsultants.wordpress.com/) to develop ideas for artisitc surface treatments for the soon to be constructed Fitzgibbon Chase Community Centre, Brisbane – developed by the Urban Land Development Authority (ULDA).  John was responsible for curating the Artists / artworks for the first stage of Fitzgibbon and we were very excited to be included on this stage of the project, along with two other amazing Brisbane Artists – Britta Gudd and Andrea Fisher.  We will also be fabricating specialised public art ‘domes’ for display that Lucas designed for this project which i will talk about in a future post and include images of Britta’s and Andrea’s beautiful work.

The Masterplan, above.  The proposed Community Centre below:

The Fitzgibbon Chase Community Centre then received funding from Art+Place – Qld Government – for the Public Art components: submission by John Armstrong.

For the Community Centre surface treatment designs, Lucas’ thoughts involved two areas specifically, ‘Community’ by activating the space positively, and a thought close to his heart, nature.  After doing his research he found a correlation between the two in the form of the ‘Trigona Carbonaria’ Bee, a native species to Australia and Brisbane particularly, and one of only a handful of ‘social’ bees without a sting.  Bees….  Congregating…..  Sharing…..  Socialising…..  Community Centre…..

It seemed like a very good fit and both John and the ULDA were happy with Lucas’ original ‘bee flight path’ concepts which will be sandblasted onto the area.

After some months John let us know that the desings had been approved and we were ‘good to go’.

We are very excited to be working on this project and have been continually awed by John’s vision, scope and reach concerning Community, sensitivity and Placemaking.  While the official opening date has been pushed back slightly, construction is in progress and last minute ‘tweaking’ and enhancements are progressing.  The ‘enhancements’ are something pretty special and in future posts I will share with you these really exciting developments – keep watch here for something spectuacular…..

This is the final layout for the surface treatment designs – 300 square meters in total.