By Sonia Isaacs
UNIVERSITY of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) and Sunshine Coast Council have teamed up to create an innovative real world student pilot project called a Community Co-Lab, which will have students collaborating with the community of Glass House Mountains to gain their insight into what is loved about the township, and workshop great placemaking ideas and opportunities with community members for the village. With an aim to provide a significant educational experience, enhance and inform future Council processes, and provide more meaningful outcomes for local communities, this project will provide an unique opportunity for up to 30 UniSC students from multi-disciplinary areas to engage in a process of work integrated learning over the coming months. Dr Nick Stevens, Program Coordinator Urban Design and Town Planning at the UniSC said this was a new model of student, Council, and community collaboration that he hopes will run every year, perhaps twice a year in different communities, across the Sunshine Coast.
“It is a really important learning experience for the students to be involved in a real-world project and connect meaningfully with the communities on the Sunshine Coast. It is this kind of engagement – where we can try to get the heart of a community and what makes its special – that is so important for the future planning of the Coast. It is the bottom up, community led urban design and town planning that will stand the test of time, not one size fits all,” explain Dr. Stevens. In the second last week of November students UniSC will be ‘setting up shop’ at the Glass House Mountains Community Hall and be out and about with clipboards and questions as part of the Glass House Mountains Place Co-Lab. This will be an opportunity to involve the Glass House Mountains Community in thinking about their village, how it functions, its character and identity and how these things could be enhanced or maintained into the future to ensure Glass House Mountains remains an activated place that reflects its community’s values. A community workshop and celebration event has also been planned, with an online survey launched October 10 for community feedback. If you would like to find out more, please contact Dr. Stevens on 5459 4453 or nstevens@usc.edu.au.