August Theme Day - My City's Skyline

Here's the ever changing view of the city from Gladstone Road in Highgate Hill. Plenty of cranes around the monolithic "Tower of Power", 1 William Street, which is soon going to hold all of Brisbane's civil servants and is dominating the skyline at the moment.

But not for too long...the powers that be have approved this giant casino complex called Queens Wharf see the computer fly-through here. Due to start construction next year and be finished around 2022. The view from here will certainly be very different by then.

You can see other theme day posts from around the world here.

Cranes Everywhere

Brisbane is in the middle of a building boom with cranes everywhere. This is the the junction of Adelaide and George streets on the site of the old law courts. They are building a high-rise luxury hotel - work has just finished on the 7-level basement. It looks like there was a recent break-in to the site and someone took the machinery for a bit of a joyride costing $100K worth of damage... but things appear to be back on track now. Enjoy the rare expanse of sky while you can!

Breeze in

 This is one of many building sites along the river in West End. A few years ago this was an industrial area. Today, it is unrecognisable. There is a feeling of impending doom among the community as the market gets more and more saturated with luxury apartments with names like Breeze, Light and Co, Vida and Virtuoso. There have been petitions, protests and numerous submissions to council to reduce the amount of development so that it is sustainable but it largely has fallen on deaf ears.

Tower of Power

This is the new government building that is starting to loom over William Street and the river. It takes up an entire city block and can be seen from all over Brisbane. It's due to be completed in the middle of 2017. That tower block next to it is the Parliamentary Annexe building and used to be the tallest thing along that stretch of skyline. Not any more!

You're gonna need a bigger rod...

After a major rebuild, Shorncliffe Pier re-opened to the public at Easter. It stretches 350 metres into Bramble Bay and, according to Brisbane City Council website, has

• four fish cleaning stations
• four water fountains
• 20 light poles
• seven bins
• six safety ladders
• four benches
• fourteen seats
• two picnic tables
• a flag pole for yacht races.
• a concrete and steel substructure
• timber joists, decking, handrails and rotunda
• a larger rotunda
• a larger hammerhead at the end
• a lower platform at the end of the pier.

I'm not so keen on the idea of a large hammerhead at the end. I hope it's friendly.

Fenced In Cows

The old ABSOE building in Boundary Street, West End, has hosted some great weekend markets, a couple of music venues, bars and art studios for the past couple of years but all that has come to an end now as developers move in to bulldoze the current buildings and build 1350 luxury flats spread over seven 15-storey towers. Much of the local community is against the development.

It was an unceremonious end to the last markets on Friday night. The developers were worried the community would start protesting so they cancelled the event, erected some fencing and employed some security.

Then they had to put a fence in front of the original fence which is causing more controversy...

The artist, Stewart, is back again today to do some repainting. He's going over the cows with native birds. We'll see how that one pans out..

And now to a developing storey....

It's been a long time in between drinks but here I am again. Hurray! I've been feeling for a while that it's time for a comeback. Doing this blog makes me feel more connected to where I live and what is happening around me. And there's a lot happening around me in my neighbourhood of West End. What has historically been an industrial area - probably due to the high flood risk - has in the last few years had a huge amount of development applications approved. The projected population of our area is set to double in the next few years. That's just in West End. Across the river in Toowong the same thing is happening. Infact, throughout the inner city, if a house gets knocked down, you can expect a block of units to rise in its place.

The case for development is that the greater city's footprint is sprawling - roughly the size of London but with a fraction of the population. Traditionally, people from Brisbane have lived in single-level high-set houses on big blocks. But if the city is to prosper and grow, this type of housing - particularly so close to the centre of town - is unsustainable and a waste of valuable space.

The case against the current developments is that thousands of new residents are moving into the area (with thousands of cars). I read somewhere that the population density between the river and Montague Road will be similar to Hong Kong yet there is apparently no planning for new schools/infrastructure/parks/public transport. There will be high towers (some 15 stories or more) close together, creating dark, windy streets. There is no allowance for affordable housing - all the apartments being built are "luxury".  And everything is being built on an area that was under several feet of river water in 2011 during the flood. Local residents aren't anti-development - just anti-bad development. (Can you tell which side I'm on?)

See here for a related post back in 2012.

Sign of the times?

The area I live in, West End, has been gentrified a lot over the past few years with a large amount of industrial land near the river being transformed into 8-10 storey luxury apartments. While Brisbane needs to have more housing for its expanding population, there is a the concern that the existing infastructure just wont be able to cope.

This photo is of a boarded off building site, originally announcing the construction  of "Montague"; 424 apartments where presumably, looking at this photo, you can re-live your own version of The Titanic (and had you lived there last year, you probably could have as it was several metres under water during the floods). Anyway whether it's due to objections or perhaps the whole global financial crisis I'm not sure - but it looks as if the development application has fallen through - and the guerilla stencillers have been having a field day.

Outdoor Inspriations

The side of this building was only revealed recently after renovations started taking place. I like how the writing and little floral decoration contrasts so starkly with the scarred facade. I'm sure it won't be there for very long.

Homecoming

As the moon rose on Saturday night, a few of us gathered to welcome the owners back to their house after a 7 month displacement across the road. 

At the height of the flood, they had canoed around the neighbourhood via back gardens and between houses - taking an unfamiliar route not dictated by paths. The water level here was about two thirds of the way up the windows of the upper floor. After the flood, the old wooden house had groaned and creaked and twisted itself dry. It became a higgledy-piggeldy house where no door fitted its frame, no wall was straight and no floor was even. From the vantage point of their little rented cottage across the road, they watched the builders come in and slowly, bit by bit, straighten the place back out again.

Now, they are back home and the place looks great. The walls are straight and, as we found out, the floor smooth enough to do the twist on.

Coming Soon!

I managed to get a sneak preview of the ALL NEW West End Citycat stop after the old one was washed away in the flood in January. It should be all done by next Sunday and it's very flash. Sadly I didn't have my wide angle lens with me! (next week)

Not Long Now

For anyone who knows the old West End ferry stop, things have changed a lot around that area. Houses have been pulled down and there is a bus turning circle.  The old ferry stop which was carried down the Brisbane River during the floods is being replaced with a much bigger, swankier terminal that's due to open next month and will hopefully see us through to the next flood. You can sort of see the front of it here but not very well. We've been 6 months without a CityCat service round these parts so it'll be great to see it up and running again. In the meantime, here's some tandem bikers who just realised I was taking their photo.

Saving City Hall

 

Work has been going on for about a year on Brisbane's City Hall, whose foundation stone was laid in 1920. It's probably one of the most iconic buildings in the city forming part of the Brisbane City Council's logo (so it's even on our bills). In order to support its crumbling walls, they have had to excavate inside the main auditorium. In doing so, they have come across all sorts of artifacts. They've even uncovered the streetscape below complete with paving and drains!

Read more about the history of the building in the very excellent Your Brisbane Past and Present.

Flood Proofing, Queensland-style

 Queensland homes are traditionally built on stumps. It has for some time been the trend that people with enough money would raise the level of their home in order to make way for a couple of rooms underneath. Round our way in Hill End, people are going up to escape another inundation.

Unfortunately for me, I live in a brick and concrete block of units so we're rooted. (To the ground).

June Theme Day: Under Construction

It's the first of the month which means it's the City Daily Photo theme day. This month's theme, as you can see, is "Under Construction".  To warm me up, I've decided to go back to balmy February and re-visit the Lego installation that was in the Gallery of Modern Art's "Art in the 21st Century" exhibition.

The huge hands-on display of thousands of classic white Lego bricks encourages you to get in there and start constructing. Not surprisingly, when the little kids had long since found other things to take their attention, it was the adults who remained, sometimes for hours, lost in the joy of a toy that usually reaches only a fraction of its potential.

The installation is the brainchild of Olafur Eliasson and purchased by the GoMA in 2005.

It's called "The cubic structural evolution project (2004)"

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Flood Rebuild Update

We went around to what is left of my friend Bron's place on Sunday. The January flood waters came about 3/4 of the way up the walls of her wooden house causing the floor and the walls to warp. After plenty of to-ing and fro-ing with the insurance company, work finally started in earnest about 10 days ago. The builders are pretty much starting from scratch so while it's something of a shock to see the shell where her home used to be, it's also a new beginning.

Their place is in the 3rd photo down on this post from January.

Air to the throne

Over the long weekend, I went camping at a friend's property a hour and a half out of Brizzy. One of the things we (they) did to earn our keep was build a new toilet. The ratio of casual advisers to workers was probably about 10 to 1.

It had a lovely view, that's for sure.

Ex-Terminus

One thing about the flood. It's forced some of us to do the repairs and renovations we've been putting off for years. And I'm not just talking about my back room. This is West End Ferry stop - well, this was it about a week ago. It's now gone completely. The vague promises before the flood that it had been earmarked for a re-fit at some point seem like a distant memory. The work is in full swing and we hope to have a fully functional terminus at the end of June. Yahoo!

Awaiting Squiggly Bits

"Inspired by an algorithm based on the way plants grow towards the light"

That's how the fancy website for Brisbane's next big tower are plugging it. Right now, it still looks pretty similar to many of the other glass and steel towers in the City. They're going to put some squiggly bits on it that I think will be representative of fig tree roots and should hopefully set it apart a little bit.

Hurray!

Recent followers of this blog may be familiar with my local shop  a.k.a."The Billy Tea Shop" which has been through the wars recently suffering first a car crash which took out the awning and then a flood which went halfway up the walls. This place also went under all the way up to the roof in the '74 floods. I don't have any shots of that one unfortunately but here's what it looked like in October after the crash...

And then in January...

Well this weekend the little place re-opened. Not much fanfare... just a few balloons but was a small but significant step in the re-building of our little pocket of West End.

Now then: five bucks for 2 litres of milk? Daylight robbery! I'm off to Coles.