On this episode of Hassell Talks, architect and urbanist Caroline Stalker joined retired Partner of Buro Happald Andrew Comer and architect, urbanist and Head of Design Ashley Munday to explore the potential mechanisms for creating a successful Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy for Brisbane and SEQ.
London's approach was to look beyond 2012 - to 2057, with the hard decisions made at the very beginning resulting in transcendent change across the city.
Is Brisbane brave enough to do the same?
Recorded on Jagerra and Turbal Country, Meanjin, Brisbane.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
(soft music)
- From Global Design Practice, Hassell,
this is Hassell Talks.
I'm Caroline Stalker,and I'm an architect,
urbanist, and a principal at Hassell.
I'm here on Jagera andTurrbal Country in Brisbane,
and I pay my respects to elderspast, present, and emerging.
(00:26):
I'm delighted to be steppingback into the hosting hot seat.
In this episode, we'll besharing more insights with you
into how we're looking at theopportunities for Brisbane
ahead of the 2032 Olympicand Paralympic Games.
In the previous Olympics episode,season five, episode one,
do go back and have a listen
(00:47):
if you haven't had a chance to already,
we talked about public realmas the glue for a better city.
This time around, we'respecifically interested in precincts
and what we can learn from others
faced with similar large events
to catalyse wider positive urban change.
These episodes are case studies in a way
into the types of conversationsand thoughts we have
(01:11):
as designers when we're presented
with great, big, exciting challenges
and opportunities to makeplaces better for people.
To give you the context, I'llstart with a little recap
so you know what's at play.
In 2032, an area knownas Southeast Queensland
will host the Summer Olympics.
That area is about 200 kilometres long
(01:32):
and covers the Gold Coast,Brisbane and Sunshine Coast.
There's a significant cluster of venues
within Brisbane city itself
and then there's other venues distributed
through our 200 kilometre linear region.
And of course, theOlympic venues themselves
will catalyse change inthe precincts around them.
(01:54):
Each of the events in these locations
throughout Southeast Queensland
and in the cluster in Central Brisbane
will catalyse precinct changeand renewal around the venues.
So how do you get allthe pieces to coordinate
to guarantee all of thosebenefits the state wants to see?
And how can we help the decision makers
(02:15):
to see where thoseexciting opportunities are?
Can we embrace doing what's hard
to drive positive urban change?
(upbeat brass music)
- I shall open the games for London,
celebrating the 30thOlympia of the modern era.
- London did.
(02:36):
The London Olympics isknown for its success
in catalysing the renewal ofa significant urban precinct.
And while it was aslightly different format
from the Brisbane Olympics,
talking about it andexploring what happened
in the London Olympic Gamesand host games development
may help us to understandpotential mechanisms
for our own Olympics, precinctsand legacy in Brisbane.
(03:01):
Which brings me to my guests.
From 2003, Andrew Comer led a team
providing the strategic engineering inputs
of the London 2012 Olympic Park
and Legacy Master Plan and Design
for Engineering and DesignConsultancy Buro Happold.
Andrew worked directly forthe London Development Agency
and Olympic Delivery Authoritywith the EDAW Consortium.
(03:24):
This award-winning schemewas the catalyst for change
for the East End of London,delivering a future-proofed
246 hectare regenerationdevelopment platform
from one of Europe's mostdeprived and polluted sites.
I can't imagine anyonemore perfectly placed
to share his insights fromthat experience with us.
(03:44):
So welcome, Andrew.
- Caroline, thank you verymuch indeed for that welcome.
It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm looking forward tothe conversation with you
and with my friend and long-time ally
in planning and design, Ashley.
- And speaking of perfectlyplaced experiences,
(04:04):
my Hassell colleague, Ashley Munday,
is also joining us today.
Based in London, Ashleyhas worked in architecture
and urban design from Australia and Asia
to the Middle East and Europe.
His extensive experienceincludes the design
of entire city master plans
and was also involved from the beginning
of the London Games on the renewal
(04:25):
and delivery of the East End Precinct.
And as you'll hear fromhis Antipodean accent,
he's a local, born inSouth East Queensland.
Welcome, Ash.
Thanks for joining us.
- Thanks, Andrew.
Thanks, Caroline.
- Andrew, when you lookback at the amazing change
that took place in East London
to that precinct and the urban fabric
(04:45):
and the communities that makeup the many hubs within it,
what do you think the greatest lesson was?
What can we learn?
- Well, the first thing I'd say is
this is probably a once in a two
or three generational opportunity
for a country to get together,
(05:05):
to reflect on its past and its culture,
to celebrate, I guess, whatit stands for at present,
but also give some realthought to where it wants to go
and what it wants to be overthe next 30, 40, 50 years.
Society is changing a lot,
faced with a lot ofpressures across the globe.
Climate change is somethingthat's gonna keep pacing
(05:28):
over that time.
And now we have the interesting dynamic
of artificial intelligence and technology.
So there's a whole bunch ofsocial and societal changes
on top of some of the issues and stresses
that any society faces.
I think it's a time to step back,
really reflect on wherethe country wants to go,
(05:49):
where the people want to go,
and an opportunity, big opportunity,
to undertake a catalytic sort of injection
of a change of pace and direction,
if that's what's required.
- From your point of view,
was there a single definingmoment where that coalesced,
what you're just describingwith the London renewal?
(06:10):
- Yeah, I think so.
And it happened very, very early on.
I can remember in 2003, so we'regoing back two decades now,
and seven, what could that be?
Nine years out from whenthe Games was actually run.
But the London authoritiesorganised a competition
for consortia to bid for the right
(06:33):
to undertake master planningand the planning application
for the Olympic Parkprecinct in East London.
And I can remember beinginvolved in those team meetings
and the decision taken very early on
that actually this wasn't about the,
and it wasn't necessarilyjust about the Olympic Games.
In fact, the most important point
was going to be about what was the legacy,
(06:55):
what was the defininglegacy of this opportunity?
And so there was a, from that moment on,
I think everyone really,it was a light bulb moment.
Everyone focused around that opportunity
to give some thought to whatthis place could be like
in 2040, interestingly enough,another 15 years off still.
And the Games itself wasan important temporal event
(07:18):
that was on a journey over those three
or four or five decades.
So, and I think that wasprobably the winning strategy
in terms of the consortia thatwere pitching for the project
and it remained very muchembedded in the programme itself.
- Ash, I'd like to bringyou into the conversation.
(07:41):
You've shared a storyabout your time in London
that illustrates the conversations
that were taking place at the time
about why the decision was made
to choose that really difficult site.
Would you mind sharingthat story with us now?
- Yeah, yeah, sure.
And this is almost to referto Andrew's light bulb moment
(08:01):
back in sort of 2003.
This is almost the minipre light bulb moment.
I was an awful lot younger.
I was a junior sort ofassociate level member
as part of a much bigger teamwith Andrew and his colleagues
and all sorts of otherpeople from other companies.
But I was really privileged and lucky
to sort of be in the core ofthe room on many occasions
(08:22):
taking notes on behalf ofmuch more senior colleagues.
But there was this fantastic moment,
which was about if London wasto stage the Olympic Games.
And at that time, nobodyactually believed that we would.
It was sort of like, intheory, a kind of trial run.
Paris is probably gonna win it,
but let's just play this oneout and see where it goes.
(08:44):
London was to host the Olympic Games.
Where should we have it?
Where should we put themiddle of this Olympic site?
And at the time, obviously,
the whole Wembleydiscussion was boiling away
and you had Sir Norman Foster and Populous
working on the beginnings of Wembley.
And Wembley, there was a big discussion
about how to incorporate theathletics track into Wembley.
(09:06):
I think anyone in theconstruction industry in the UK
would remember thatsort of mad conversation
that always happens with Olympic stadiums
about the kind of runbetween the different sports
that would happen there.
It was all about the running track
and almost assumed as a fait accompli
that the Olympics, if we did,
of course you would have it at Wembley
because you've got a stadiumand you can put a track on it.
And we're doing a masterplan around the edges.
(09:27):
So part of that could be a village
and we could get lots of other stuff.
So it was almost in a way,and almost a no brainer,
that that's the way itwas being perceived.
And there was this wholeround of discussions
where they brought in lotsof design professionals
from all over the UK where a group said,
well, hang on a minute.
And this probably kind ofincluded my boss at the time,
(09:49):
really a great guy called Bob Allies.
And he sort of, he and some other people,
Jason Pryor was another one, I think.
Bill Hanway said, oh,well, hang on a minute.
Well, that doesn't getyou anything long-term.
You get a, okay, youget a shiny new stadium
which you're getting anyway.
Anyway, you're getting amaster plan around the stadium.
You're getting that anyway.
How can we use this better?
(10:10):
Where is London a mess?
Where can we, we've got to grow this city.
We're bursting at the seams.
We need more transport infrastructure.
We need more land to build housing on.
You know, this is, we'vegot a housing crisis today.
We've always had a housingcrisis in London to a degree.
And they said, we've gotto open up development
to the east of the city
(10:30):
because there's justnothing happening out there.
And they use the Olympic Games.
They made this decisionto use the Olympic Games
on this site in theLower Lea Valley to say,
well, if we don't do it nowand use this political will
and funding for very boringinfrastructural stuff
like burying power linesand remediating sites,
we'll never have anotheropportunity in our lifetimes
(10:52):
to open up this site.
And it will remain a blighton the edge of London
for the next hundred years.
And we won't move onand develop it further.
So the bold move for me todo not what was easiest,
but what's hardest, what's actually hard
and very difficult and expensive
is now paying itself back in spades,
I think, to the city of London,
not just on that Olympic site,
(11:14):
but all those parts ofLondon between the city
and well east beyond that Olympic site
are really now starting to flourish
because of that decision.
If the people around thetable did what was easiest,
that would still be adead zone of the city now.
It's a bold move.
- And just to add to that,Ashley's absolutely right.
As part of the original master planning
(11:35):
for the park and the legacy,
we actually undertook a studyon behalf of the clients
and look at, well, what happens if London,
it was almost when Londondoesn't win the Olympics,
what can we actually doin this part of London?
And it was very little.
It was very little andit was going to take
an awfully long time.
So it was a bold move,
(11:57):
but it was that once ina lifetime opportunity
to do something.
- When you looked at thesite, did it seem impossible?
- Yeah, I remember going down there and-
- Did you just think,oh my God, this is huge.
How are we ever going to do it?
- Derelict, it wasn't the size of it.
It was the state of it.
Derelict canals, shoppingtrolleys, a few sheds,
you know, where-
(12:17):
- Europe's largest userrefrigerator mounting.
- I remember that very attractive.
- (laughs) I'm sorry.
- But you know, it'swhere, it's what happens
where you go to disassemblecars you've stolen
and bury bodies and stuff.
That was the nature ofthat site in London.
And you thought, what an impossible,
how is this going to ever happen in
what was it, by the timewe got on with that,
(12:39):
you know, seven, eight years away,
how are we going to get through this?
It was pretty amazing.
But for me, it was alesson in how you can,
you have to imagine and think well beyond,
not the constraints,but the possibilities.
Like you really have tothrow the ball way out there
to imagine the ability totransform a place like that.
(13:00):
And it's been, I wouldn'teven say it's been done.
It's still going.
And there's still a lot of cooking to go,
but it's pretty amazing.
- So is that speakingto the role of vision
and design vision andjust a driving vision
that people come together around?
- I think it is.
- Is that the right word?
- Vision is really important,
(13:21):
but there's another reallyimportant aspect to it.
And I would say it's leadership.
It needs really strong,joined up leadership
at central, regional and local levels.
You can't do it otherwise
because there are going to betimes, as there was in London,
there were times when it was
(13:41):
there was some really rocky moments.
I remember when the recession hit 2008,
they'd just announced thatthe budget for the games
had gone up from two and a half billion,
which was alwaysundercooked to nine billion.
And then lo and behold,Lehman Brothers collapsed
and that everyone was going,
(14:01):
how on earth are wegoing to get through it?
So you need at the very top,some very strong leadership
and very committedleadership, that's for sure.
- I agree.
And I think these thingsactually vision is like,
it's a very thing weuse often around design
and it really wasn'tabout design, actually.
It was something strange coming from
(14:22):
an architect and an urbanist.
It was about that leadership
and about an idea or a possibility
that transcended economies,budgets, money, politics.
It was a very bold decisionfor a government to make.
And as Andrew said,
when a budget goes fromtwo billion to nine billion
(14:45):
at the, when the world economyis falling off a cliff,
that was even more difficult,
but actually it wasn'tabout the nine billion.
The nine billion isalready paying itself back.
It was about the possibilityfor London for the future
or probably a lot ofstagnation for London.
- I mean, I think just reflecting on that,
it was in a way the recession
(15:06):
was quite an interesting moment of reset
because suddenly governmentswere talking about
bank losses of 50 billion or 60 billion
and suddenly nine billion didn'tseem to be too big a step.
- What a bargain.
- I want to talk alittle bit about Brisbane
and some of the specificcontexts of Brisbane
(15:26):
and things that we can learn.
And I think those
the things that you've alreadysaid are hugely important.
We do have a different format,as I mentioned earlier.
We don't have an Olympic Park,
but we do have some criticalmass around some precincts.
And I guess when you mentionedthe kind of the challenges
of that East London precinct,
(15:47):
and there are somedefinitely some parallels.
South East Queensland, likeso many parts of Australia
and other parts of the world
is facing a massive housingaffordability challenge.
Massive.
We are feeling theimpacts of climate change
and flooding and heat.
Our city is becoming less equitable.
(16:07):
People have less,
it's harder to have thesame equity of access
through good transport toeconomic opportunities.
And frankly, some of thevenues in the inner city
are in traffic islands
or things fragmented bylinear infrastructure.
They're in tough settings.
You know, tough settings to imagine
being full of high qualityurban spaces around them.
(16:29):
So I'm very interestedthen about how we can
start to attack some of those problems
to maximise the uplift of those precincts
for public benefit.
- It's a really good question.
I'm not at all familiarwith South East Queensland
other than I have a lot of ex-colleagues
and hopefully friends still
(16:51):
who live in that part of the world
and who I've had conversations with.
But drawing on some ofthe lessons from London,
I think you can go right back
to some fairly basic fundamentals.
And your point about access and movement
is critical to any citytoo, in terms of its
in helping with its economicand social successes.
(17:12):
Because of the challenges
I think there was perceived issues
around how do you get peopleinto and out of East London.
We were quite fortunate at the time
because there was already alarge amount of investment
going in in terms oftaking the channel tunnel
from Paris, rerouting it throughNorth London and Stratford
and then onto Central London.
(17:33):
So there's a big bit of, ahuge bit of infrastructure kit
already being planned and budgeted for.
Then layering on all those other modes
that were going to be needed to make sure
not only you're able to get people
to and from the park and the precinct,
but to continue to allowLondon to operate smoothly,
(17:54):
you know, because thelast thing you want to do
is spend, celebrate for six weeks
with the whole city shut down
and the economic benefitsbeing drained away
because you can't actuallyget people in and out of work
during the same time.
So there was that.
And then on top of that,
obviously thinking abouthow that transport,
as you said earlier,
(18:14):
opened up the opportunityfor the future development.
So I think for me,
getting that transportplanning programming,
the operation side ofit was hugely complex.
And I would say
a lot of it was down tothe leadership again,
you know, one or two really key people,
Hugh Sumner, who was theOlympic Development Authority's
(18:37):
transport director for the entire journey,
which was the first timeanyone's succeeded in that.
You know, that was a significant issue
to deal with and get right.
- Yeah, I think also theother bit of thinking,
which I thought was really interesting
at the beginning of that,
it was sort of what Icall a bit of outside in
and inside out kind of thinking
(18:57):
where you get within Olympic games
or any big sporting event for that matter,
people tend to put the venuesat the centre of the planet
and say, it's about the venue
and we work our way out from that.
It's obvious because it's a big risk item.
We've got to deliver thesevenues for the games.
But actually I remember alot of the early thinking
on London or the early exercises,
which was about master planning the legacy
and telling, almost putting an onus
(19:20):
or a brief back on the venue
about its obligations andresponsibilities to the legacy,
whether that venue stayed or not,
whether it was permanent or temporary,
what it was going to do
or how the place it sat wasgoing to perform in legacy mode
and then reverse engineering it,
then designing the venueto make the contribution.
So that was one bit,which was about the site.
(19:41):
The other bit was thinkingabout the Olympic site,
not as a, and we'vetouched on this before,
not as this shiny curated master plan
of 256 hectares in East London,
but just thinking of it as a connection.
How can we make it easier to go from
Hackney through toanother part of Stratford
or Tower Hamlets or whereverbeyond the Olympic site?
(20:04):
It was a place to pass through,
which sounds terrible when you
when you put it to a commercial person
because they go, oh, Iwant to capture my market
and bomb a lot of retail there, but-
- But it's not an island.
- It's not an island.
It had fractured edges andI think I've said before,
the success of the Olympic site in London
is not knowing where themaster plan begins or finishes
(20:25):
at the end of the day.
- Yes, that's a great observation.
- There's a lot of bad master plans
that put the shiny new here
and everybody out there, well,
if you've got the money, you can come in,
if not, off you pop.
- And I was going to say,
thinking back to your initial point,
it was a unique projectin terms of the way
(20:46):
it was approached in termsof planning and design.
I think it's the onlyone I've ever worked on
where every facet had two drawings,
two sets of design thatwere worked on side by side,
one looking at the legacy,
one looking at the games themselves.
And the mantra was
(21:08):
we've got a budget here andwe need to spend it wisely.
So it was every, I thinkit was every 85 pence
or every 90 pence in the pound
needed to have a value in the legacy.
So it was a really good discipline
and yeah, just needed some smart people
to make sure it worked properly.
(21:29):
- It's funny.
Everyone objectifies the Olympic games,
but this whole thing wasabout hijacking the games
for the benefit of the greater good.
And that was a greattrajectory to start with.
- So I'd love to takethe conversation then
towards how it was doneand how it was procured.
I mean, any big complex precinct
(21:51):
has lots of different stakeholders
across different levels of government.
There's quite a lot ofcomplexity around funding,
around getting people to act together
and unite them around common objectives.
I'm really interested in having a chat
about how that came together in London.
(22:13):
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right.
This is not going to be any different
in South East Queensland.
No one should underestimatethe number of stakeholders
that are going to be involved.
It's absolutely enormous.
Any single topic will attract dozens,
if not of different groups.
- Yeah, needed and unneeded.
(22:34):
- Yeah, exactly.
And so there is an awful lot of praise,
a lot of time that needs to be spent
almost behind the scenes,
aligning these individuals and groups,
trying to get them workingto a common purpose
in different areas
whether it's transport operations,
you know, you can imagine in London,
(22:55):
all the taxi drivers, all thetrain operating companies,
all the bus fleets, aswell as all the people,
you know, the people whoare using cars and bikes.
And so just that one topic alone,
it needs some real thought
and some very, very clever people
(23:20):
who've got skills that can bring
those sort of constituencies together.
So I definitely wouldn't underestimate it.
It will be, it's going tobe a big, big challenge.
- Well, I think there was a great clarity
in the end of the day.
You had the Olympic Delivery Authority
and you had the London Development Agency
and effectively they overlap,
but then one handed over to the other
(23:40):
at the end of the LondonDevelopment Agency
or a version of, it's stillrunning with it really,
with that Olympic site still coming along.
- Yeah, London Legacy Development Company.
- That's it.
- You had that entity and it was really,
again, comes down to leadership.
It was actually pretty wellled with some very good people.
You didn't have a bunchof local authorities
(24:01):
and then, I know, a city,a wider city authority
or a federal authoritysort of duking it out
to see if you could getinfluence over the site.
You had a clear fulcrum in that client
for moving the legacyof the project forward.
And it's always had its moments
because it's just tough andit's big and it's complicated.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- That clear coalescing ofa piece of responsibility
(24:24):
and leadership, I think,
has made this more possible and better.
- And yeah, interestingly,I learned only yesterday
that it's pretty much into its final year.
So it was set up, I think,
started running from 2013, 2012 probably,
just after the Games finished.
It's life, it had a determined life
(24:45):
and now all of theresponsibilities that it took on,
mainly as a planningauthority, that comes to an end
and all the responsibilitiesare handed back
to local boroughs in nextyear or something, next year.
- Planning and development?
So as in development facilitation,
but not operational withany of the public spaces?
(25:07):
- All of it.
No, well, they retained ownership
of a number of public areas.
They worked in partnership.
You know, they partneredwith private sector
to develop out some ofthe development platforms.
So that they shared
part of the whole part of the thinking was
that the public sectorrecovered some of the,
(25:31):
or as much of the originalinvestment and more
in the future success of the park.
So they continued
there's that ongoing public involvement
with the future of the park
and the development platformsall the way through to,
as I say, next year.
- Yeah, and I thinkthat's really interesting
in itself actually, because itwas done with a view not to,
(25:54):
not to be in a state's management entity
in the end of the day and keep going.
It was done to coalesce andclarify decision-making,
but also be that entity that would overlap
with the constituent boroughs
that make up, surround and impact on them,
sort of impinge on that Olympic site
and eventually hand it over to them.
So it becomes, and again,
it sounds like the most normal,boring thing in the world,
(26:14):
but it becomes a normal piece of the city
and each borough gets handed over,
the borough has something they can manage,
just like the existing stuff next door.
And it's about the beautyof normalisation, I think.
- Yeah, and it justsettles back into the city.
- Exactly.
- Yeah, yeah, that's very nice.
- The thing about theOlympic site in London,
you know, it wasn't pretty, the stuff,
(26:35):
but that didn't matter.
And London's a great city for dealing,
that deals with things thatare kind of beyond beauty.
It wasn't about, this isbeautiful, we should keep it,
we should make it more beautiful.
It was about, this is interesting
or this is part of our history
or this is part of our culture.
Let's make sure we don't lose this.
And I would if I think around,
you know, the Gabba inBrisbane, for example,
(26:57):
where there's going tobe a lot of activity,
that's an old the Gabba, Kangaroo Point,
down to the cliffs andthe views of the city
and down to the river andall that kind of stuff.
And that's a really importantpart of the city of Brisbane.
It has a history to it and it has a,
there's a lot of people that love
that part of the city dearly.
And there's a thing that says to me,
at first point, let'snot lose what we've got.
(27:21):
Let's not, let's makesure we're really clear
about what makes this part ofBrisbane special and unique.
Let's make sure we keepthat and then use it as a,
use it as a kind of, not as a constraint,
but an opportunity to push to rub against,
to develop either Olympicvenues, Olympic works,
and then the legacy beyond that.
But it's got to start with what's,
(27:42):
it's sort of trying to veryclearly connect history
to the future and not for me, wipe, wipe,
make a clean slate and then make something
that's shiny and new.
That's not, that's not howcities really should evolve.
That's where cities start tolose their soul, actually.
Start doing that.
There's many examples ofthat around the world.
And there's no need forBrisbane to do that.
It's got plenty to offerand plenty to keep.
(28:04):
- Yeah, I would fully endorse that.
And looking, thinking about London,
what, how did London materially bend,
or how did the UK materiallybenefit from the Games?
I mean, apart from great celebration
I think the, there's ahuge synergy in terms of,
or similarity, I should say,
between the UK and Australia and my
(28:27):
both sports-lovingsportsmen nations, which,
you know, whatever happens,
it'll be a success, I'm sure, in Brisbane
because of that can-do attitude
and just the love of sportthat the country has.
But I think there was some fairly,
I guess, less well-advertised benefits
(28:49):
that were seen in the UK.
You know, there was abig change in attitude
in construction industry,which is notorious
in terms of the way it has failed
to really keep pace with modernization
over the last 50 or 60 years.
So some big commitments tomuch more sustainable processes
(29:09):
in design and construction,which was really positive.
A step change, I wouldsuggest, in inclusive design.
That was a big body of work.
It was London committed Sebastian Coe,
Lord Coe, I should say,rather more formally,
he committed it to this being
the most accessible Games ever,
and there was a lot of workdone to make sure it was.
(29:31):
A lot of work done onhealth and wellbeing.
You know, the parkitself, one of the first,
in fact, the first bigLondon park for a century,
I think, that was constructed
to give more open space to people
and the movement and accesswe've already talked about.
I think Brisbane, Southeast Queensland
will have its ownchallenges in the country
in terms of some of those
(29:52):
sorts of, yeah.- And we do, yeah.
- But I think on top of that,
I would go back to some of those two big,
for me, the two big challenges
that everyone faces, climate change
and it's already,
we know the sort of itwe've seen on the news,
the impacts that's happeningin your part of the world.
So that's a big, big serious issue
(30:14):
to make sure it's being addressed
underlying the development of the Games.
And AI and technology.
The way the Olympics itself as an event
is transmitted and enjoyedby billions of people
across the globe is goingto be totally different
to the way London was and the way Rio was.
(30:34):
It's technology goingto transform how we see,
view and enjoy thesesorts of sporting events.
Also at the same timeis a big game changer
in terms of employment opportunity.
You know, certainly I knowAustralia is focusing a lot
on its new tech industriesand this is a big opportunity
to start to embed technology, AI
(30:57):
into the fabric of Southeast Queensland.
- What I've heard and what we've discussed
and the things that I think we can,
that might help us thinkabout our own precincts
around our venues.
First of all, I loved what you said about
understanding the gravity of the moment
(31:18):
as in the hugeness of the opportunity
and a kind of a collective determination
to make the best of it.
I think that sort offundamental starting point
is really important,
but you've also spoken andreferred to several times
throughout this conversation
about the critical roleof strong leadership
(31:40):
around a bold idea underpinnedby long-term thinking.
I mean, we could use the word vision,
but you've really talked about boldness
in setting the course and sticking with it
and bringing people together around it.
So a certain amount of political will
and leadership seems to bean incredibly important part
(32:01):
of what was delivered there
and the ability to helpcoordinate the efforts
of the different levels of government.
Valuing the legacy,and I hadn't been aware
that there was a legacydevelopment authority
for after the game.
So having the wherewithal to make sure
that that promise is really delivered on
over the longer time.
(32:23):
And then you also mentionedvaluing the intrinsic qualities
of what makes the city unique
and making sure that gets built in
and that you're notmaking something separate,
that you're makingsomething that's very meshed
into its setting and makesthat setting more accessible
and improves the quality of the areas
(32:46):
outside of that setting as well.
So I think there's someincredibly helpful thoughts there,
things that we can take forward
as we go further into thisdesign and planning phase
of the Brisbane '32 Olympicand Paralympic Games.
So thank you to our guests,
Andrew Comer and AshleyMunday for their time.
(33:07):
- Caroline, thank you very much indeed.
- And thank you to our listeners.
We know you're as passionateabout the role design plays
in creating a beautiful, resilient
and inclusive future as we are.
And thank you, PrueVincent and Michelle Bailey
who produced this episode.
I'm Caroline Stalker.
You've been listening toan episode of Hassle Talks.
(33:29):
(soft music)
(soft music)
- From Global Design Practice, Hassell,
this is Hassell Talks.
I'm Caroline Stalker,and I'm an architect,
urbanist, and a principal at Hassell.
I'm here on Jagera andTurrbal Country in Brisbane,
and I pay my respects to elderspast, present, and emerging.
(00:26):
I'm delighted to be steppingback into the hosting hot seat.
In this episode, we'll besharing more insights with you
into how we're looking at theopportunities for Brisbane
ahead of the 2032 Olympicand Paralympic Games.
In the previous Olympics episode,season five, episode one,
do go back and have a listen
(00:47):
if you haven't had a chance to already,
we talked about public realmas the glue for a better city.
This time around, we'respecifically interested in precincts
and what we can learn from others
faced with similar large events
to catalyse wider positive urban change.
These episodes are case studies in a way
into the types of conversationsand thoughts we have
(01:11):
as designers when we're presented
with great, big, exciting challenges
and opportunities to makeplaces better for people.
To give you the context, I'llstart with a little recap
so you know what's at play.
In 2032, an area knownas Southeast Queensland
will host the Summer Olympics.
That area is about 200 kilometres long
(01:32):
and covers the Gold Coast,Brisbane and Sunshine Coast.
There's a significant cluster of venues
within Brisbane city itself
and then there's other venues distributed
through our 200 kilometre linear region.
And of course, theOlympic venues themselves
will catalyse change inthe precincts around them.
(01:54):
Each of the events in these locations
throughout Southeast Queensland
and in the cluster in Central Brisbane
will catalyse precinct changeand renewal around the venues.
So how do you get allthe pieces to coordinate
to guarantee all of thosebenefits the state wants to see?
And how can we help the decision makers
(02:15):
to see where thoseexciting opportunities are?
Can we embrace doing what's hard
to drive positive urban change?
(upbeat brass music)
- I shall open the games for London,
celebrating the 30thOlympia of the modern era.
- London did.
(02:36):
The London Olympics isknown for its success
in catalysing the renewal ofa significant urban precinct.
And while it was aslightly different format
from the Brisbane Olympics,
talking about it andexploring what happened
in the London Olympic Gamesand host games development
may help us to understandpotential mechanisms
for our own Olympics, precinctsand legacy in Brisbane.
(03:01):
Which brings me to my guests.
From 2003, Andrew Comer led a team
providing the strategic engineering inputs
of the London 2012 Olympic Park
and Legacy Master Plan and Design
for Engineering and DesignConsultancy Buro Happold.
Andrew worked directly forthe London Development Agency
and Olympic Delivery Authoritywith the EDAW Consortium.
(03:24):
This award-winning schemewas the catalyst for change
for the East End of London,delivering a future-proofed
246 hectare regenerationdevelopment platform
from one of Europe's mostdeprived and polluted sites.
I can't imagine anyonemore perfectly placed
to share his insights fromthat experience with us.
(03:44):
So welcome, Andrew.
- Caroline, thank you verymuch indeed for that welcome.
It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm looking forward tothe conversation with you
and with my friend and long-time ally
in planning and design, Ashley.
- And speaking of perfectlyplaced experiences,
(04:04):
my Hassell colleague, Ashley Munday,
is also joining us today.
Based in London, Ashleyhas worked in architecture
and urban design from Australia and Asia
to the Middle East and Europe.
His extensive experienceincludes the design
of entire city master plans
and was also involved from the beginning
of the London Games on the renewal
(04:25):
and delivery of the East End Precinct.
And as you'll hear fromhis Antipodean accent,
he's a local, born inSouth East Queensland.
Welcome, Ash.
Thanks for joining us.
- Thanks, Andrew.
Thanks, Caroline.
- Andrew, when you lookback at the amazing change
that took place in East London
to that precinct and the urban fabric
(04:45):
and the communities that makeup the many hubs within it,
what do you think the greatest lesson was?
What can we learn?
- Well, the first thing I'd say is
this is probably a once in a two
or three generational opportunity
for a country to get together,
(05:05):
to reflect on its past and its culture,
to celebrate, I guess, whatit stands for at present,
but also give some realthought to where it wants to go
and what it wants to be overthe next 30, 40, 50 years.
Society is changing a lot,
faced with a lot ofpressures across the globe.
Climate change is somethingthat's gonna keep pacing
(05:28):
over that time.
And now we have the interesting dynamic
of artificial intelligence and technology.
So there's a whole bunch ofsocial and societal changes
on top of some of the issues and stresses
that any society faces.
I think it's a time to step back,
really reflect on wherethe country wants to go,
(05:49):
where the people want to go,
and an opportunity, big opportunity,
to undertake a catalytic sort of injection
of a change of pace and direction,
if that's what's required.
- From your point of view,
was there a single definingmoment where that coalesced,
what you're just describingwith the London renewal?
(06:10):
- Yeah, I think so.
And it happened very, very early on.
I can remember in 2003, so we'regoing back two decades now,
and seven, what could that be?
Nine years out from whenthe Games was actually run.
But the London authoritiesorganised a competition
for consortia to bid for the right
(06:33):
to undertake master planningand the planning application
for the Olympic Parkprecinct in East London.
And I can remember beinginvolved in those team meetings
and the decision taken very early on
that actually this wasn't about the,
and it wasn't necessarilyjust about the Olympic Games.
In fact, the most important point
was going to be about what was the legacy,
(06:55):
what was the defininglegacy of this opportunity?
And so there was a, from that moment on,
I think everyone really,it was a light bulb moment.
Everyone focused around that opportunity
to give some thought to whatthis place could be like
in 2040, interestingly enough,another 15 years off still.
And the Games itself wasan important temporal event
(07:18):
that was on a journey over those three
or four or five decades.
So, and I think that wasprobably the winning strategy
in terms of the consortia thatwere pitching for the project
and it remained very muchembedded in the programme itself.
- Ash, I'd like to bringyou into the conversation.
(07:41):
You've shared a storyabout your time in London
that illustrates the conversations
that were taking place at the time
about why the decision was made
to choose that really difficult site.
Would you mind sharingthat story with us now?
- Yeah, yeah, sure.
And this is almost to referto Andrew's light bulb moment
(08:01):
back in sort of 2003.
This is almost the minipre light bulb moment.
I was an awful lot younger.
I was a junior sort ofassociate level member
as part of a much bigger teamwith Andrew and his colleagues
and all sorts of otherpeople from other companies.
But I was really privileged and lucky
to sort of be in the core ofthe room on many occasions
(08:22):
taking notes on behalf ofmuch more senior colleagues.
But there was this fantastic moment,
which was about if London wasto stage the Olympic Games.
And at that time, nobodyactually believed that we would.
It was sort of like, intheory, a kind of trial run.
Paris is probably gonna win it,
but let's just play this oneout and see where it goes.
(08:44):
London was to host the Olympic Games.
Where should we have it?
Where should we put themiddle of this Olympic site?
And at the time, obviously,
the whole Wembleydiscussion was boiling away
and you had Sir Norman Foster and Populous
working on the beginnings of Wembley.
And Wembley, there was a big discussion
about how to incorporate theathletics track into Wembley.
(09:06):
I think anyone in theconstruction industry in the UK
would remember thatsort of mad conversation
that always happens with Olympic stadiums
about the kind of runbetween the different sports
that would happen there.
It was all about the running track
and almost assumed as a fait accompli
that the Olympics, if we did,
of course you would have it at Wembley
because you've got a stadiumand you can put a track on it.
And we're doing a masterplan around the edges.
(09:27):
So part of that could be a village
and we could get lots of other stuff.
So it was almost in a way,and almost a no brainer,
that that's the way itwas being perceived.
And there was this wholeround of discussions
where they brought in lotsof design professionals
from all over the UK where a group said,
well, hang on a minute.
And this probably kind ofincluded my boss at the time,
(09:49):
really a great guy called Bob Allies.
And he sort of, he and some other people,
Jason Pryor was another one, I think.
Bill Hanway said, oh,well, hang on a minute.
Well, that doesn't getyou anything long-term.
You get a, okay, youget a shiny new stadium
which you're getting anyway.
Anyway, you're getting amaster plan around the stadium.
You're getting that anyway.
How can we use this better?
(10:10):
Where is London a mess?
Where can we, we've got to grow this city.
We're bursting at the seams.
We need more transport infrastructure.
We need more land to build housing on.
You know, this is, we'vegot a housing crisis today.
We've always had a housingcrisis in London to a degree.
And they said, we've gotto open up development
to the east of the city
(10:30):
because there's justnothing happening out there.
And they use the Olympic Games.
They made this decisionto use the Olympic Games
on this site in theLower Lea Valley to say,
well, if we don't do it nowand use this political will
and funding for very boringinfrastructural stuff
like burying power linesand remediating sites,
we'll never have anotheropportunity in our lifetimes
(10:52):
to open up this site.
And it will remain a blighton the edge of London
for the next hundred years.
And we won't move onand develop it further.
So the bold move for me todo not what was easiest,
but what's hardest, what's actually hard
and very difficult and expensive
is now paying itself back in spades,
I think, to the city of London,
not just on that Olympic site,
(11:14):
but all those parts ofLondon between the city
and well east beyond that Olympic site
are really now starting to flourish
because of that decision.
If the people around thetable did what was easiest,
that would still be adead zone of the city now.
It's a bold move.
- And just to add to that,Ashley's absolutely right.
As part of the original master planning
(11:35):
for the park and the legacy,
we actually undertook a studyon behalf of the clients
and look at, well, what happens if London,
it was almost when Londondoesn't win the Olympics,
what can we actually doin this part of London?
And it was very little.
It was very little andit was going to take
an awfully long time.
So it was a bold move,
(11:57):
but it was that once ina lifetime opportunity
to do something.
- When you looked at thesite, did it seem impossible?
- Yeah, I remember going down there and-
- Did you just think,oh my God, this is huge.
How are we ever going to do it?
- Derelict, it wasn't the size of it.
It was the state of it.
Derelict canals, shoppingtrolleys, a few sheds,
you know, where-
(12:17):
- Europe's largest userrefrigerator mounting.
- I remember that very attractive.
- (laughs) I'm sorry.
- But you know, it'swhere, it's what happens
where you go to disassemblecars you've stolen
and bury bodies and stuff.
That was the nature ofthat site in London.
And you thought, what an impossible,
how is this going to ever happen in
what was it, by the timewe got on with that,
(12:39):
you know, seven, eight years away,
how are we going to get through this?
It was pretty amazing.
But for me, it was alesson in how you can,
you have to imagine and think well beyond,
not the constraints,but the possibilities.
Like you really have tothrow the ball way out there
to imagine the ability totransform a place like that.
(13:00):
And it's been, I wouldn'teven say it's been done.
It's still going.
And there's still a lot of cooking to go,
but it's pretty amazing.
- So is that speakingto the role of vision
and design vision andjust a driving vision
that people come together around?
- I think it is.
- Is that the right word?
- Vision is really important,
(13:21):
but there's another reallyimportant aspect to it.
And I would say it's leadership.
It needs really strong,joined up leadership
at central, regional and local levels.
You can't do it otherwise
because there are going to betimes, as there was in London,
there were times when it was
(13:41):
there was some really rocky moments.
I remember when the recession hit 2008,
they'd just announced thatthe budget for the games
had gone up from two and a half billion,
which was alwaysundercooked to nine billion.
And then lo and behold,Lehman Brothers collapsed
and that everyone was going,
(14:01):
how on earth are wegoing to get through it?
So you need at the very top,some very strong leadership
and very committedleadership, that's for sure.
- I agree.
And I think these thingsactually vision is like,
it's a very thing weuse often around design
and it really wasn'tabout design, actually.
It was something strange coming from
(14:22):
an architect and an urbanist.
It was about that leadership
and about an idea or a possibility
that transcended economies,budgets, money, politics.
It was a very bold decisionfor a government to make.
And as Andrew said,
when a budget goes fromtwo billion to nine billion
(14:45):
at the, when the world economyis falling off a cliff,
that was even more difficult,
but actually it wasn'tabout the nine billion.
The nine billion isalready paying itself back.
It was about the possibilityfor London for the future
or probably a lot ofstagnation for London.
- I mean, I think just reflecting on that,
it was in a way the recession
(15:06):
was quite an interesting moment of reset
because suddenly governmentswere talking about
bank losses of 50 billion or 60 billion
and suddenly nine billion didn'tseem to be too big a step.
- What a bargain.
- I want to talk alittle bit about Brisbane
and some of the specificcontexts of Brisbane
(15:26):
and things that we can learn.
And I think those
the things that you've alreadysaid are hugely important.
We do have a different format,as I mentioned earlier.
We don't have an Olympic Park,
but we do have some criticalmass around some precincts.
And I guess when you mentionedthe kind of the challenges
of that East London precinct,
(15:47):
and there are somedefinitely some parallels.
South East Queensland, likeso many parts of Australia
and other parts of the world
is facing a massive housingaffordability challenge.
Massive.
We are feeling theimpacts of climate change
and flooding and heat.
Our city is becoming less equitable.
(16:07):
People have less,
it's harder to have thesame equity of access
through good transport toeconomic opportunities.
And frankly, some of thevenues in the inner city
are in traffic islands
or things fragmented bylinear infrastructure.
They're in tough settings.
You know, tough settings to imagine
being full of high qualityurban spaces around them.
(16:29):
So I'm very interestedthen about how we can
start to attack some of those problems
to maximise the uplift of those precincts
for public benefit.
- It's a really good question.
I'm not at all familiarwith South East Queensland
other than I have a lot of ex-colleagues
and hopefully friends still
(16:51):
who live in that part of the world
and who I've had conversations with.
But drawing on some ofthe lessons from London,
I think you can go right back
to some fairly basic fundamentals.
And your point about access and movement
is critical to any citytoo, in terms of its
in helping with its economicand social successes.
(17:12):
Because of the challenges
I think there was perceived issues
around how do you get peopleinto and out of East London.
We were quite fortunate at the time
because there was already alarge amount of investment
going in in terms oftaking the channel tunnel
from Paris, rerouting it throughNorth London and Stratford
and then onto Central London.
(17:33):
So there's a big bit of, ahuge bit of infrastructure kit
already being planned and budgeted for.
Then layering on all those other modes
that were going to be needed to make sure
not only you're able to get people
to and from the park and the precinct,
but to continue to allowLondon to operate smoothly,
(17:54):
you know, because thelast thing you want to do
is spend, celebrate for six weeks
with the whole city shut down
and the economic benefitsbeing drained away
because you can't actuallyget people in and out of work
during the same time.
So there was that.
And then on top of that,
obviously thinking abouthow that transport,
as you said earlier,
(18:14):
opened up the opportunityfor the future development.
So I think for me,
getting that transportplanning programming,
the operation side ofit was hugely complex.
And I would say
a lot of it was down tothe leadership again,
you know, one or two really key people,
Hugh Sumner, who was theOlympic Development Authority's
(18:37):
transport director for the entire journey,
which was the first timeanyone's succeeded in that.
You know, that was a significant issue
to deal with and get right.
- Yeah, I think also theother bit of thinking,
which I thought was really interesting
at the beginning of that,
it was sort of what Icall a bit of outside in
and inside out kind of thinking
(18:57):
where you get within Olympic games
or any big sporting event for that matter,
people tend to put the venuesat the centre of the planet
and say, it's about the venue
and we work our way out from that.
It's obvious because it's a big risk item.
We've got to deliver thesevenues for the games.
But actually I remember alot of the early thinking
on London or the early exercises,
which was about master planning the legacy
and telling, almost putting an onus
(19:20):
or a brief back on the venue
about its obligations andresponsibilities to the legacy,
whether that venue stayed or not,
whether it was permanent or temporary,
what it was going to do
or how the place it sat wasgoing to perform in legacy mode
and then reverse engineering it,
then designing the venueto make the contribution.
So that was one bit,which was about the site.
(19:41):
The other bit was thinkingabout the Olympic site,
not as a, and we'vetouched on this before,
not as this shiny curated master plan
of 256 hectares in East London,
but just thinking of it as a connection.
How can we make it easier to go from
Hackney through toanother part of Stratford
or Tower Hamlets or whereverbeyond the Olympic site?
(20:04):
It was a place to pass through,
which sounds terrible when you
when you put it to a commercial person
because they go, oh, Iwant to capture my market
and bomb a lot of retail there, but-
- But it's not an island.
- It's not an island.
It had fractured edges andI think I've said before,
the success of the Olympic site in London
is not knowing where themaster plan begins or finishes
(20:25):
at the end of the day.
- Yes, that's a great observation.
- There's a lot of bad master plans
that put the shiny new here
and everybody out there, well,
if you've got the money, you can come in,
if not, off you pop.
- And I was going to say,
thinking back to your initial point,
it was a unique projectin terms of the way
(20:46):
it was approached in termsof planning and design.
I think it's the onlyone I've ever worked on
where every facet had two drawings,
two sets of design thatwere worked on side by side,
one looking at the legacy,
one looking at the games themselves.
And the mantra was
(21:08):
we've got a budget here andwe need to spend it wisely.
So it was every, I thinkit was every 85 pence
or every 90 pence in the pound
needed to have a value in the legacy.
So it was a really good discipline
and yeah, just needed some smart people
to make sure it worked properly.
(21:29):
- It's funny.
Everyone objectifies the Olympic games,
but this whole thing wasabout hijacking the games
for the benefit of the greater good.
And that was a greattrajectory to start with.
- So I'd love to takethe conversation then
towards how it was doneand how it was procured.
I mean, any big complex precinct
(21:51):
has lots of different stakeholders
across different levels of government.
There's quite a lot ofcomplexity around funding,
around getting people to act together
and unite them around common objectives.
I'm really interested in having a chat
about how that came together in London.
(22:13):
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right.
This is not going to be any different
in South East Queensland.
No one should underestimatethe number of stakeholders
that are going to be involved.
It's absolutely enormous.
Any single topic will attract dozens,
if not of different groups.
- Yeah, needed and unneeded.
(22:34):
- Yeah, exactly.
And so there is an awful lot of praise,
a lot of time that needs to be spent
almost behind the scenes,
aligning these individuals and groups,
trying to get them workingto a common purpose
in different areas
whether it's transport operations,
you know, you can imagine in London,
(22:55):
all the taxi drivers, all thetrain operating companies,
all the bus fleets, aswell as all the people,
you know, the people whoare using cars and bikes.
And so just that one topic alone,
it needs some real thought
and some very, very clever people
(23:20):
who've got skills that can bring
those sort of constituencies together.
So I definitely wouldn't underestimate it.
It will be, it's going tobe a big, big challenge.
- Well, I think there was a great clarity
in the end of the day.
You had the Olympic Delivery Authority
and you had the London Development Agency
and effectively they overlap,
but then one handed over to the other
(23:40):
at the end of the LondonDevelopment Agency
or a version of, it's stillrunning with it really,
with that Olympic site still coming along.
- Yeah, London Legacy Development Company.
- That's it.
- You had that entity and it was really,
again, comes down to leadership.
It was actually pretty wellled with some very good people.
You didn't have a bunchof local authorities
(24:01):
and then, I know, a city,a wider city authority
or a federal authoritysort of duking it out
to see if you could getinfluence over the site.
You had a clear fulcrum in that client
for moving the legacyof the project forward.
And it's always had its moments
because it's just tough andit's big and it's complicated.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- That clear coalescing ofa piece of responsibility
(24:24):
and leadership, I think,
has made this more possible and better.
- And yeah, interestingly,I learned only yesterday
that it's pretty much into its final year.
So it was set up, I think,
started running from 2013, 2012 probably,
just after the Games finished.
It's life, it had a determined life
(24:45):
and now all of theresponsibilities that it took on,
mainly as a planningauthority, that comes to an end
and all the responsibilitiesare handed back
to local boroughs in nextyear or something, next year.
- Planning and development?
So as in development facilitation,
but not operational withany of the public spaces?
(25:07):
- All of it.
No, well, they retained ownership
of a number of public areas.
They worked in partnership.
You know, they partneredwith private sector
to develop out some ofthe development platforms.
So that they shared
part of the whole part of the thinking was
that the public sectorrecovered some of the,
(25:31):
or as much of the originalinvestment and more
in the future success of the park.
So they continued
there's that ongoing public involvement
with the future of the park
and the development platformsall the way through to,
as I say, next year.
- Yeah, and I thinkthat's really interesting
in itself actually, because itwas done with a view not to,
(25:54):
not to be in a state's management entity
in the end of the day and keep going.
It was done to coalesce andclarify decision-making,
but also be that entity that would overlap
with the constituent boroughs
that make up, surround and impact on them,
sort of impinge on that Olympic site
and eventually hand it over to them.
So it becomes, and again,
it sounds like the most normal,boring thing in the world,
(26:14):
but it becomes a normal piece of the city
and each borough gets handed over,
the borough has something they can manage,
just like the existing stuff next door.
And it's about the beautyof normalisation, I think.
- Yeah, and it justsettles back into the city.
- Exactly.
- Yeah, yeah, that's very nice.
- The thing about theOlympic site in London,
you know, it wasn't pretty, the stuff,
(26:35):
but that didn't matter.
And London's a great city for dealing,
that deals with things thatare kind of beyond beauty.
It wasn't about, this isbeautiful, we should keep it,
we should make it more beautiful.
It was about, this is interesting
or this is part of our history
or this is part of our culture.
Let's make sure we don't lose this.
And I would if I think around,
you know, the Gabba inBrisbane, for example,
(26:57):
where there's going tobe a lot of activity,
that's an old the Gabba, Kangaroo Point,
down to the cliffs andthe views of the city
and down to the river andall that kind of stuff.
And that's a really importantpart of the city of Brisbane.
It has a history to it and it has a,
there's a lot of people that love
that part of the city dearly.
And there's a thing that says to me,
at first point, let'snot lose what we've got.
(27:21):
Let's not, let's makesure we're really clear
about what makes this part ofBrisbane special and unique.
Let's make sure we keepthat and then use it as a,
use it as a kind of, not as a constraint,
but an opportunity to push to rub against,
to develop either Olympicvenues, Olympic works,
and then the legacy beyond that.
But it's got to start with what's,
(27:42):
it's sort of trying to veryclearly connect history
to the future and not for me, wipe, wipe,
make a clean slate and then make something
that's shiny and new.
That's not, that's not howcities really should evolve.
That's where cities start tolose their soul, actually.
Start doing that.
There's many examples ofthat around the world.
And there's no need forBrisbane to do that.
It's got plenty to offerand plenty to keep.
(28:04):
- Yeah, I would fully endorse that.
And looking, thinking about London,
what, how did London materially bend,
or how did the UK materiallybenefit from the Games?
I mean, apart from great celebration
I think the, there's ahuge synergy in terms of,
or similarity, I should say,
between the UK and Australia and my
(28:27):
both sports-lovingsportsmen nations, which,
you know, whatever happens,
it'll be a success, I'm sure, in Brisbane
because of that can-do attitude
and just the love of sportthat the country has.
But I think there was some fairly,
I guess, less well-advertised benefits
(28:49):
that were seen in the UK.
You know, there was abig change in attitude
in construction industry,which is notorious
in terms of the way it has failed
to really keep pace with modernization
over the last 50 or 60 years.
So some big commitments tomuch more sustainable processes
(29:09):
in design and construction,which was really positive.
A step change, I wouldsuggest, in inclusive design.
That was a big body of work.
It was London committed Sebastian Coe,
Lord Coe, I should say,rather more formally,
he committed it to this being
the most accessible Games ever,
and there was a lot of workdone to make sure it was.
(29:31):
A lot of work done onhealth and wellbeing.
You know, the parkitself, one of the first,
in fact, the first bigLondon park for a century,
I think, that was constructed
to give more open space to people
and the movement and accesswe've already talked about.
I think Brisbane, Southeast Queensland
will have its ownchallenges in the country
in terms of some of those
(29:52):
sorts of, yeah.- And we do, yeah.
- But I think on top of that,
I would go back to some of those two big,
for me, the two big challenges
that everyone faces, climate change
and it's already,
we know the sort of itwe've seen on the news,
the impacts that's happeningin your part of the world.
So that's a big, big serious issue
(30:14):
to make sure it's being addressed
underlying the development of the Games.
And AI and technology.
The way the Olympics itself as an event
is transmitted and enjoyedby billions of people
across the globe is goingto be totally different
to the way London was and the way Rio was.
(30:34):
It's technology goingto transform how we see,
view and enjoy thesesorts of sporting events.
Also at the same timeis a big game changer
in terms of employment opportunity.
You know, certainly I knowAustralia is focusing a lot
on its new tech industriesand this is a big opportunity
to start to embed technology, AI
(30:57):
into the fabric of Southeast Queensland.
- What I've heard and what we've discussed
and the things that I think we can,
that might help us thinkabout our own precincts
around our venues.
First of all, I loved what you said about
understanding the gravity of the moment
(31:18):
as in the hugeness of the opportunity
and a kind of a collective determination
to make the best of it.
I think that sort offundamental starting point
is really important,
but you've also spoken andreferred to several times
throughout this conversation
about the critical roleof strong leadership
(31:40):
around a bold idea underpinnedby long-term thinking.
I mean, we could use the word vision,
but you've really talked about boldness
in setting the course and sticking with it
and bringing people together around it.
So a certain amount of political will
and leadership seems to bean incredibly important part
(32:01):
of what was delivered there
and the ability to helpcoordinate the efforts
of the different levels of government.
Valuing the legacy,and I hadn't been aware
that there was a legacydevelopment authority
for after the game.
So having the wherewithal to make sure
that that promise is really delivered on
over the longer time.
(32:23):
And then you also mentionedvaluing the intrinsic qualities
of what makes the city unique
and making sure that gets built in
and that you're notmaking something separate,
that you're makingsomething that's very meshed
into its setting and makesthat setting more accessible
and improves the quality of the areas
(32:46):
outside of that setting as well.
So I think there's someincredibly helpful thoughts there,
things that we can take forward
as we go further into thisdesign and planning phase
of the Brisbane '32 Olympicand Paralympic Games.
So thank you to our guests,
Andrew Comer and AshleyMunday for their time.
(33:07):
- Caroline, thank you very much indeed.
- And thank you to our listeners.
We know you're as passionateabout the role design plays
in creating a beautiful, resilient
and inclusive future as we are.
And thank you, PrueVincent and Michelle Bailey
who produced this episode.
I'm Caroline Stalker.
You've been listening toan episode of Hassle Talks.
(33:29):
(soft music)
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