We have focused our efforts around retrofitting Australia’s urban centres toward a more sustainable and communal future. Commencing with research in the early 1980s on the conflicts between ‘main street’ and ‘big box’ retail centres, we developed innovative methodologies for revitalising ailing town centres and for retrofitting ‘big box’ shopping centres and the dead spaces which they generate around them.
Our Cleveland town centre is an example of the integration of a main street with large shopping centres. The waterfront town became a template for town renewal across Australia. In the towns of Atherton, Innisfail and Mooloolaba, we have implemented revitalisation plans which have led to renewal and improved placemaking.