Streets are bossy with their camber (the way they drain to the curb) and black asphalt. When we transform streets - both temporarily and permanently - we work hard to confuse the part of your brain that is saying ‘oh this used to be a street’.

During COVID, astroturf, planter boxes, festoon lighting and little picket fences provided a low-cost kit-of-parts that helped enforce maximum numbers of patrons for outdoor dining, whilst creating quality public spaces within this dense mixed-use neighbourhood.

When we had the chance to make it permanent, our focus was to:

• enhance biodiversity and shade by cutting holes in the street for trees (harder than it sounds!)

• replace lightweight, conventional street furniture with more sculptural, fixed elements

• use the new street furniture to say, ‘this place is no longer just for outdoor dining, it’s a linear park’

Our streets are shared - and they represent a huge percentage of our public realm.

Having supported adjacent hopsitality businesses though COVID, it was time to rethink how Ballarat St could enhance amenity for everyone: local residents, non-hopsitality businesses, hospitality businesses in the next block, non-human residents etc.

It’s easy to say you’ve created a linear park accessible to everyone. It’s harder to think about who that everyone is and what they might like to do there.

We identified 12 ‘typical’ users and 35 ‘typical’ activities that this space should support and designed around those.  

By drilling down to think about specific activities and users, we were able to develop a sculptural set of furniture elements that encourage eating, working, playing and more whether solo or in a group.