Top architect calls for 10 new bridges to transform Brisbane
A senior architect and town planner says Brisbane will not be a complete city until it gets another 10 bridges. HAVE YOUR SAY
A senior architect and town planner says Brisbane will not be a complete city until it gets another 10 bridges.
Malcolm Middleton, a former State Government architect, said the new bridges should be reserved for scooters, bicycles and pedestrians, probably not cars. More bridges would end the segregation that has kept us apart for a century.
He also came out in support of the controversial $1bn Toowong Central project by Verso developments which proposes a set of three residential towers that may soar to 58 storeys.
And he voiced concerns about the 2032 Olympic Games stadium.
Brisbane’s winding river gave the city considerable advantages over Sydney and Melbourne for future planning. “You can’t make Sydney a different place,” Middleton, pictured below, said.
However the “fantastically expensive and brilliantly done” metro system will transform the way people move around the harbour city.
“Melbourne is a big grid; you can’t really change the grid. But Brisbane, as a river city, can change itself through the bridges. You can actually stitch the city together in a way that makes it a different city.
“Another 10 bridges in Brisbane would completely change the way the city feels and connects. And it’s not unreasonable to say 10.
“I’ve always said 20. We’ve now
got 10, and I think there’s another 10 to go.”
Where? From Highgate Hill to the University of Queensland perhaps. Or from East Brisbane to New Farm. From Park Road Milton to South Brisbane and a bridge somewhere on Kingsford Smith Drive leaping the river to land at Bulimba or Colmslie.
The Kingsford Smith Drive crossing may one day be a combined rail, car and pedestrian link. A proposed green bridge from West End to Toowong is on hold due to council budget concerns.
Middleton, 74, was born in London where his Australian father Dr Archie Middleton was training as a surgeon.
Back in Australia Malcolm Middleton studied architecture at the University of Sydney and then joined Lend Lease. He came to Queensland in 1981 to work for Civil & Civic, the infrastructure giant’s building arm. Brisbane has the least number of bridges per kilometre of river than any other capital city on a river, he said.
“When I was the government architect, we did a study of river cities worldwide. We put a 5km radius down around the centre of these cities, and we counted the number of bridges. We also looked at the length of rivers within that. And Brisbane has the longest river within a 5k zone – and the fewest bridges.”
He points to London and Paris where bridges connect communities of differing social status. There are 35 bridges over the Thames and 37 over the Seine. Middleton said bridges are his pet hobby horse.
He said he found an old map of Brisbane from the 1920s where “someone with great insight” has drawn in a dozen bridges. “The bridges were on the map, but they weren’t built. In those days Brisbane had multiple smaller councils. I think the money just wasn’t there.
“So Brisbane never really crossed itself properly.”
Middleton said it would now be very difficult to build new car bridges because people would object.
He supported the Eleanor Schonell Bridge linking the University of Queensland to Dutton Park although “it turned up 80 years too late”.
“It was first promised in the 1930s.”
“The thing about bridges is they very much change the nature of a place once they are in place.”
A good example was the new Kangaroo Point bridge that touches down on the corner of Alice Street and Edward Street in the CBD.
Middleton says a bridge from Toowong to West End would be “a very obvious beneficial connection”.
“It would stitch north and south together.”
“Toowong has got the heavy rail while West End has got interesting retail and great parks. If we put the two together in a connected way it would really change the city.”
Toowong had not reached its potential. “It has languished,” he said.
He backed a massive high-rise project there and helped the developer choose the architect.
“Toowong has been struggling to get a good solution for decades now. There’s been all sorts of DAs on that site, but none of them had any real sizzle in terms of what they could give back to the community.’’
And previous developments had not been completed in a very well-structured way in his opinion.
He said it took 20 or 30 years for Toowong Village shopping centre to get the mix right there. “It’s doing very well now. It’s the best it’s ever looked,” Middleton said.
One of his first jobs when he arrived in Brisbane was to do a plan for the site that included the old Finlayson Timber yard that was shut to make way for Toowong Village.
His plan was not used.
He likes the Toowong proposal because it offered a significant upgrade of the public realm, with shared space for the public.
“I was one of the judges. The winning scheme, in the view of all of the judges, proposed the best solution to the ground plane. So we thought it was a clear winner.
“(Toowong) is an ideal place for Brisbane to develop density. The site is a big site (so) you can accept
density there.’’
It was ideal for high rise because of where it sits in relation to the city. “You’ve got that lovely stretch of river. And when you get up in the air you’ll have a great view of the CBD and a long stretch of the river.’’
“It’s got a heavy rail station and it’s close to the green space of Mount Coot-Tha. If it was connected to West End, it would be a pretty idyllic place to live.”
Middleton won national awards for his Roma Street Parklands masterplan and sat on the South Bank design advisory panel and the Queensland Heritage Council.
As state architect he wrote the brief for the new Glasshouse Theatre and chose Michael Rayner’s Blight Rayner to design the building.
It’s another design triumph for Rayner, the architect who has shaped the cultural character of Brisbane like few others.
He has designed everything from striking office towers to charming ferry terminals and the Kurilpa Bridge, the world’s largest hybrid tensegrity bridge.
Middleton said it was former Premier Peter Beattie who advocated more bridges as part of his Smart State plan endorsed by then Lord Mayor Jim Soorley. “Both of them were good urbanists with good ideas for the city,” he said.
However he detected tensions between city and state.
“Nevertheless there was a lot that flowed from the early work they began, and it’s ongoing work.”
Middleton wants us to stop describing Brisbane as a big country town. “It’s a big city with two and a half to three million people, so it is no country town.
“It has always been a big, low- density footprint city, and that’s an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is it’s very hard to service it public transport-wise, and if you keep pushing the boundaries, it gets even harder.’’
He witnessed four decades of extraordinary growth following Expo 88. “It was a very different city before then. It was a small, small city, and it lived very comfortably in its subtropical setting.”
The Olympics, of course, will change the city forever. To have the Olympic village close to the stadium and the aquatic centre was “pretty cool”. Brisbane would be left with “a remarkable set of facilities right near the centre of town”.
However he said Victoria Park will present “challenges” for Olympic planners. “It’s a big site and that’s my concern,” Middleton said.
“You just can’t put a stadium down and think that’s all you’ve got to do. You’ve got to make all the space around it work.”
IRRITANT
The Barmy Army. Queensland is running low on Mooloolaba prawns and oysters while the Englishmen gorge themselves. And I’m afraid the beer-guzzling visitors will drink the XXXX brewery dry. Thanks for coming, now please go home.
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