How 20km of coloured rope transformed this town square

It has taken 20 kilometres of brightly coloured rope wound around a rainbow python-shaped pavilion to make Mount Druitt’s 50-year-old Dawson Park feel safer by night and cooler by day.

“Is there a suburb with a worse reputation that it is fighting? I don’t think there is,” said project architect Joshua Zoeller of Chrofi, whose practice did the redesign of the park.

A new design for Mount Druitt’s Dawson Park has won a major award. Credit: Simon Wood Photography

Mount Druitt’s town centre was NSW’s first planned town centre, a utopian vision of the 1970s featuring a park, swimming pool, library, offices, shops and school.

Far from delivering “the dream of a pleasantly landscaped area” the park became associated with street crime, alcohol, drug use and antisocial behaviour.

Its redesign is an example of how public art and landscaping, ranging from murals in Sydney’s inner west to laneways near railway stations, is making streets safer and bringing communities together.

Transport for NSW’s Safer Cities laneways program has been so successful that a spokesperson said it is to be extended. Another seven transport hub precincts across NSW will become safer and more vibrant under a similar initiative.

And in Sydney’s inner west, the council’s Perfect Match has resulted in 200 murals that have reduced graffiti and become a tourist attraction.

A mural by Jeff McCann in Sydenham has helped reduce graffiti.Credit: Rhett Wyman

To bring people back to Dawson Park in Mount Druitt, and away from its dark and risky edges, the new rope-covered pavilion meanders around trees from an old-growth forest, a new stage and seating areas. The awning provides dappled shade and bright colours that resonate with its multicultural residents.

The project by Chrofi with JMD Design this month won gold in the international Better Futures Awards that recognises design excellence in government projects. Blacktown Council says it marked the beginning of a wave of changes to Mount Druitt.

Locals say crime has been reduced, families feel safer in the square and the local Westfield shopping centre has begun holding events in the park.

Previous attempts to deter unsociable activity in the park and plaza had failed. Despite no-go areas in the square, though, it had one of the busiest social calendars in Sydney.

The biggest part of the brief was to provide shade, but that wasn’t enough.

Zoeller said it had to be functional and provide lighting, security and a stage. “I wanted to create a space that was hopeful and playful. That had colour. That drew people towards it, particularly families.”

Blacktown Council senior architect Matthew Sales said there hadn’t been any significant investment in Mount Druitt for years, if not decades. “This was the first project in the town square since it was built [in 1972].”

Its redesign has coincided with plans to upgrade the pool next door and the library, which is part of a masterplan by Chrofi with JMD Design.

Perfect match in the inner west

The Kookaburra House in Newtown features a mural by David Cragg. Credit: Rhett Wyman

Zoe Pedashenko’s home in Newtown is called the Kookaburra House by her daughter. That’s a reference to a mural of a giant kookaburra painted by artist David Cragg on the large end wall of her terrace.

Called Tributary, the mural was installed free of charge to Pedashenko by Inner West Council as part of its Perfect Match program. It commissions and matches mural artists with businesses, homes and apartment blocks with large walls to decorate.

What started as a program 10 years ago to reduce graffiti has become so much more, said Inner West Council Mayor Darcy Byrne. “We want to keep it going … and make this a real tourist attraction for the inner west and a source of civic pride.”

Frequently, the murals tell a story about the history of the oldest suburbs in Australia. “It is a contemporary way of bringing that history to life,” he said.

Byrne said, unlike most public art projects, it rarely triggers a complaint. “The investment is modest but the ROI is very big,” he said.

For every mural paid for by the council, a member is inspired to privately commission their own. “We have more street artists than anywhere else in Sydney,” Byrne said.

Artist Fintan Magee remembered being arrested for graffiti just after finishing art school in Brisbane. Moving to Sydney in 2010, it was “incredible” when he was commissioned over a few years to do about 10 murals for Perfect Match.

These works helped launch what has become an international career for Magee. He has just finished a project in Florida in the US and his murals also feature on walls of apartment blocks in France, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Perth.

“I was trying to get my work seen. I was not trying to change the world,” said Magee. “The murals connect the community with the arts and give the public a sense of ownership … and improve mental health.”

Pedashenko said she wanted something bright and cheery, not too graphic or graffiti-like. She worked with Cragg and the council to find something they all liked and wouldn’t attract graffiti. So far, it has only been tagged once, and that was small and easy to wash off, she said.

Laneways projects making streets safer for women

In the Guildford town centre, next to the railway station in Sydney’s west, women and girls using a busy laneway to a commuter car park felt six times safer at night following the installation of better lighting and art as part of NSW Transport’s $30 million Safer Cities project.

Guildford laneway is now brighter and safer.

Women said they were too scared to use the lane: it was dark and grim, with barren gardens, insufficient lighting and trip hazards. Some had been harassed by men, who followed them and honked their car horns.

The town centre received a $1 million grant to improve the laneway. Now called Her Way Guildford, the passage from the station to the car park was transformed with a colourful mural, installation of CCTV cameras, lighting and phone charging stations, tables and benches, and a performance space.

Not only did women feel safer, the data on a council dashboard showed more people using the space and an uptick in sales in the shops nearby.

Following the success of the $30 million Safer Cities program, another seven transport hub precincts will be overhauled under a similar initiative by Transport.

In the initiative, called ReVITALise – Public Transport Precinct Vibrancy Grant, seven councils have been selected to each receive $1 million to improve areas within 500 metres of a transport hub precinct. This may include better seating, shade or lighting, landscaping, public art or murals, or adding bike racks or mobile phone charging stations.

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