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ideas for greater goodness

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Prepared By:

Hello City creative urban strategists [email protected] [email protected] 0425 712 082 | 0405 710 682 www.hellocity.com.au

in collaboration with

on behalf of the Shaping Wollongong Partnership


Inside Cover: A small selection of images uploaded for the Shaping Wollongong Ideas-a-thon Capture photo challenge by: 1% Project, AEJ Architects, Art4Refugees, Big Fat Smile, The Breakfast Club, Lisa Brooke, Cardno Wollongong, Abhiruchi Chhikara, Future Retrospective, Illawarra Business Chamber, IRT Group, Belinda Keys, Last of the Optimists, Gongalicious, Merrigong Theatre Company, Helen Moon, Luke Musgrave, Geoff Payne, Dioni Pinilla, Re-create 2500, Sully & Harry, Taylor Brammer Landscape Architects, Neil Webster, Michael White, Wild Rumpus, Wollongong Food Fanatics

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ContentsForeword 7Introduction 8 The Shaping Wollongong Process 10A Snapshot of the Ideas-a-thon Ideas 1213 Fast Facts about Wollongong 13The Eachness of Wollongong 14 Our Ambitions 16Ambitions Overview 18Reveal Wollongong 20Nourish Wollongong 24Reinvent Wollongong 28Inspire Wollongong 32Make Wollongong 36Spark Wollongong 40Revitalise Wollongong 44Intensify Wollongong 48Explore Wollongong 52Collaborate Wollongong 56

The Participants 60Thank You 62Ambitions Poster 66What’s Next 68

photo: Abhiruchi Chhikara (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

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photo: Hello City

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world; and that is an idea whose time has come.”- Victor Hugo

It is time to Shape Wollongong - to create greater good for our regional city.

The Property Council began this journey because we saw a need for a simple, compelling vision for the future that captures the imagination of the city and lights the way forward. And we wanted to invite the whole city to play a part in def ining it.

We commissioned creative urban strategists Hello City, with their combination of local knowledge, their understanding of what makes cities successful around the globe & their experience of developing workable strategies, to guide the project.

We believe that Shaping Wollongong has the power to be a catalyst for action, harnessing the determination of the city, mobilising and galvanising local entrepreneurship, confidence, community, creativity and investment in the region.

Throughout the process, we have been inspired by the extraordinary way the people of Wollongong have responded to the challenge, in their hundreds, with overwhelming positivity and energy.

We hope you f ind the ideas exciting, the lessons from elsewhere interesting and the suggested next steps worth embracing. We invite you to be part of it - to breathe new life into neglected places, bring people together around the issues that matter and bring lasting change to the city.

You don’t have to be the business owner, the policy maker, the political leader, the investor, or a creative genius (although you are very welcome if you are). All you need is a passion for Wollongong and the commitment to make great things happen.

- The Property Council of Australia on behalf of The Shaping Wollongong Partnership

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“I thought it was going to be a small event, but in true Wollongong style 170 people turned up and I think that’s fantastic.”

– Ben Hughes, GPT Group

“Shaping Wollongong is happening at the

right time, just as the city is gain-

ing broader investment and when many

current builder owners and tenants are

considering how they can contribute to

the rejuvenation of their city. Ev-

eryone wants this to succeed – we can

absolutely work towards these outcomes

and then do it again!”

– Tracy Preston, MMJ

“Super lab on Friday! Super organisa-tion and excellent exercise. We really had to test the ideas from the Ideas-a-thon and work together to see what would become of it. There was a high calibre of professions involved: I was working with an international business investor who recently purchased a city building, representatives from Wollongong Council and the Department of Planning – all true Wollongong believers!”

– Rafael Vasquez Romero, SMART Team, University of Wollongong

“It was a privilege to be

involved in this project.”

– Susanne Pini, Rice Daubney Architects

“Wollongong Council has keenly

contributed our time, energy and

ideas to Shaping Wollongong.

Council has been developing a

number of city centre revitali-

sation projects and so to sup-

port a partnership working to-

wards harnessing even more great

ideas complements our endeav-

ours. I had great feedback about

the ideas-a-thon from staff,

councillors and the broader com-

munity. I enjoyed participating

in the Lab Day and working with

other passionate enthusiasts.

Hopefully this is a catalyst for

greater outcomes for the city.” – David Farmer, Wollongong City Council GM

“Wollongong has so many passionate creative people who weren’t necessarily talking to or aware of each other and the growing group of enablers keen to revit-alise the city. It’s been great to participate in the Shaping Wollongong project and see some of these con-nections being made. Not only did we manage to come up with some strategic ways to help build on the enthu-siasm – the fact that we won the marshmallow tower chal-lenge was a career high-light!”

– Marcus Westbury, Renew Australia

“It’s been a great opportunity for Wollongong City Council to be involved in the Shaping Wollon-gong project. The high level of engagement and activity through-out this project demonstrates the enormous enthusiasm of stakehold-ers across our city. We’re look-ing forward to the final results. Congratulations to the Shaping Wollongong team!”

– Wollongong City Council Lord Mayor, Cr Gordon Bradbery

What participants said about Shaping Wollongong

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein

In 2012, the Property Council identif ied the need for a vision that could light a clear pathway for the city of Wollongong and bring together the many partners who could take it to fruition.

They established a partnership of people - state and local governments, landowners & asset owners, advisors and experts. The group shared common goals: gather ideas from the people of Wollongong, learn from what worked well elsewhere and find opportunities to re-energise this city.

This group challenged Hello City to facilitate a conversation to generate big ideas and understand how to put them into action. Shaping Wollongong is the result.

We are on the cusp of a new era. $650m in CBD redevelopment projects are spurring the transformation and building a platform for the next wave of investment. It is all driven by a passionate, growing culture of can-do businesses, creatives and residents.

A determination to push the boundaries beyond the status quo runs deep - to see what Wollongong can achieve and to create more opportunities for success.

Hello City and the Shaping Wollongong Partnership took to the streets, cafes, galleries, wine bars, clubs, offices, laneways, local media and the phone to hear Wollongong’s story and what it hopes to become.

We found an incredible thirst for positive change and a plethora of ideas for Wollongong – in fact more than 3000 of them, gathered on a sunny Friday afternoon at Shaping Wollongong’s Globe Lane Ideas-a-thon. We were amazed by what they came up with. We hope you will be too.

As a partnership, we hope the smart and dedicated people we met along the way continue to collaborate and drive forward these ideas.

Our ambition for Shaping Wollongong is that it is used as a tool by those among you who are making things happen in this city. To inform what you do & how you do it. To inform how and where you spend your resources and how you make your decisions. To inspire & crystallise your conversations, your passions and your work.

What do we mean by Wollongong? We didn’t define a boundary for the project - we wanted the people of Wollongong to tell us what Shaping Wollongong meant to them.

The results are some-times very specific to the CBD as the focal point and at other times very broad & regional.

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The process of defining the ambitions for Shaping Wollongong started in May 2013. We were after big ideas, fresh thinking, new connections & inspiration that also built on what was already here, already proposed or already happening.

We deliberately used a different process that stepped beyond dry public meetings or surveys. We wanted to hear the thoughts, ideas and aspirations of people from all walks of life - from grassroots community to big corporates and everyone in between. Then we wanted them tell us what was really possible. A wishlist wouldn’t cut it.

Globe Lane Ideas-a-thonIn May we invited the people of Wollongong to form teams to take part in an Ideas-a-thon featuring three challenges in Globe Lane on a Friday afternoon. We were blown away by the response.

170 people in 41 teams showed up - community mem-bers, families, government, small business, big business, university students, artists and consultants.

Challenge One - Capture - was to take & upload photos of Wollongong in response to a series of 16 statements, such as “Wouldn’t it be terrible if Wollongong had more of this?”, “This makes my heart sing” and “Change”.

Challenge Two - Spark - was about quantity: coming up with as many ideas as humanly possible racing against the clock

Challenge Three - Hack - was about taking an idea, pulling it apart and putting it back together again. Participants brainstormed in groups through a set of questions such as “What would a 6 year old do with this idea?”, “How would you deliver this idea if you only had 3 months and $100?” and “How would you deliver this idea if it were the year 2100?”.

A team of local luminaries gave feedback on the quality and diversity of the ideas and awarded prizes.

The event had a massive response. Over 900 photos were uploaded for the photo challenge, chronicling aspira-tions for the city, many of which illustrate this document.

Participants generated an incredible 3476 ideas on the day with 41 developed ideas submitted to the judges.

We added these to the results of surveys and our review of existing strategies, policies, programs and studies. As we pored over them, clear themes started to emerge and set the scene for the next stage.

Ideas LabIn June around 60 knowledgeable people with myriad backgrounds & expertise met for an Ideas Lab. These people were best placed to understand each theme from its different angles, with intimate knowledge of the bar-riers, levers, politics and history - and what it would take to bring them to fruition.

We asked these participants to work in groups to define frameworks in which many of the ideas could flourish. They considered the forces shaping Wollongong today, made hard judgement calls about the sweet spot between ambition and practicalities and set defined goals and mapped what needs to happen to realise their goals. Not bad for a day’s work.

This document attempts to capture all of this industriousness, thinking, dreaming and current momentum in one place. Don’t think of it as a strategy or a report. Think of it as a glimpse into the minds of participants and the audacious future they see for Wollongong.

photos: Hello City, Property Council of Australia, Nick McLaren (via Twitter)

The Shaping Wollongong Conversation

Judging

panel

of awesome

local luminaries

Ideas-a-thonShaping W0llongong

2 3

race to the finish line & revel in the glory of your collective genius. You rock!

Spark Hack

Show us the ‘gong the way you see it

Generate masses of ideas - beat the clock!

Pull apart your Team’s most brilliant ideas and put them back together

Good people of the illawarra we cordially invite you to take part in the amazing…

Capture

For details & to register visitwww.hellocity.com.au/shaping-wollongong

The Five most exciting ideas will go on to the final stage for the delight of local & international experts, movers & shakers

4 ShapeINTENSIVE IDEAS LAB

AN INITIATIVE OF THE PROPERTY COUNCIL IN COLLABORATION WITH HELLO CITY

Sign in between 3 & 4pm Friday

of May, 201310 th

For the latest:#shapingwollongong@_HelloCity_Like Hello City

Game on! Register your team online & get instructions for

your first challenge

1

Friday

arvo

Challenge

Finish 6pm

FabulousPrizes!

Globe LaneWOLLONGONG

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Ideas-a-thon teams: 1% Project, Art4Refugees, Avago, Be Seeing You, The Bevanites, Big Fat Smile, The Breakfast Club, Central to Change, Dawbolt, The Daydreamers, The 4Cs Cardno

City Concept Collective, Food Fanatics, Future Retrospective, Good Jelly, Gongification, Gongainables, Gongalicious, Gung Ho Gong Gang, Hatchtag, Herron Todd White, Illawarra Coal, IRT Living

City, IRT Social City, Last of the Optimists, Let’s Do It, Livewires, Merrigong Theatre, MMJ teams, Odd Bods, Re-create, SISAT Plus Plus, Smart, Taylor Brammer, Team Mash, Travellers, Urban Life,

We Can Do It, We Love the Gong, Wild Rumpus

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wellness district

sparkler art exhibition

giant clothes swap

all-weather interactive museum

white water rapids in main street

container bar

brightly coloured buildings

guerilla gardening

grey nomad activ

ities

micro business support

swing dance classes

zombie walk

roller skating rink

dance-a-thon

vertical gardens

subsidies for business

relocationhigh speed rail

bike hire

treasure hunts

rooftop gardens

vintag

e pop

up sho

ps

soap box in mall

knitting skills swap

Shakespeare in the park

light rail

affordable housing

A tiny fraction of the thousands of ideas generated at the Shaping Wollongong Ideas-a-thon

convention centre

jazz clubs

buskers program

13 fast facts about Wollongong

1 Wollongong is the 10th largest urban centre in Australia.

2 Wollongong has created jobs in mining, teaching, accommodation and food service, caring and

managing. The knowledge services sector including ICT, business & financial services is one of the fastest growing. It currently employs over 4900 people across 72 sites in the city.

3 The City Centre is expected to accommodate an additional 10,000 new jobs by 2031. The CBD and fringe currently

employ nearly 1 in 3 jobs in the Wollongong LGA.

4 Wollongong has an unemployment rate consistently higher than the NSW &

national average, particularly in the 16-24 years age bracket.

5 The Wollongong CBD office market offers 146,784sqm of commercial space of which 45% is

A-grade. A-grade vacancies are currently under 2.1%, indicating an urgent need for more new commercial space.

6 Approximately 20,000 Wollongong & Illawarra region residents commute to Sydney each day.

7 Wollongong is one of Australia’s most connected regional cities with 5 million people living within a

three hour drive of Wollongong.

8 There are currently over 900 items hand-made in Wollongong

available for sale internationally through Etsy.

9 Wollongong City Gallery has one of the most valuable regional gallery

collections in NSW.

10 23% of people of the Illawarra were born overseas. In the most recent ABS data,

Wollongong recorded 24 different nationalities & 22 religions.

11 In 1992, UOW had just over 1,000 interna-tional students. By 2012 it had 12,946

international students, representing 143 nationalities.

12 Taking into account direct, indirect & induced impacts, the various activities

related to the University of Wollongong helped generate $2.06 billion in gross economic output, $607 million in household income & 7,979 full time equivalent jobs last year.

13 Over 10 small bars, cafes & galleries have opened in the CBD

since late last year.

Sources: Wollongong City Council Economic Development Strategy 2013-23, Property Council Office Market Report 2013, UOW Leading Locally, Competing Globally, February 2013, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Etsy

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photo: Geoff Payne (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

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We use the term eachness, coined by William James in the 1800s, to talk about the individual qualities of something that define it & make it unique. The eachness of a place captures the characteristics big and small that make it entirely itself.

Steel, mining, manufacturing, sense of industry,

industriousness.

Key Characteristics

The Eachness of Wollongongwhere are we now, where do we want to get to?

Beach, escarpment, rainforest, natural beauty

Innovation, learning, embracing the future

Grassroots culture, getting on with it

Multiculturalism

Quality of life, easy commute,

family

Passion for

ideas

Emergent culture

Abundance, harvests,

lush vegetation, richness in natural

resources of all kinds

Water - the sea, the

lagoon, creeks, the lake

Recognising the asset that our disparate experiences are: urban yet natural, old

school industrial yet cutting edge innovation.

Wollongong is a place of green spaces, sparkling urban beaches, a working fishing harbour, the Blue Mile and light-houses all set against a backdrop of the escarpment and the ocean.

It’s a multicultural place where people talk over the breakfast table in

32 different languages.Wollongong is a place with stories to tell. Of people eking a living from the earth, of migrants forging a new life, of Aunty Jack and being the butt of jokes. Along with tales of inventors, chancers,

collaborators and exuberant experimenters, like Lawrence Hargrave and his dream of flight.

The Illawarra is a place of plenty.

Bestowed with so much beauty &

sunlight & fertile soil and resources that it occasionally takes them for granted & underestimates its own assets.

Wollongong has also had its share of disasters and decline. It has taken on

cycles of boom & bust with a can-do attitude and a willingness to reinvent itself and make its own luck.

Wollongong is growing up into an urban city that no longer wants to be defined just by its industrial past or its relationship

to Sydney. A city that is re-telling its story as one of change, adventure, innovation, dynamism, learning and creativity.

Where do we want to get to?What we hope for Wollongong’s future

full of colourconfident

outward

connected

transforma-tive

trend-setting

authentic

vibrant

inviting

engaged

dynamic

embracing

destina-tion

fun

prosperous

liveable

iconic

proud

green

world-leading

intelligent

charismatic

brave

bold

showcase

adven-turous

progressive

relevant

Where are we?how Wollongong is currently perceived

unpre-tentious

beauti-ful

under-ground soul

coastalaspiring

inward

trans-forming

opportu-nity

growing

undis-cov-ered

surprising

homedated

stuttering

unsure

grubby

diverse

expectant

tiredhumble

unplanned

change

canvas

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photo: AEJ Architects (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

16“All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people. For they dream their dreams with open eyes & make them come true.” - D.H. Lawrence

The results of the Shaping Wollongong process have been distilled into 10 ambitions for the city. Some are grand and optimistic. Others suggest starting at grass-roots level, to build on the passion & skills of locals, and grow slowly over time. They have all been suggested and developed because they get us closer to the future city that Wollongong says it wants. Together they can transform the city.

We were struck by the level of consensus amongst the participants in the process. Certain themes came up again and again: harness-ing the power of ideas, technology, creativity & embedding innovation in the culture. Nurturing vitality, authenticity & soulfulness. Fairness and access. Different ways to enable a city core that feels more intensely urban. Of the roles that food & arts can play to bring people together and define a new identity for this city. And to do more of the active

& creative events that are enlivening Wollongong.

The other thing that really struck us was the sense of real momentum, of positive change happening already & gathering speed.

All of the ambitions outlined in this document have been explored by the people who understand the issues surrounding them. It will take the continued commitment of those people to do all of the testing, feasibility studies and project planning that it will take to turn them into a reality.

There is enormous value in each person, each business, each organisa-tion that has taken part to date - giving us a powerful resource to do just that.

our ambitions

10 a

mbition

s

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The Ten Ambitions

Ambition 1 Reveal Wollongong: unlock a story of the city that is positive, consistent,

authentic & contagious.

Ambition 2 Nourish Wollongong: bring life to the city

through all things food.

Ambition 3 Reinvent Wollongong: activate every under-used place, space & face in the city.

Ambition 4 Inspire Wollongong: create the conditions for cultural creatives to thrive.

Ambition 5

Make Wollongong:

connect people to tools, activity,

support & resources.

Ambition 6

Spark Wollongong:

value, encourage, stimulate &

nurture innovation across sectors.

Ambition 7

Revitalise Wollongong: grow the city

in ways that lead to vibrancy, inclusiveness & quality.

Ambition 8

Intensify Wollongong: bring life to

the central city by making it somewhere people want to live, learn, work & play.

Ambition 9 Explore Wollongong: enhance relationships & journeys between key city experiences.

Ambition 10

Collaborate Wollongong: develop platforms for

cooperation to continue to shape the city.


Short term(can happen quickly)

GraSS rootS(delivered by communities)

operationS(events, activities & programs)

relational(about people, rules &relationships)

lonG term(will take a long time to implement)

StrateGic(delivered by

formal institutions)

capital inveStment

(buildings & hard infrastructure)

Spatial(locations & physical

connections) explore

intenSify

in Spire

reinvent

make

nouriSh

Spark

collaboratereveal

revitali Se

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The ambitions that emerged from Shaping Wollongong were diverse in terms of their reach. Some were highly strategic, long-term and complex. Others suggested a gradual evolution from small beginnings. This diagram demonstrates the breadth of the ambitions when taken as a group, plotting each according to:

- How long it will take to make it happen

- Whether it is strategic or grassroots in nature

- Whether it focuses more on infrastructure or activity

- Whether it is more to do with the physical environment or relationships

Ambitions Map

10 a

mbition

s

19

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photo: Art4Refugees (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

Promote the city not just the surrounds

Create a Play Wollongong brand

that imagines the Illawarra as

an adventure playground for

sport, exploration and active

events like the Gran Fondo

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”-- Joan Didion

Ambition 1

Reveal Wollongongunlock a story of the city that is positive, consistent, authentic & contagious

Wollongong’s history, community & sense of itself means that it already has a strong city identity that is diverse and eclectic.

The identity of Wollongong is embedded in the way the city looks and feels and can be experienced. It’s in the stories we choose to tell ourselves. It’s the sense of place and the values we hold. The job at hand now is to decide what true story we want to the world to know about us and then to retell that story in a way that is effective, consistent & compelling.

Like all places worth their salt, the story & image of Wollongong is rich, layered, complex, contradictory & made up of light & darkness.

We need to engage with all aspects of our image and acknowledge that the darkness and the grit are an important part of what makes Wollongong real and interesting.

We should take care to ensure that these less comfortable elements are not white-washed away. We can progress without ignoring our legacies.

The story we tell about Wollongong should be simple without being simplistic. The brand should build on existing branding work such as the strongly aspirational brand of City of Innovation, and consider how proof points can be embedded & integrated in the urban fabric & the city’s culture, allowing the brand to be experienced rather than broadcast.

Manchester City Council took an innovative approach by appointing a Brand Advocate to lead the brand-ing strategy of the city. They chose a creative local identity, Peter Saville, who was instrumental in defining the look and feel of the city’s legendary music scene in the 1990s and who was able to approach the image and brand of the city from a different angle. This approach has led to a deeper, richer definition of brand and a wider suite of interventions available to both sup-port and to express it. Because Manchester’s brand development is one which has emerged from the unique assets, personalities and experiences of the place, it is also one which has a wider acceptance across diverse sections of the popula-tion and has acted as a catalyst for a broad range of activities.

We believe that Wollongong should use its own cultural creatives to develop its brand. This should encompass the existing values of innovation and its proof points, such as the history of Lawrence Hargrave, the advancements by the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, Bluescope innovations in steel production & Innovation Campus research collaboratives. The brand should tap into other local values such as creativity, smartness, multi-culturalism, boldness & play.

The humourous sticker campaigns in response to the We Love the Gong campaign shows how Wollongong locals are interacting and riffing with their place brand. The masterbrand should be one that allows people to do this in a witty, playful, informal & unauthorised way that is likely to further the authen-ticity of the brand strategy.

“A brand is not just a logotype, it’s a set of values that are communicated through actions.” Peter Saville, Brand Advocate for Manchester, UK

Ambit

ion 1: r

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22Delivery MechanismAppoint a cultural creative as Brand Advocate to build on the past branding research to develop a masterbrand & suite of supporting activities, building a sense of owner-ship and use by all sectors of business, government and the community.

The brand should build on a sense of place and local pride of residents first, and work as destination branding second. Tourists are attracted to places loved by locals. If the brand works for the people of Wollongong, it will also serve to drive and attract inward investment.

The brand should be inclusive and be based on a broad consensus with strong buy-in & clear messages. It must have long term com-mitment and support from key partners.

A number of the ambitions and ideas outlined in this document provide strong concepts & experiences to support the brand. People participating in Shaping Wollongong told us the city is a place of journeys as well as destina-tions, and the home of the brief and joyful commute (ambition 9). They see Wollongong as a vibrant, live-able city with food at its heart (ambition 2), a place of creative, emergent activities (ambitions 3 and 4), and a place of collaboration, enterprise and innova-tion (ambitions 5 and 6).

Suggested PartnersTourism NSW, Wollongong City Council, Destination Wollongong, University of Wollongong, Illawarra Business Chamber, Property Council of Australia, sector representatives and local creative organisations.

Suggested Next Steps

Identify potential sources of funding for brand work including existing budgets for identity development, events, tourism and city centre development

Build on the WCC brand initiative work by inviting the participation of local creatives, entrepreneurs and innovators alongside council and community leaders.

Define the reach of the brand and its integration with other existing brands.

Appoint a brand advocate with a 3 month residency in Wollongong to develop the many stories of Wollongong and to facilitate an accessible conversation around: What kind of place does Wollongong think it is? What do others think?

Within the masterbrand define the role of the media, the key audience, points of difference and competitive advantage.

Create sibling brands and distinct identities for towns and villages and precincts within the region.

Build on the delivery of signature events with one major event that really captures the essence of Wollongong.

Develop and deliver a program of activities and festivals around food, wine, art, performances, buskers/sculpture by the sea, digital/arts/music festival taking place multiple venues like the South by South West Festival in Austin, Texas.

Develop tools for business to link their marketing to the city and regional brand.

Develop ‘Talk of the Town’: a platform for sharing stories, with a webpage, apps, maps, message board and media releases.

Case Study: Keep Austin Weird Campaign, Austin, Texas, USA

The Austin Independent Business Alliance developed the Keep Austin Weird campaign in order to support and promote small local businesses in the city.

The campaign was so successful in encapsulating the eclectic, tolerant

and progressive nature of the city that it transcended the initial slogan and became the positioning for the city. The strength of the positioning is in its recognition that what makes Austin unique - its proliferation of things that are edgy, alternative and marginalised in a conservative state - is also its selling point.

Austin is a global centre for live music and creative pursuits of all kinds. By understanding the link between toler-

ance of difference and creativity, the Keep Austin Weird positioning has helped to celebrate and cement its creative role as a social and economic driver for the city.

The celebration of difference, par-ticularly in relation to unique small businesses, has since been taken up by other cities wishing to differentiate themselves in a global market through weirdness such as Portland, Oregon.

Ambition 1 photos: Derek Key, Lars Plougmann, Joey Parsons

Ambit

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photo: Big Fat Smile (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

“All sorrows are less with

bread.” - Miguel de Cervantes .

Set local restaurants a challenge to use local produce (Food Fanatics)

More on street dining

(Re-create)

Make Wollongong

the multicultura

l

dining destinati

on (Bevanites)

Ambition 2

Nourish Wollongong Bring life to the city through all things food

Wollongong has the benefit of prox-imity to abundant farmland, vineyards and the fishing industry. We have a rich history of multiculturalism. We have fertile soil and a temperate cli-mate. And we love coming together around food to commune and cele-brate. These elements should be used to position Wollongong as a vibrant liveable city with food at its heart.

There is already a lot happening at a community level, from annual events and festivals to small boutique pop-ups. The trend for individual and funky small bars and restaurants continues to gain momentum.

All the pieces of the puzzle are there. All that is needed is a way to bind those elements & create one focal point to catalyse new activity throughout the region & throughout the year. To put the Illawarra on the map as a foodie destination with Wollongong as its heartland.

In order to make Wollongong synony-mous with good, fresh, imaginative food, we should link consumers,

suppliers, distributors & producers. We should showcase local food, producers & artisans to celebrate the multicultural face of the city and tell the story of a destination that taps into the soul & authenticity of the region.

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is an example of a city that has used its 250 food events to celebrate its food offer, drive visita-tion, educate people about food and support local businesses. The event is extremely broad in terms of its geography, ethnicities and price points and attracts hundreds of thousands of participants.

We believe the most effective strategy to make connections between existing activity and to develop new activity is to appoint a Food Curator for the city, underpinned by the collaboration and actions developed through the Illawarra Food Strategy. Activity should be looked at in four key areas:

Food Actions: develop a calendar of foodie events.

Food Participation: create oppor-tunities for people to get involved with food and food issues, for example edible gardens in public spaces, a food map, a local grants program for farming, markets, fishing, co-ops, community farms, skill swap programs and more coordinated community gardens.

Food Feel: supporting the brand experience of Wollongong by promoting the authentic, cosmopolitan, vibrant & unique food culture of the region.

Food Spaces: making improvements to the environments in which food experiences take place, for example streetscape improvements to make dining spaces more appealing, lighting, bike access & pop-up entertainment.

Activities that could be developed from the Food Strategy would include an annual Food Festival, food education programs and food advocacy programs such as estab-lishing the 50:50:50 Food Challenge to local operators that 50% of restaurants and cafes source 50% of their produce from within 50km.

The benefits would include reducing food miles and increasing the social and economic resilience of the region as well as promoting a positive association with Wollongong and food as a giver of life.

25

Ambit

ion 2: n

ourish

Make Wollongong the multi-cultural dining destination (Bevanites)

Cultural food and wine festival (We Heart The Gong)

A fresh produce market in underused spaces (Illawarra Coal)

26

Delivery MechanismAppoint a Food Curator for the city to build on the Illawarra Regional Food Strategy to include a major festival, annual program of events, education, participation & advocacy programs.

The Food Curator will develop a supporting program including one large major event & a myriad of small-scale events throughout the year such as col-laborations between education sector and food sectors, major events, such as street food night markets and more casual food carts featuring local food.

The program should include ways to improve spaces related to food & develop ways to provide opportunities for people to participate in the production of food.

The final program should link with a review of liquor licensing laws, trading laws, venue closures and development approvals in conjunction with the Central City Strategy outlined in Ambition 5 to determine barriers and appropriate modifications that ensure this ambition can be realised.

Suggested PartnersThe Food Fairness Illawarra Group,Wollongong City Council, the University of Wollongong, Small Farms Network, Department of Primary Industries, NGOs working on diet-related disease and food security issues (Heart Foundation, Cancer Council NSW, Anglicare etc), Landcare Illawarra, Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority, local food networks representatives and pro-active operators like the GPT Group.


Establish an industry group to give food industry/food operators a voice and let them decide on the lead partner.

Appoint a Food Curator for the city.

Ensure the program includes:

• a business plan and reporting framework;

• a mapping of the city’s foodies to create new partnerships and new collaborations;

• funding sources: eg through Council, rate-based levies, tourism and major sponsor/s;

• an annual program of events.

Review existing policies that relate to the objectives of the Food Strategy - particularly in relation to unintended consequences - & modify them accordingly.

Develop and deliver events, including links with existing events where possible.

Case Study: Incredible Edible Todmorden

The Lancashire town of Todmorden has transformed its public space and its reputation at the same time by creating edible gardens on underused tracts of public land. It started as a couple of patches and has spread throughout the town providing free, fresh food to the townspeople with the aim of inspiring people it was pos-sible to rely on local produce rather than import it.

Many who started as beneficiaries of the scheme are now volunteers with 273 people currently on Incredible Edible’s “muck-in” list and local food shops also seeing the benefits of being part of a town that has become renowned for fresh produce. The Local Authority is now also a supporter of the project. A key strength of the initiative is its focus on bringing people together - it sees itself as a community development initiative as well as a food initiative.

The approach has become a movement with 30 other towns around the UK and beyond adopting the Incredible Edible methodology.

Case Study: FoodCycle

FoodCycle is a community-led charity that operates throughout the UK bringing together surplus food, volunteers and spare kitchen space to create nutritious meals for people at risk of food poverty & social isolation.

The initiative has been up and running for four years and has a network of over 1000 volunteers serving meals in 14 communities across the UK.

Ambition 2 photos: Hello City, Lily Rhoads, R A Paterson,

The Garden Buzz, Brian Glanz

27

Ambit

ion 2: n

ourish

A mini Lygon StreetA centre for sustainable

local produce

28

photo: Hello City

“Happiness is a state of activity.” - Aristotle

Murals and light shows o

n

blank city walls (1% Pro

ject)

Light up the laneways (Let’s Do It)

Ambition 3

Re- invent Wollongong activate every under-used place, space & face in the city

Like many places Wollongong faces the problem and the opportunity of vacant shops & offices, facades & spaces that are underused. Too many empty spaces can make a place seem like it’s in decline, unsafe and unloved. At the same time, high vacancy rates have the potential to provide an opportunity for the young, entrepreneurial and creative to play an active and public role in the life of the city.

The Illawarra has a very strong culture of creativity and innovation and a can-do attitude. It also has a number of investors currently active with new or regeneration projects in the CBD.

The trifecta of cheap rent, active investors & cultural creatives form a potent mix that has the power to reshape this city.

In order to achieve this, a not-for-profit organisation, or a partnership between existing organisations should be established to implement an ongoing program of grassroots activity in public & private spaces.

As a catalyst, the city should commis-sion a Renew Wollongong initiative, building on the successful project that has reinvigorated the empty shops of Newcastle and now rolling out to other areas throughout Australia. In tandem, a broader pro-gram of temporary activity should be enabled to bring life to city streets.

Gap Filler in Christchurch is a not for profit set up to generate tempo-rary activity after the Christchurch earthquakes. The initiative brings together empty spaces with creative, sociable and dynamic people and has given the community a way to come together. The project moves quickly in response to a constantly shifting environment - the emphasis is on making things happen quickly and straightforwardly.

Working with local community groups, artists, architects, landowners, librarians, designers, students, engineers, dancers, Gap Filler lowers the barriers to activity by handling contractual and insurance issues. From cycle-powered cinemas, a central city-wide mini golf course to dance-o-mats and murals, this initiative is succeeding in bringing vibrancy, creativity and hope to a city that has never needed these things more.

A similar model could be developed in Wollongong to provide leadership, manage and facilitate partnerships, media, marketing logistics and legalities of the process, remove barriers and provide a strong platform for the creatives & self starters of Wollongong.

Ambit

ion 3: r

einv

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Programs in unused spaces (Good Jelly)

30

Delivery MechanismSet up a not-for-profit organisation or partnership of existing organisations to support grassroots activity in vacant spaces & places throughout the city.

This initiative should focus on both public & privately held spaces, and should support programs, events, pop-ups and artworks in public parks and streets, as well as shops, facades and office buildings. The organisation could be partly funded from the existing mall levy and rates from CBD businesses and have a strong partnership with Wollongong City Council to enable projects that can pop-up when spaces become available around the city.

Suggested Partners Wild Rumpus, Renew Australia, Wollongong City Council and other key local creatives, entrepre-neurs, property owners and tenants, Small Business Connect, and organisations currently active in the CBD like VERB, Wonderwalls, Studio 19.

Suggested next steps

Identify potential funding sources, including crowdsourced funding and sponsorship.

Establish a not-for-profit organisation or partnership inspired by Gap Filler in New Zealand & identify a lead partner.

Deliver a short program of information and enabling ses-sions for local creative entrepreneurs to assist local self-starters to navigate council regulations and policies, and make use of available funding, programs and resources.

Build on current city centre projects with a 6 month program of small, quick and light initiatives and trial art projects interlinked with Wollongong City Council’s facade improvements program and GPT’s activation program of creative projects. These proj-ects can be temporary and small in scale, but should support larger initiatives and provide talking points, whilst developing relationships to support an ongoing program.

Kick start a Renew Wollongong project in vacant proper-ties in Globe Lane working with local creative partners and property owners.

Conduct an audit of vacant spaces and places , prioritising key movement corridors and identify property owners.

Secure the services of Renew Australia to provide guid-ance and training and support for a local project manager provided through the Collaborate Wollongong project outlined in Ambition 10.

A night park of community activity (Livewires)

Renew unused spaces whilst

providing opportunities for

learning (Wild Rumpus)

Case Study: Pop Up Park, Yarraville, Maribyrnong, VIC

In the summer of 2012, Maribyrnong Council and the Yarraville Traders Association worked together to install a pop-up park in one of the suburb’s main streets.

The park appears such a simple inter-vention - some astroturf, some potted trees and deckchairs - yet it reinvigo-rated the area, gained an enormous amount of publicity, caused an increase in visitors to the area and won awards for its innovative approach.

A key factor in the pop up park’s success is the involvement and vision of the area’s traders. Whilst not all have embraced the temporary public open space, the local Traders Association has been a strong advocate who has understood that the creation of a village green, the publicity and the increased visita-tion makes losing a couple of parking spaces a small price to pay.

Yarraville Traders Association presi-dent Alexis Ensor has expressed that it was one step in a plan to make the village more pedestrian friendly. ‘’We’re trying to send the message that if you come to Yarraville village,

be prepared to park a small distance from the shops and walk in.’

The low-fi nature of the park is part of its charm and has allowed the park to be trialled for two seasons before making a decision about its permanent future. The opportunity to try out an intervention of this kind makes it much less risky and there-fore easier to make happen.

Maribyrnong Council is now consider-ing making the park a permanent fea-ture of the area.

Ambition 3 photos: Big Fat Smile (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge), Hello City, Future Retrospective

(Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge), Michael White (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

Ambit

ion 3: r

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31

32

Photo of Studio 19 Wollongong: Hello City

“The first step - especially for young people with energy & drive & talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model & demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.” - Chuck Palahniuk

An iconic beachside cultural

facility (Merrigong Theatre) A Wollongong

Film Festival

(Gongalicious)

A mega festival (Big Fat Smile)

Ambition 4

Inspire Wollongongcreate the conditions for cultural creatives to thrive

The Illawarra is home to many creative, talented & inspired people.

A number of shifts have happened in recent years that make it possible to maintain a strong, professional, varied cultural scene away from the big cities. Technological changes like blogs, social media and YouTube make it possible to maintain connections and networks, sell goods and publish & exhibit work from anywhere. These, along with reductions in the cost of equipment and materials used to produce artworks and goods for sale and the rise in flexible working arrangements and co-working spaces, have made it easier for creatives to maintain their practices outside the centres of major cities.

But there are also significant disadvan-tages that are preventing the Illawarra practitioners from capitalising on these opportunities. Firstly, they can find themselves isolated from the broader conversation, struggling to get on the radar of curators. Secondly, as oppor-tunities often come via peers, if local artists socialise with other creatives who also work outside the main network they can miss out on the secondary opportunities. Finally, there is a lack of local institutions that have the profile outside the region to further a young artist’s or designer’s career.

Wollongong has struggled to maintain a strong cultural scene because of its relatively small population size and its proximity to the higher profile artistic activi-ties of Sydney. Creatives living in the Illawarra have tended to either move to Sydney or further afield, or lived in Wollongong but performed, exhib-ited, traded & socialised in Sydney.

We believe a comprehensive Arts & Culture Strategy that will drive creative clustering and facilitate artistic exchange would create the conditions for cultural creatives to flourish in Wollongong.

The benefits to the city of this invest-ment would flow on to the local economy, tourism, skills, city reputa-tion and quality of life for all.

Delivery Mechanism Build on existing programs and the emerging Cultural Plan, to develop an Artists’ Quarter, appoint a City Curator and implement a supporting program of arts & cultural events.

We believe we should create a vibrant Artists Quarter in the east-ern Crown Street area that takes in the Wollongong City Gallery, Lang’s Corner building, the weekly markets, the Arts Precinct Plaza and Central Chambers, making use of the lower Town Hall site, shop-top spaces and public space. This precinct should provide studio spaces for all types of creative practices, more co-working spaces like Corner Table, collaboration/meeting spaces and small artist-run performance and exhibition spaces, which could also serve as cafes or bars.

Where possible these spaces should be rented, fitted out, and managed by the creatives themselves, & funding should be identif ied to support marketing, insurance, materials, publication, events, training, performances & exhibitions.

The quarter should be a place both of creative production & consumption, like the exist-ing Studio 19 project space. Small grants for events and publications with extremely low hurdle require-ments should be made available on a monthly basis. These grants should be very easy to apply for and acquit, and simple for the funding body to administer. Funding should focus on

Ambit

ion 4: Ins

pire

33

A comprehensive public art

strategy (Last of the Optimists)

34supporting the expansion or ambition of existing initiatives where appropriate in order to support ground-up efforts.

A creative City Curator should be appointed annually to carry out a three month residency in Wollongong. The Curator’s primary role should be to build internationally credible platforms for local creatives, with particular emphasis on supporting those organisations already operating in the region, and allowing them to forge broader networks and expand their activities. The curator should also seek to incorporate activities of The Conservatorium of Wollongong, the university, and bring national and inter-national creatives to work in the cultural precinct, establish the direction of the annual Viva la Gong festival, and have creative input into other key festivals.

A prestigious international exchange program should be established which allows creatives who have lived in Wollongong for more than two years to travel to practice and publish/ perform internationally, and that brings international thinkers and creatives to the Illawarra to work in Wollongong’s creative quarter.

The Arts and Cultural Strategy should also explore the possibility of an art-house cinema &/or screens in public space. Outdoor screens could provide a classic children’s cinema program to support early-evening out-door dining and other community pro-gramming. A pop-up screen would be an effective way to test possible locations, programming and governance while building a local audience before making a larger investment in a permanent screen.

The strategy should also consider a feasibility study into an iconic arts & cultural facility. Major cultural institutions like MONA or the Bilbao Guggenheim have achieved major flow-on benefits to their local economies, sense of place and city reputations.

Lastly, the strategy should have a strong focus on providing artistic, social and collaborative opportunities for Wollongong’s many multicultural communities to celebrate the unique melting pot that makes up the city’s diverse community.

Suggested PartnersScreenNSW, Wollongong City Council, Communities NSW, city centre venue and public space owners/opera-tors and artist-run spaces like Studio 19; institutions like The Wollongong Conservatorium of Music, Merrigong Theatre Co, Southcoast Writers Centre, Wollongong City Gallery, Bundanon Trust, UOW School of Creative Arts, program and festival providers like Papergirl, Illawarra Film Society, Big Fat Smile and Artspace, Wild Rumpus, local circus groups, The Story Collective, Eklektika, Red Point Artists, Con Artists, Live Music Taskforce and Destination Wollongong.


Develop an Arts and Cultural Strategy for Wollongong, including identifying a lead partner.

Using the Central City Strategy outlined in Ambition 8, identify properties and locations suit-able for studios, exhibition spaces and venues in the eastern Crown Street area and define an Artists Quarter within a con-centrated area.

Develop marketing, funding and grants programs.

Appoint a City Curator.

Establish an international exchange program in partnership with The Wollongong Conservatorium of Music, Merrigong Theatre Co, Southcoast Writers Centre, Wollongong City Gallery, Bundanon Trust, School of Creative Arts University of Wollongong.

Build on the city’s open air pop-up cinema program and links with TropFest by developing an annual film program in partnership with ScreenNSW, the Illawarra Film Society and organisations with specific audiences like Big Fat Smile, the Illawarra’s Indian com-munity that runs the Bollywood Festival, Merrigong Theatre Company, Alliance Francaise and Wollongong Youth Network.

Conduct a feasibility study into a cultural facility with an inter-national standard collection or program like MONA or the Guggenheim in Bilbao to build on the city’s amazing art collection.

“There are so many good artists in Wollongong but the scene is just not there. But I think it is a really changing place at the moment. With the decline of the steelworks there’s more of an opportunity for other initiatives to fill that void that’s now there” - Fraser Dinsdale, local creative quoted in the Illawarra Mercury

Case Study: Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham, UK

The Custard Factory is the result of the redevelopment of 5 acres of river-side factories in Birmingham built 100 years ago by Sir Alfred Bird, the inven-tor of custard powder. By the early 1980s the industry had moved out and the factories were derelict.

In 1990 it was taken over, the factory buildings were restored and trans-formed into a creative hub of studios, offices, restaurants and shops. The

area has been embraced by the local creative community of Birmingham with over 500 artists, small creative enterprises, affordable studios and offices, a theatre, café, antique shops, meeting rooms, dance studios, holis-tic therapy rooms, art galleries, bars and restaurants.

Central to the story is the redevel-opment of the factories as a distinct quarter with a singular vision - that of nurturing young creative talent - and of ensuring every element of the rede-velopment supports this vision from architecture and public open space to program, leasing and retail mix.

The investments in small scale infrastructure, grants, marketing and subsidised rents have created enormous value in terms of local economic development, skills, visitation and cultural capital.

Ambition 4 photos: Hello City, Floyd King, Brian

Clift, Elliot Brown

Ambit

ion 4: Ins

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A big fe

stival o

f all

things b

ig (MMJ)

A local art and local artists

network (The Breakfast Club)

A people’s art gallery

(Future Retrospective)

36

photo: Art4Refugees (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

“Love & work are the cornerstones

of our humanness” - Sigmund Freud 1

A blue collar innovation hub

(Travellers)

Ambition 5

Make Wollongong connect people to tools, activity, support & resources

The city is facing significant social challenges related to shifts such as changing demographics, an ageing population, skilled people com-muting or moving out of the area, youth unemployment and the decline of key industry sectors.

At the same time opportunities are being presented by unprecedented advances in technology and the dramatic rise globally in new community models such as collabora-tive consumption - ie is models of exchange based on renting, sharing rather than owning, such as car share schemes - and projects that bring dif-ferent parts of the community togeth-er to learn, swap skills, make things and engage with each other such as the US TechShop projects.

Wollongong could embrace these changes by developing activities and opportunities that enable its citizens to access learning and social connec-tions at every stage of life.

We propose the development of a new hub that acts as an interac-tive community workshop which is a hive of activity and voca-tional training - home to a tool bank, cottage manufacturing, prototyping, IT, exhibition and retail spaces.

The range of resources on offer will honour the skills of the past - such as woodwork, metal-work, craft - whilst embracing the skills of the future - such as 3D printing or electronics. The tool bank should contain tools for metalwork, woodwork, ceramics and textiles, as well as state-of-the-art equipment for electronics, IT, 3D printing, computer graphics, etc.

The hub would provide opportunities for:

- prototyping

- collaborating

- connecting resources

- creating

- sharing skills and knowledge

- learning

- mentoring

- intergenerational skill sharing, incubat-ing, training, building, cooking, sharing

- manufacturing products that sup-port the other ambitions of Shaping Wollongong, eg street furniture, lighting, signage, websites, etc.

It would also be an opportunity to celebrate the city’s past, for example through permanent exhibitions highlighting the timber, mining, steel, immigration, indigenous, or farming past of the region.

The project would give people access to tools, resources, ideas, skills & networks that they otherwise wouldn’t have had access to, leading to individual growth and broader economic participation.

Ambit

ion 5: M

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Delivery Mechanism Set up an interactive community workshop called the Wollongong Tech Hub to provide community access to a wide range of tools, equipment & programs.

This initiative can start small - for example with a few tools and a few volunteers - and grow over time.

The ultimate ambition would be to have a state-of-the-art dedicated facility that enables a multitude of skills to be realised, including fabrication, prototyping, hacking opportunities, making, exploration and learning with all of the spaces, equipment, tools and staffing that support that.

Critical issues to resolve will be the home organisation of the project, supporting governance arrangements and funding.

Suggested PartnersLocal not-for-profits and partner agencies, like the US-based TechShop US which is currently looking to expand to other ter-ritories, Lighthouse Church, Illawarra TAFE, IRT Group, WEA, Healthy Cities Illawarra, BlueScope, BHP Billiton, Bunnings, Nan Tien Temple, local Men’s Sheds and other training or volunteer organisations such as Lions or Rotary Clubs.


Identify home organisation for the project.

Develop a business plan for the facility includ-ing exploring revenue options such as corpo-rate sponsorship (for example from Bluescope, Bunnings or BHP), State and Local Government funding (such as a development grant through the Australian Government Shed Development Program), membership fees, venue hire and retail revenues from products sold onsite.

Find suitable location for early stage of projects and build up a tools bank and local volunteers and possible long term permanent location.

Promote project through social & mainstream media.

Access crowd-sourced funding platform to secure funds to purchase initial tool bank.

Start to recruit and train volunteers from existing networks to carry out initial program.

Grow program over time.

Secure funds for building acquisition and/or refurbishment of existing building.

Case Study: TechShop, US

The US TechShop initiatives across the US are providing a dynamic community hubs that provide access to tools, software and space and invite local community members to come along and build their dreams.

With more than 5,500 members, six locations nationwide and significant corporate sponsors such as Intel, TechShop seeks to democratise the access to tools of innovation and upend the traditional paradigm of innovation by empowering entrepre-neurs and makers to invent the next

big thing with quicker time-to-market. TechShop has been the birthplace for scores of invention prototypes, including Square, Embrace, underwater submarine robots, bipedal robot legs, and many more.

The workshops provide access to over $1 million worth of profes-sional equipment and software as well as training, instruction and sup-port available to members. Facilities include laser cutters, plastics and electronics labs, a machine shop, a wood shop, a metal working shop, a textiles department, welding sta-tions and a waterjet cutter, access

to design software and collaborative work spaces.

A key part of TechShops is in the collaborative and supportive envi-ronment as well as the emphasis on exploration, playfulness and the art of making.

Ambition 5 photos: Hello City, Todd Huffman, Artspace, Lenore Edman, Jim Fenton

Ambit

ion 5: M

ake

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40

photo: The Breakfast Club (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

“It isn’t all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.” - Gene Roddenberry

An interactive ideas

testing tool (Smart)

48 hour weekend tech design competition

Ambition 6

Spark Wollongongvalue, encourage, stimulate & nurture innovation

Wollongong has long been a place that appreciates ideas, knowledge & learning with a growing reputation for nurturing innovation. We believe there is an opportunity to capitalise on this appreciation by developing the resources, processes, culture, activities and assets that will truly embed innovation as part of the everyday culture of the city.

Innovation isn’t just about technology. It’s about being constantly open to new possibilities & different ways of doing things in our dynamic and constantly shifting world.

New opportunities present them-selves daily - from new apps, more

powerful mobile devices, inspiration from elsewhere to innovative funding mechanisms and infrastructure fund-ing - as well as new challenges to be faced, including the ageing population and declining industries. How can Wollongong best position itself to be able to respond and develop better ways to collect, share, evaluate, store & access ideas?

Embedding a culture of innovation & building on Wollongong’s brand as a place of knowledge & ideas would bring significant reputational, eco-nomic & social benefits & enhance the city’s competitive edge in the global marketplace.

In order to achieve this, we propose a suite of initiatives be explored, including:

- A Living Lab health innovation project

- An Ideas Incubator space for entrepreneurs

- An Innovation Exchange Portal for sharing ideas

- An Idea Evaluation Tool for assessing the strength of ideas.

The above have the potential to transform Wollongong into a kind of Silicon Beach: a major hub for world class ideas and knowledge indus-tries in the Southern Hemisphere as well as achieving world-leading social and health outcomes.

A suite of initiatives like this cannot be achieved by any one organisation working in isolation. Collaboration is at the very heart of creativity and innovation. Partnerships will be a critical element, as will as motivated leadership, policy levers that incentivise innovation and funding from a range of sources including venture capitalists, other private sector investors & government funding.

Ambit

ion 6: S

park

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Delivery MechanismDevelop a suite of four linked initiatives:

- A Living Lab modelled on the Danish health innovation project with a focus on aged care and dementia which builds on the aims from the NSW Ageing Strategy to ready our communities for their ageing populations.

- An Ideas Incubator: a physical space for entrepreneurs to interact and assess and develop ideas that will lead to business growth, employment and economic output.

- An Innovation Exchange Portal: an online interactive easy-to-use dashboard-like portal that allows ideas to be communicated to a wide audience to gauge their response and gain their input.

- An Idea Evaluation Tool: a modelling/sim-ulation tool that allows the short, medium and long term impacts of ideas to be objectively evaluated.

Suggested Partners University of Wollongong collaboration of internal partners - perhaps “the SPARK group” including SMART, iAccerelate/IT students, Ideas Festival organisers and Illawarra Health & Medical Research Institute, plus key stake-holders including the State and Federal gov-ernments, Illawarra health district, aged care providers such as the IRT Group, RDA Illawarra, the Retirement Living Council and councils.


Establish a cross-sectoral Innovation Group to develop initia-tives and identify lead partner.

Determine governance structure, vision and mission.

Develop a business plan and business case.

Find champions, sponsors and partners.

Identify an angel investor for upfront funding for the Ideas incubator/co-working space - repaid on commercialisation of the venture.

Prepare business case for Federal & State Government support.

Define corporate sponsorship opportunities and market.

Identify suitable sites.

Case Study: Danish Living Lab

Like many other countries, Denmark is facing growing challenges related to outward migration of skilled people and a broad range of health issues.

In response, a partnership has been established between Local Government, health providers, indus-try and users to look at new and innovative processes and products through a ‘Living Lab’. This initiative seeks to innovate around ‘welfare technology’ - interventions that bring

about health improvements as well as economic growth.

The partners share knowledge in an open-minded, co-creative environ-ment and bring together both industry and university perspectives to carry out extensive research that is both real-world and academically rigorous. The process is open to all and knowl-edge is both shared and available to use freely in any subsequent commer-cial development.

Innovations for ageing populations in the municipality of Odense as a result of this model include:

- Robotic vacuum cleaners that reduce the need for a physical carer.

- Smartphones to support people with early dementia in carrying out daily living tasks on their own.

- A projector that displays a message on the front door of someone with dementia from their favourite carer to guide them.

The resulting technologies are made available for citizens to buy, while also ensuring benefits are available to those on the lowest incomes.

Ambition 6 photos: Hello City, Luke Musgrave (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge), Velfaerdsteknologi

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photo: Abhiruchi Chhikara (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

“Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies.” - Joseph E. Stiglitz

A not-for-profit development model that reinvigorates the central city (Central to Change)

Ambition 7

Re- vitalise Wollongonggrow the city in ways that lead to vibrancy, inclusiveness & quality

Like every urban centre in Australia, Wollongong is trying to balance growth with retention of its character & quality of life.

There are substantial development projects underway: Wollongong City Centre currently has $650 million worth of construction works which have been completed or commenced within the past 12 months, including:

- $20 million Crown Street Mall refurbishment

- $200 million GPT Wollongong Central expansion

- The Vantage Residential Development, Gladstone Avenue - $38 million.

- Australian Tax Office building on Kembla Street - $16 million.

- Wollongong Public Hospital Expansion - $106 million

This activity is having a positive impact in places. But other areas of the city remain neglected, parcels of land are underused & some individual developments detract from their surrounds.

We believe a more decisive & col-laborative approach to develop-ment would bring greater strategic benefits & more vibrant city localities. If we can do this, development will be a force for positive change, create a vibrant urban ecosystem & attract new residents, businesses, students & visitors. It can also set a new bar for the quality of development outcomes.

Firstly, we need to have a conversation about what kind of development we’d like for Wollongong & the ben-efits that will provide for the city & the com-munity. We need to fully understand the key forces currently driving development. We need to learn from the places where good projects are coming to fruition & understand the key levers & barriers.

Throughout the UK, Community Regeneration Companies have used regen-eration frameworks to deliver develop-ment projects that bring real social, economic & environmental benefits & set extremely high standards in design, construction innovation, environ-mental sustainability & social inclusion.

These companies bring together the best of the public sector’s skills, fund-ing & commitment to social outcomes with the best of the private sector’s efficiency, resources & ability to innovate. The developments that result from these partnerships succeed in creating multiple kinds of value: new investment, enhanced reputations for areas previously in decline, employment opportunities, community infrastructure & a new pride of place for local people.

National standards set by English Partnerships & then refined at the local level cover issues as diverse as:

- design: architecture, urban design, tenure integration, noise, space, age-ing in place, accessibility, Secured by Design, parking

- construction: efficiency, reuse of resources, health & safety

- local delivery: site-specific response, community engagement, use of local labour, feasibility

- environmental outcomesA Regeneration Framework for the Wollongong CBD & regional towns throughout the Illawarra could guide new urban development, defining specific quality outcomes for each site, unlocking development opportunities & establishing public-private partnerships for delivery.

Possible benefits would include:

- a more inclusive approach to home ownership;

- more people living in the CBD;

- opening up development opportunities;

- higher quality standards around devel-opment, design & social outcomes;

- new office space, vibrant retail, enhanced entertainment offer, increased supply & variety of residential development;

- encouraging emerging businesses to grow in the city centre;

- encouraging businesses to locate in the Illawarra;

- supporting the knowledge economy in the city & promoting the city as a centre of excellence;

- addressing the current lack of supply of commercial A grade office space.

Ambit

ion 7: r

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ise

45

46Delivery Mechanism: Taking the lead from UK-based Community Regeneration Companies, develop a Wollongong Regeneration Framework project to guide development & drive innovation & quality.

The framework could be used to drive innovation around delivery methods for low-income housing, student housing & shop-top living as well as new types of commercial, cultural & community infrastructure.

It could also engage with private & public sector stakeholders currently not represented within the Illawarra to define rationales & negotiate incentives for locating more jobs in Wollongong. Research indicates that relocating 300 more government jobs to Wollongong would have a f low on effect of creating 233 jobs in supporting industries & add $115 million value to the local economy. A range of incentives for considering relocation to Wollongong should be identified & incorporated within the framework to attract new employers.

The framework should also specifically engage with the university to explore its future development plans & how these can intersect with the broader urban development goals for the region. Plans for accommodating future courses, performances, events, research & development opportunities & additional student housing should all be explored. Wherever possible, opportunities for cross benefit should be identified to intensify the CBD, creating local economic flow-ons around innovation such as start-ups, accessibility of supply chain, service industries & the quality of experience for faculty members, stu-dents & the community in which they engage.

The framework could also act as the overarching mechanism by which the more specific CBD strategy outlined in Ambition 8 is enabled, which goes beyond development strategies to encom-pass a broader range of programmatic & licensing interventions designed to bring life to the central city.

Suggested Partners: NSW State Government (Department of Planning & Infrastructure), Wollongong City Council, Property Council, local developers, University of Wollongong, NSW Trade & Investment, Enterprise Connect, RDA Illawarra, local business and entrepreneurs.


Investigate possibility of using existing partnership group between State and Local Government to drive the process.

Invite key industry members to form a Developers’ Panel for participation.

Carry out a development audit and identify key strategic sites, identify patterns of ownership.

Define desired character precincts and use mixes in line with market conditions.

Carry out an initial phase of consultation to under-stand the aspirations of the community, large and small business, the development industry, financiers, landowners, housing providers, the University, the hospital and other partner agencies.

Engage with the University to investigate greater interaction with the city.

Invite relevant representatives to join an Experts Panel to support the definition of stan-dards for community engagement, design, public art, construction and social, economic and envi-ronmental outcomes.

Define large-scale interventions such as new uni-versity clusters, attraction of major new businesses or relocated State Government facilities and how these can be used to drive further development.

Review zoning and planning scheme to ensure they support the defined outcomes.

Develop standards, codes and risk-sharing mechanisms.

Work in partnership to bring sites to market using procurement processes to consolidate sites and secure defined outcomes.

Case Study: New East Manchester

The UK has many Urban Regeneration Companies set up to drive sustainable development and quality outcomes. New East Manchester Ltd was estab-lished in 1999 and is responsible for one of the largest and most significant regeneration programmes currently being undertaken in the UK.

The regeneration program covers almost 2000 hectares in an area of the city suffering major decline and disad-vantage with high rates of dereliction, vacancies and unemployment. It aims to attract new investors, new busi-nesses and new residents.

Through its partnerships with the development industry, training provid-ers, communities and businesses and

its use of English Partnerships’ quality standards and procurement pro-cesses, NEM has had a transformative impact on the city.

Achievements have included - Rebuilding the economic base:

- 197,000 sq m of new commercial floor space built

- Nearly 1300 local companies sup-ported by business advisors

- Completion of Eastlands, home of the 2002 Commonwealth Games

Helping local people who can work to work:

- More than 6200 residents assisted into employment

- 600 local people given free con-struction training

- Over 180 local people supported to start their own businesses

Restructuring the housing market:

- Nearly 5000 new homes built

- 6700 properties improved

- 10 parks improved & 12 community gardens created

Improving the physical appearance:

- Revival of high streets

- £575 million public and private sector investment into major infra-structure, leisure and public realm improvements

Improving the education offered:

- Secondary school attendance is at its highest level in 10 years

- Schools have been rebuilt to service the population

Ambition 7 photos: Food Fanatics (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge), Hello City, David Jones, Denna Jones, Salim Virji

Ambit

ion 7: r

evital

ise

47

A sustainable living and innovation centre

An affordable student equity

housing fund (Dawbolt)

48

photo: Hello City

“What is the city but the people?”-William Shakespeare

Ambition 8

inteNsify Wollongongbring life to the central city by making it some-where people want to live, learn, work & play

The Wollongong Central Business District is the economic engine room of the region as well as providing a focal point for the communities of the Illawarra. But it could be so much more.

We believe the impact of intensifying the Central Business District, where people currently primarily come to work and shop, to a Central Activities District, where people live and a multitude of social, economic, commercial, cultural and recreational activities take place - 18 hours in 24 - would be transformational.

Wollongong would become a living city, driven by the introduc-tion of a significant residential population.

It would also see an enhanced retail mix, activation, built form and land-scape quality and strong expression of urban cultural identity, providing a thousand good reasons to be there.

Intensifying the CBD has broad sup-port and a number of initiatives are already underway. The city has seen more than 10 small bars, cafes & galleries open since late last year. In addition, Council is developing an evening economy strategy to nurture night-time activities, and bring social, cultural and economic benefits to the city, closely linking with the developing Cultural Plan and actions from the Live Music Taskforce.

Our ambition is that the city will be a bustling and lively place, a destina-tion as attractive as the escarpment & the beach. A place with a strong urban identity where people will be enticed to live, work, study, set up business and explore.

A city where there is always some-thing going on from kids book readings and Friday night movies, to live cook-ing, festivals and events connected to local businesses.

A central city that’s not just about working, shopping or spending money, one which caters for all facets of life. Where workers want to linger on in the city after 5pm and kids beg their parents to take them in at weekends.

The best places to live, the best places to work, the best play areas and cultural attractions, the best festivals and events, and the best dining experiences.

In concert with the rising popula-tion, we should enable a myriad of activities within the CBD in entertainment, culture, food & beverage, retail, physical exercise - catering to a diverse population in terms of ethnicity, age and family status.

There are lessons to be learned from Melbourne which has experienced the reinvigoration of lifeless CBD streets after introducing the Postcode 3000 project, a suite of specific policy measures such as incentivising residential conversion of underused buildings, refining of licensing laws to make it easy for small bars to open and a proliferation of arts events. Wollongong could realise its own Postcode 2500 project using similar strategies.

There are many resources available to realise this ambition, from Federal funding for affordable housing and a plethora of emerging entrepreneurs to council policy levers, first home buyers and the Mall redevelopment. There are many partners with a role to play as well as cross-sectoral commitment to see it happen.

inteNsify

Ambit

ion 8: in

tens

ify

49

Trams connecting cit

y attractions

(Cardno)

Big screens and portholes projecting animations and messages (Odd Bods)

A program of interactive, artistic & community events in the Mall (Gung Ho Gong Gang)

50

Delivery MechanismDevelop a Postcode 2500 Central City Strategy that introduces a range of poli-cies, programs and incentives to dramati-cally increase the residential population and diversify the range of commercial and cultural activities within Wollongong CBD.

The Central City Strategy could form part of the Wollongong Regeneration Framework outlined in Ambition 7 with a broadened focus to also encompass programming, licensing, levies & ongoing manage-ment & maintenance.

It could also understand the objectives of key partners and stakeholders to direct their activities to support the intensifica-tion agenda, such as accommodating the University’s graduations, Town and Gown Festival and Ideas Festival within the central city.

The Central City Strategy should consider:

- incentives for protecting commercial capacity, providing a carefully consid-ered residential mix and the development of laneways and thoroughfares;

- a review of licensing laws to enable an enhanced leisure experience and the deregulation of retail hours;

- enabling mechanisms for fine grain and small scale events & programs in the city and the development of artist in residence programs, art and festivals, informal or pop-up events in public space;

- review residential codes to ensure the needs of residents are balanced against the needs of other users, eg noise reduction;

- strategies to support small bar opera-tors, and small scale live music venues to interface with residential uses;

- grant programs for small scale renew-al like the current facade upgrades and public art on buildings;

- promotional & educational campaigns.

Suggested Partners Wollongong City Council, The Property Council, State Government, local landowners, the GPT Group, arts & culture organisations, residents associations, small business owners, city architect representative.


Using the Development and Experts Panels convened for the development of the Illawarra Regeneration Framework outlined in Ambition 7, consult with a group of experts across finance, market, design, construction, certification to identify the enabling mecha-nisms to achieve the ambition.

Consult with landowners, existing residents & existing operators in the CBD to inform the strategy.

Draft a strategy which addresses the development, licensing, pro-gramming, zoning & funding issues needed to realise intensification.

Articulate current barriers and ways of unlocking potential for individual landowners to reduce financial risk for developers while promoting positive social out-comes for people of Wollongong.

Begin implementation with one pilot project to convert an empty building for residential development.

Roll out across multiple sites.

Case Study: Melbourne Central Business District

In the 1980s Melbourne CBD was dead. The Local and State Governments implemented a suite of interventions to attract people back to the city in the early ‘90s. The most significant intervention was Postcode 3000 which used changed regula-tions, financial assistance, improved street level environments and promo-tional activities to enable residential development and increased density. This scheme saw the development of residential units through intensifying

existing building stock and redevelop-ing unused land such as the Docklands area. Retail, events and arts strategies were developed alongside the residen-tial development strategy.

The cumulative effect of these strate-gies was over 30,000 new homes, 1,500 new bars, cafes and restaurants, and numerous supermarkets in just over 15 years.

Melbourne today teems with life from morning to night. Jan Gehl recently quoted that Melbourne boasts the highest ratio of street furniture per person in the world. Outdoor cafes have increased from

less than 50 in 1990 to over 600 today, and the number of pedestrians in the city on weekday evenings has doubled, with Swanston Street hav-ing more pedestrians per day than Regent Street in London.

Ambition 8 photos: Hello City, Merrigong (Ideas-a-

thon Capture Challenge)

Ambit

ion 8: in

tens

ify

51

More people living in the city (Urban Life)

Shop-top living creating a paella of people (Art4Refugees)

Live music (IRT Social City)

52

photo: Re-create (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

A journey from city to beach (Gongainables)

Bike Park in McCabe Park (Gongalicious)

Glowing hanging gardens overlooking

the Mall (Hatchtag)

Ambition 9

Explore Wollongongenhance relationships & journeys between key city experiences

This region is naturally blessed with a stunning natural environment. It has an unusual vari-ety of landscapes from mountainous outcrops, miles of beaches, rock pools and blow holes, semi-tropical rain-forests, rolling pastures, wetlands to scrub and bush. In addition the region is a city of towns with urban main streets, shops, markets, cafes, schools, laneways, villages and leafy suburbs all with the dramatic backdrop of the blue escarpment and the fire spurting drama of the Port Kembla steel works. It is a city that can be variously experi-enced by journeys through its streets, from high in the air and from the sur-rounding seas.

At present these individual landscapes and experiences are not con-nected strongly enough to form a coherent whole. More invest-ment in urban design, interpretation, wayfinding and precinct definition to strengthen both the focal points of indi-vidual experiences as well as the journeys between them, will enhance people’s experience of the city at every level.

Our ambition is that Wollongong reaches its potential as a city in a beautiful setting with the CBD at its heart & connected to its surroundings with a hundred unique & beautiful journeys, including the emerging Grand Pacific Walk and Grand Escarpment Walk.

We want residents and visitors to be inspired to explore, to encourage them to linger and to reward them with a sense of discovery and delight.

Achieving this will take a shift in thinking. We need to think of our streets as public spaces & give people multiple reasons to enjoy them. We need to consider our streets and key experiences from a variety of per-spectives, including view lines, identity, public art, sense of place, traditions, heritage and belonging.

We have some world-beating journeys to build on: Bulli Pass, Grand Pacific Drive, Lawrence Hargrave Drive and Sea Cliff Bridge, the connections down the coast and across the escarpment, the train journey through the rainforest from Sydney, along with hundreds of ordinary daily journeys made extraordinary by the unique relation-ship between the city & towns of the Illawarra & the landscape.

Wollongong should think of itself as a place of journeys as much as a place of destinations.

Wollongong should celebrate being the city of the short, beautiful & joyful commute and use this as a point of difference to sell the region.

Delivery MechanismUndertake a Wollongong City Experiences, Places & Journeys Study and implement recommendations.

A detailed quantitative & qualitative analysis of jour-neys and nodes should be undertaken to understand the opportunities, define distinct precincts, journeys and connections, specific functions and characters and define and showcase key local assets, both natural and cre-ated. This analysis should be holistic and broad in nature, and cover all fac-tors of the experiences, rather than a specific urban design, land use, traffic or public transport infrastruc-ture study. Investment should then be made in key nodes and experiences and the streetscapes that link them to strengthen and enhance the overall experience of Wollongong.

A review of previous studies and propositions should be conducted in the context of both the city and regional branding strategy, including the key recommendations from the Civitas study including defining distinct precincts in the CBD, to avoid pedestrian overpasses, and to protect escarpment view lines.

Ambit

ion 9: e

xplo

re

53

A connected escarpment

walk from Otford to Ki

ama

(The Daydreamers)

A chairlift linking the escarpment and the sea (Gongification)

54

A number of interventions have been proposed including, defining a second ‘mile’ that connects the Blue Mile through the city to the escarpment, creating a powerful arrival experience at Wollongong Train Station and a pleasant walk into the CBD, connecting McCabe Park strongly with the city, and building on the unique landscape qualities of Wollongong wher-ever possible in the urban environment, including the iconic Norfolk Island Pines and Illawarra Flame Trees.

Recommendations should build on and be incorpo-rated into an online or digital strategy like the City App that is currently being developed to enhance the visitor and local experience of the city and the regions. A playful gaming element should be explored, along with strategies to connect into existing platforms including Facebook (check in), Foursquare and Google Maps.

We should learn from New York’s Department of Transportation and use a try-before-you-buy approach. Instead of going through detailed, slow and expensive feasibility studies & consultation processes, where possible we should simply trial inter-ventions in cheap & direct ways that can be changed back with minimal cost or inconve-nience. For example we could use paint and pot-ted plants to define bike lanes or pop-up parks or pedestrian areas and see if they are embraced by the community and perform the desired function before deciding to implement in a more permanent way.

Suggested PartnersState Government, Wollongong City Council, local indigenous community representatives, walking trail advocates, historical groups and proactive CBD owners.


Undertake study that reviews the quality of wayfinding, his-tory, character, experience of place, landscape, key views, quality of frontages, perceptions of safety, etc.

Conduct a comprehensive study of view lines, including those that are historically significant, beautiful & interesting or have significance in Dharawal traditions or other local indigenous communities.

Map key experiences throughout the city, & key precincts or areas.

Review earlier studies in the context of both the city & regional branding strategy.

Develop both spatial & strategic recommendations for coun-cil masterplanning processes.

Review feasibility of key infrastructure projects, such as a cable car on Mt Keira, western Crown St rejuvenation, McCabe Park, the medical precinct, university accommodation, connec-tions between the Mall & adjoining areas such as Globe Lane, western Crown St & Keira St & digital wayfinding strategies.

Interactive sculptures and street furniture

(Be Seeing You)

A tramway connecting nodes around the city (Taylor Brammer)

Case Study: Bogota Urban Design for Happiness

In the early 2000s Bogota mayor Enrique Penalosa redefined priorities for the way journeys were made around his city.

80% of households did not own a car. He understood what numerous studies around the world have con-firmed - that length of time spent in cars is inversely proportional to happiness and that encouraging people onto the streets as pedestri-ans and cyclists can bring a range of benefits to health, community, tour-

ism, the local economy and sense of connection to place.

Turning his back on a planned highway expansion plan, he instead redirected his budget towards hundreds of miles of cycle paths, new city parks, new pedestrian plazas and the city’s first rapid transit system which was made up of buses instead of trains, transforming the everyday journeys of its citizens.

He also made the radical decision to ban drivers from commuting by car more than three times a week. Citizens of Bogota saw the results of these policies in reductions in traffic accidents, improvements in health and

better air quality as well as measur-able increases in the level of optimism in the city.

During Penalosa’s tenure as mayor, this people-centred and experiential approach led to enhanced connections to the landscapes of the city, stronger social connections, better traffic conditions and a higher quality of life.

Ambition 9 photos: Wild Rumpus (Ideas-a-thon Capture

Challenge), Abhiruchi Chhikara (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge), Re-create

(Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge), Art4Refugees, Matt Lemmon, Manuel

Garcia Tornadu, Edgar Zuniga

Ambit

ion 9: e

xplo

re

55

A London Eye style ferris wheel at

Flagstaff Hill (IRT Living City)

A renewable energy transport network (SISAT Plus Plus)

McCabe Park multipurpose track (Team Mash)

56

photo: Wild Rumpus (Ideas-a-thon Capture Challenge)

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” - Helen Keller

Boost regi

onal counc

il collabo

ration

(Herron To

dd White)

A cross sectoral CBD liveability partnership (Avago)

Ambition 10

Collab -orate Wollongongdevelop platforms for cooperation between city organisations to continue to shape the city

The Shaping Wollongong process has brought together energised and inspired people from all corners of the city and collated an incredible pool of ideas. The response to the project demonstrates that there are people at all levels, from all back-grounds and all sectors that are passionate about making Wollongong a better place and motivated to work together to see their ambitions realised. We see an opportunity to capture this momentum by formalising ongoing roles for organ-isations and individuals to continue to carry out a variety of projects that cut across different sectors.

There is a real sense of optimism in the air in Wollongong and this is one of our most significant resources:

negativity leads to disconnection, disenfranchisement and economic decline. Collaboration is vital to com-munity development and resilience.

We believe we should evolve the Shaping Wollongong project by continu-ing to connect people in the city who can review and implement key projects of benefit to the city by providing a platform for collaborating on projects.

In order to achieve this we suggest widening and formalising the membership of the current Shaping Wollongong working party to become Collaborate Wollongong - a group with a combination of government, business & community representatives with the passion and power to nurture ideas into reality who are willing to commit time and resources to projects because they drive their core business or interest.

The initiative could be funded through subscriptions fees, in-kind contributions as well as other resources appropriate to specific projects. Seed funding could also be made available via the existing city centre mall rates and appropriate Local and State Government grants.

Taking it in turns, the organisations involved could make staff available as a short-term secondment to act as a Project Manager to turn the ideas into

action as directed by the Collaborate Wollongong group. All roles within the group could rotate to ensure equal contribution as well as achieving turnover of thinking and fresh ideas.

In the spirit of the Ideas-a-thon, an annual ideas competition should be held to continue the conversation with the city about what could make it a better place with seed funding made available for winning ideas. The group should identify winning ideas that align well with existing budgets, programs and KPIs to maximise deliverability, using the Ideas Evaluation Tool highlighted in Ambition 6. The Collaborate Wollongong Project Manager would then act as an on-the-ground resource to make the selected proj-ects happen. Wollongong’s active volunteer community could add a further resource.

In order to maximise opportunities for collaboration, an online platform should be established where ideas, resources, feedback and project management tasks can be shared with the city. There are several existing platforms that could per-form this function, such as Huddle, Basecamp or Teambox, all of which allow multiple parties to jointly over-see and manage projects.

Ambit

ion 10:

coll

abor

ate

57

58

Delivery MechanismEstablish a group and online platform for ongoing collaboration between impassioned local people, organisations and agencies called Collaborate Wollongong that is accessible to the broader community.

Potential benefits of linking people from all walks of life in this way include:

- striking a better balance between talking and doing

- business and community development

- strengthening connections between resources and ideas

- promoting a positive mindset and creating energy for change

- better connectivity between government, business, and the broader community

Suggested PartnersAll involved in Shaping Wollongong, plus food and creative representatives.


Establish a Project Control Group Shaping Wollongong/Collaborate Wollongong working party with broad cross-sectoral membership.

Set up an Ideas Bank starting with the ideas generated through the SW process.

Develop terms of reference, determine financial & resource support & KPIs.

Develop the collaborative online platform hub website.

Agree first Project Manager & program for rotation.

Select first ideas to implement.

Recruit & support volunteers.

Roll-out & set annual ideas competition.

Test & report achievements.

“I would love to see a shift where large numbers of people who commute to Sydney are able to work remotely down here. I think the best work happens when you’re getting a bit of interaction with other people. There’s no doubt that fantastic ideas come out of a place where somebody’s talking about X, then someone else says Y, then something completely different comes out.” - Jordan Gillman, Corner Table quoted in the Illawarra Mercury

Case Study: Committee for Melbourne Future Focus Group

The Committee for Melbourne is a member organisation bringing together over 170 businesses, organisations and government departments within Melbourne to look at the long-term future for the city.

A central part of the Committee’s activities centres around their Future Focus Group, a two year business leadership program for emerging leaders.

In addition to leadership mentoring, participants in Future Focus Group form diverse teams and develop initia-tives designed to make a tangible and lasting contribution to Melbourne through hands-on social entrepre-neurship, drawing on the support, resources and in-kind contributions of the larger Committee membership.

Successful projects that have started life as Future Focus Group projects include the Growing Up green roofs program, the Melbourne Prize which has awarded prize funds in categories such as urban sculpture, literature and music since 2004 and Melbourne

Open House which gives access to over 100 buildings throughout the city for one weekend every year, last year inspiring 135,000 people to take part.

Ambition 10 photos: Hello City, Property Council of Australia, Mike Hauser,

Geoff Penaluna, Melbourne Open House

Ambit

ion 10:

coll

abor

ate

59

60

photo: Property Council of Australia

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Theodore Roosevelt

The Participants

awesome ideas-a-thon

teams

amazing ideas lab participants

others to whom we are eternally grateful for their

support & advice1% ProjectArt4RefugeesAvagoBe Seeing YouThe BevanitesBig Fat SmileThe Breakfast ClubCentral to ChangeDawboltThe DaydreamersThe 4Cs Cardno City Concept CollectiveFood FanaticsFuture RetrospectiveGood JellyGongificationGongainablesGongaliciousGung Ho Gong GangHatchtagHerron Todd WhiteIllawarra CoalIRT Living CityIRT Social CityLast of the OptimistsLet’s Do ItLivewiresMerrigong TheatreMMJOdd BodsRe-createSISAT Plus PlusSmartTaylor BrammerTeam MashTravellersUrban LifeWe Can Do ItWe Love the GongWild Rumpus

Wollongong City CouncilNSW Department of Premier & CabinetRed Square small barMMJPSR Crown InvestmentsHello CityEagle PropertyColliers InternationalRenew AustraliaBig Fat SmileDagwoodsWollongong Golf ClubDestination WollongongNorthbeach NovotelStrategic EconomicsStudio 19Rice Daubney ArchitectsNSW Department of Planning & InfrastructureIllawarra Women’s Health CentreIllawarra Institute of SportCardnoUniversity of WollongongVerb SyndicateDawson James Pty LtdWild RumpusTravellersFood FanaticsThe 1% ProjectGongaliciousSMART Infrastructure Facility, UOW University of WollongongMerrigong Theatre CompanyHatchTag Property Council Of AustraliaCentral to ChangeArchitects Edmiston JonesGPT GroupSitePlus

ABC Radio IllawarraThe Illawarra MercuryWIN TVIRT GroupProperty Council of Australia Illawarra Chapter CommitteeHis Boy ElroyThe Little PrinceRelativity FilmsDee Kramer PhotographyRed SquareCulture BankNeighbourhood Forum 5Swell CoffeeCardnoBHP Billiton Illawarra CoalHatchFood MarketingBig Fat SmileHairhouse WarehouseSan ChurroVerb SyndicateTouchdown HelicoptersHerron Todd WhiteSomething for DorisMilk ThievesTake a HikeDestination WollongongMMJColliers InternationalMerrigong TheatreEdmiston Jones Architects

The

Part

icipan

ts

61

62

Thank You

The ideas, thoughts & sugges-tions of Shaping Wollongong have only been possible because of the participation of such a diverse & committed group of people. We sincerely thank all of those who took part in the Ideas-a-thon, the Ideas Lab & in every step of this rewarding process. We think you are amazing.

Than

k yo

u

63

64

Photo Credit: Hello City, Fun Booth Wollongong, AEJ Architects, Lisa Brooke,

Lee Perry, Wollongong Daydreamers, Michael White

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photo: Hello City

“Faith is taking

the first step even when you don’t see

the whole staircase”

- Martin Luther King

What’s NextThe Shaping Wollongong Partnership is

continuing the conversation about how to turn all of these ambitions into reality.

If you have been inspired to get involved, please get in touch! We’d love to hear

your thoughts, ideas and suggestions about the enhancement of Wollongong and how you could play a role in making it happen.

Amanda KunklerPolicy Advisor - Illawarra

Property Council of Australia

Suite 4/129-131 Crown St, Wollongong

PO Box 61, Wollongong NSW 2500

02 4225 0105 | 0414 836417

[email protected]

www.propertyoz.com.au

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www . hellocity . com . au / shaping - wollongong

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