Bruce Rock Main Street Renewal

Urban Design
The Client
Shire of Bruce Rock
Project Team
Andrew Howe
Strategic Counsel - Urban Design
Bronwyn Slater
Associate - Urban Design
The Project

For decades there had been little investment and change within Bruce Rock’s town centre. Like many of its neighbouring Wheatbelt towns, Bruce Rock’s main street was in need of some love, attention and redesign. Following a community consultation process the Shire realised the opportunity to strengthen the town's role in the central-eastern Wheatbelt region, and subsequently prepared and adopted a Main Street Renewal Strategy in 2019. To support delivery of the Strategy and its vision, the Shire appointed element’s urban design and revitalisation expertise to develop a series of concept designs to align with the broader goals and aspirations for the town centre.

Our Role

Our task was to develop a set of concepts and plans for Bruce Rock’s main street that would provide the next layer of detail for implementing the vision for the street. These designs were developed through an iterative process, where the amalgam of concepts and ideas were assembled from a number of sources including the town’s written history, the Shire’s 2018 engagement outcomes, a site visit, discussions with locals and visitors, tried and tested placemaking principles, and an understanding of regional town capacity, resources and DNA. The aim was to create an engaging, attractive and comfortable main street for locals, families and visitors.

Outcomes

The 2019 Strategy identified several projects and actions to attract investment, visitors and enhance the sense of connection and liveability for locals. Our work built on this to create a comprehensive suite of project concept plans, accompanied by a series of illustrations and scaled plans. Following a presentation to Council and alignment on the projects and concept plans with the Shire, we developed a detailed concept implementation table that provided guidance on the intended outcome, scope of works, success factors, prioritisation and responsibilities for each strategy or concept.

The table also suggested a program of quick-win projects which could ignite change within the town centre and act as a catalyst for future investment and social uplift; of which the Shire successfully implemented park lets in the main street before our work was completed. Longer-term projects included intersection realignments, widened footpaths, street tree planting, and the addition of murals, street furniture and an adventure playground. The integration of these projects into one central area aimed to create a series of activities and interest points along Bruce Rock’s main street to generate a multi-destination journey. This clustering approach aimed to encourage visitation and dwell times within the town centre and create an exciting and vibrant space unique to Bruce Rock.

What We Delivered
  • Visioning and placemaking building on the unique main street (town centre) place identity
  • Main street Revitalisation concept plans and illustrations for each project
  • Detailed implementation table for each project
  • Council presentation of preliminary concepts

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