For the last 4 years I have been fortunate to have a job as a Project Landscape Architect at Yurrah; I have been working full time at Yurrah and doing Vibrant Places work in my spare time. By day I'm a Landscape Architect, by night ... Yurrah are an Environmental Consultancy and it's been great to get a Land Planning perspective on Landscape Architecture. I'll never forget it and I'm sure it will influence my future work. But now I'm moving on and I'm very excited to announce I will be working at the new firm Meter Design. Meter will allow me to use the skills I've obtained doing my Vibrant Places work. Their focus is on Urban Design and Masterplanning at a conceptual level. Even more exciting I'll be working flexible hours, casually, meaning I can balance my Vibrant Places work with my Landscape Architectural work. And there are some really exciting things I am working on right now including Burnett City Chic ... and the soon to be announced Seaside Dinner (more to come on that). Games Night will still be on for 2013 and we have some great Special Event ideas happening soon. Lazy Sunday Cycle has expanded to Sydney and we are getting such large numbers that we are considering seeking sponsorship. We're starting to organise Brisbane Diner en Blanc 2013 and have some great ideas to watch out for. I'll be traveling to London in September for the London Design Festival with the bursary I received for my Queensland Emerging Leader Award and will be blogging the whole time I'm there. Thankyou for following me and I look forward to contributing more in the future. -Amy
I am so amazed at the incredible work of Kelly Meyer, Graphic Designer, as she paints the Giant Mahjong! To my knowledge this is the largest Mahjong set in the world (but if you know of a larger one, let me know). The Giant Mahjong will activate King George Square for free, on 21 February 2013 (1 weeks time) from 5-9pm, as part of the Brisbane City Council's BrisAsia Festival - it will be well worth coming to check out this incredible work by Kelly!
Kelly Meyer paints a Giant Mahjong tile
A flurry of colourful parasols greet you on your way home. Everyone around you fans themselves on the warm summer night standing under glowing, floating lanterns. You hear loud, rhythmic drums and are enticed to join the growing crowd. They stop. The crowd parts, and a Giant Mahjong set is revealed. People call out they are looking for players for the normal sized Mahjong games, and you decide to join them later. You smell delicious food sizzling on a hotplate, incredibly installed on a bike. You’re intrigued and can’t help but go and grab some gyoza. Boiling hot tea is being poured ceremoniously into china, and you watch and learn, so you can try it later at home. Around you are more Giant Games – Giant Chinese Checkers, Giant Scrabble, Giant Jenga, Giant Connect Four. People of all ages, cultures and background are playing the games and enjoying themselves. Where are you? You’re in Brisbane’s King George Square on 21 February 2013 at 5pm for BrisAsia Games! If you want this experience come along to the BrisAsia Games Night for: EDIT: Date corrected to Thursday night 21 February 2013
Next week I embark on a journey to Berlin to participate in the BMW Guggenheim Lab! While I am there I will be: I’ll try and keep you up-to-date on my blog with what I’ll be up to. I can’t wait to be involved with this great initiative! Thankyou to Rachel Smith for including me in the program! EDIT: I've updated the links so you can find out more about the events.
On 27 May 2012, as part of the UR{BNE} Festival we will be launching the Brisbane PARK(ing) Day Book, in a parking spot (of course!)!
I have edited the book and written some of it's content along with Yen Trinh and Gretchen Coombs. The book celebrates 5 Years of Brisbane PARK(ing) Day and the influence it has had on our city.
The special first edition of the book will be on sale (until stocks last) at the Launch event. After this a second edition will be available to order online. (I'll let you know where you can get it soon!).EDIT: You can now buy the book online at Blurb.
PARK(ing) Day was started in 2005 by Rebar to raise awareness about the lack of green spaces in San Francisco’s downtown. It transformed an on-street car park into a ‘people park’ by temporarily providing turf, seating and shade. It is based on the idea that paying for a parking meter is like ‘renting’ a public space. The PARKs are surprising, fun additions to the everyday street environments, and powerful symbols of placemaking and communities wanting to improve urban quality.
Since 2009 I have been on the team (and for a few years, leading the team) promoting Brisbane PARK(ing) Day. The event has greatly impact me and I believe was the catalyst for me starting all of my projects. I wrote about this Brisbane PARK(ing) Day's influence on me to make a change, last year on the CoDesign Studio Blog. Brisbane PARK(ing) Day was particularly a huge influence on Games Night @ King George Square! Firstly Games NIght was directly inspired by a PARK that Tract created in 2009. The PARK features a game of Giant Chess using garden gnomes (see image above). It was so popular that people were lining up to play. Tract was kind enough to allow me to take the Board and the garden gnomes as my first Giant Games for Games Night.
Brisbane PARK(ing) Day has inspired me to do many things, so many things in fact, that it's becoming difficult to be as involved as I used to be. Both Yen Trinh and myself are now evolving the event to be self-sufficent and essentially crowd-run. Instead of participants registering as they used to, and us promoting where they will be in many forms, they will now be able to show on a map where they will be and this will be used to promote when and where they will create their PARK. Essentially it takes us out as the middle-men. It also means that individuals own their PARKs and do their own promotion.
This is why we decided now would be a good time to release the book. We hope in another 5 years time the event will be so ubiquitous, and will be ingrained in the Brisbane society that no one will even remember we were involved.
By day King George Square is vacant, some would call it inhospitable, a thoroughfare with a blaring TV; but once a month at night it is filled with people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures, all speaking different languages, all with different beliefs, all different ages, all playing board games!
It’s called Games Night @ King George Square and it’s aims are to encourage interactions of people of different generations, socio-economic backgrounds and cultures.
The concept for the event came from the observation that, in Brisbane, there are services for elderly people, young people, the disadvantaged, the disabled … but all of these services encouraged people to stay within their social groups, and not to interact with each other.
I am particularly interested in the gap between young people and elderly people in Brisbane. I feel that the divide between these two groups has caused disrespect on both sides, because the two groups could not relate. In other cultures the elderly and the young frequently interact, sharing wisdom and fresh ideas, looking out for one another and respecting one another. I want to see this as the norm in Brisbane.
Although I was not an avid board game player, I could see the potential that board games have to bring people together and I knew that the Giant Games would certainly draw people in!
Games Night is an incredible event. I never get tired of watching people interacting, smiling, laughing with one another and making new friends. It’s a very positive event; everyone is kind and considerate to one another. One thing I find remarkable is that everyone packs up their games after playing them! It’s just something we’re all taught as children and everyone still does it, it doesn’t matter who you are, you pack up the board game.
Interacting with people who are different to ourselves breaks down barriers, and makes us more tolerant. I believe that all of the positive interactions between different people, in our city will inspire people to be kind and respectful towards each other at all other times.
There are plenty of other ways we can inspire positive changes in our city. I am not an events manager, no one approached me to come up with an idea like this, I just had an idea, contacted council and they helped me make it happen. If you have a good idea, tell someone about it, ring council or email your local member, tell a community group about and they could make it happen or just do it! No one would stop you getting together with a group and playing board games in a park and inviting people around you to join in … and if they do stop you apologise. It’s much easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission. Create positive change in your city! If you want our city to be a vibrant place, don’t expect someone else to do it for you.
I spoke about how people can get involved in making their city vibrant, at TEDxYouth @ Brisbane, watch it here. Games Night @ King George Square has been running monthly since March 2010, on the last Thursday of the month. It is sponsored by the Brisbane City Council. It was awarded a Lord Mayor’s Australia Day Award in 2012.
Find out more at www.games-at-event.com or www.facebook.com/games.at
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