This Brolga Lakes Eco-development studio is the first placemaking studio for the University of Queensland as part of the nationwide Place Agency Consortium for tertiary students. The purpose of this studio was to take students through aspects of a place-based process; People, Process, Product.

People: working with industry partner John Mongard and project champion Michael Myers.

Process: through critical theory, understanding of statutory planning and guidance by industry partner John Mongard, students utilised their on-site visit, a critical analysis of sustainable suburbs and the site context to inform their designs.

Product: students delivered a set of designs for the sustainable development of the site so that it can become a sustainable suburb centred on ecosystem, people, governance and social capital.

Over the course of a 12 week semester, the class consisted of 3 hr sessions, a one day site visit and involved 50 first year planning students. Industry partner, John Mongard, assisted students in developing their understanding of placemaking for sustainable suburbs and implementing that knowledge to the practice of sustainable design for a live project site. The subject emphasised hard-skills by giving the opportunity to visit the site and critically engage with the existing opportunities and constraints.

The table below outlines each learning activity and exercise as designed by the studio leader(s) to guide the students in their placemaking learning journey. It provides the activity type, a short description and links to one or more key learning objectives as aligned by the Learning Outcome Sunflower. This information is actively used to enhance our knowledge and evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching strategies to aid placemakers. For more information about this research, go to our ongoing research project: Place Agency – Impact and Outcomes. 

If you are a teacher, we invite you to use this studio outline to craft your own teaching experiences.

Activity	Description	Key dates for activities	Key learning objectives
Week 1	Introduction to course	23 Jul – 29 Jul	Contextual understanding
Week 2	Site visit	30 Jul – 5 Aug	Community engagement
Week 3	Debrief of site visit and sustainable suburb research	6 Aug – 12 Aug	Reflective skills
Week 4	Facilitated team work	20 Aug – 26 Aug	Capacity building
Week 5	Vision and Development Objectives	27 Aug – 2 Sep	Creative thinking
Week 6	Planning and Design Development and Regulation	3 Sep – 9 Sep	Contextual understanding
Week 7	Implementation Strategies	10 Sep – 16 Sep	Critical thinking
Week 8	Team Role and Team Performance	17 Sep – 23 Se	Teamwork and collaboration
Week 9	Presentation guidance. Facilitated group work.	1 Oct – 7 Oct	Verbal communication upskilling
Week 10	Presentations	8 Oct – 14 Oct	Verbal communication
Week 11	Presentations	15 Oct – 21 Oct	Verbal communication
Week 12	Drop-in session	22 Oct – 28 Oct	Humility