Fish Lane Town Square car park transformation

Challenge

Our landscape architects have designed a landscape scheme that would transition the existing 2400sqm concrete underpass zone into an unexpected, subtropical rainforest that invites visitors in, celebrates Brisbane’s warm climate and is open to the public 24/7.

Working with Richards and Spence Architects and Aria Property Group, our team’s challenge was to create a connection to nature and sense of place in a derelict space, originally designed for purely functional purposes.

Image credit: Scott Burrows Photography

Solution

Fish Lane Town Square is now home to more than 3,500 plants that reflect the pre–European landscape found in the local Kurilpa area. These include native birds nest ferns, Australian fan palms, native violet, blue ginger, bugleweed and more than 70 Australian tree ferns standing up to 4.5m tall.

As the RPS-designed landscape was being developed, our team worked closely with project partners Shape, Bland 2 Brilliant and Greenstock Nursery to carefully source and position the plants which now give life and atmosphere to the environment. Each planting area is connected to a rainwater tank irrigation system, along with a specially designed mister system attached to each tree fern.

With Fish Lane Town Square now a quirky, bustling inner city destination, our team is proud to have supported the reimagining of this once forgotten and unseen “space between” into a public space that’s well used and much-loved by locals and visitors alike.