The numbers of people attending the Pomona Country Markets on Saturday 11 March will be swelled by a further 150 architectural students from the Queensland University of Technology, in town to explore Pomona’s characterful buildings and streetscapes as part of their academic studies.
The students will ask the market attendees what makes the town ‘special’ and will then seek to ‘re-imagine’ one or two public buildings in a hypothetical exercise.
They will display their work in June.
This is the 10th year that QUT students have come to Pomona to explore its architecture.
The relationship between the town and the university began in 2013 when townsfolk reached out to the university to prepare an alternative design for the Pomona Fire Station after the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service (QFES) proposed two bland industrial sheds for the area beside the ambulance station.
Subsequently the QFES agreed to the request for a more suitable building on site, in keeping with the rest of the town’s look and feel. Less than a decade old, the fire station appears to be from the 1950s, similar to the ambulance station next door.
The architectural course administrators saw value in sending students each year to explore the timber and tin buildings of a typical Queensland country town and its setting in the landscape.
The students are invited to consider residents as their ‘clients’, asking questions about people’s lifestyle and how they interact with Pomona’s public areas and iconic colonial structures.
This year, the students will focus on the cluster of buildings from the Pomona Memorial Hall to the Old Railway Station Gallery, and also the Pomona Showgrounds.
Noosa Council has named Pomona as the focus of an inaugural placemaking exercise that will be rolled out progressively to other communities across the Shire.
That study will occur separately from the students’ work.
