Council & Public Events · Brisbane Region

Working With Redland City Council

Dunwich is the main town on North Stradbroke Island. It's got heritage character, local community, and tourism potential. But like many island and regional towns, it felt abandoned after dark. The council wanted to activate Dunwich's town centre in the evening by creating infrastructure that would support retail, hospitality, and community gathering. When we designed the Dunwich town centre lighting upgrade, we faced two constraints: respect the heritage character and respect the island's natural lighting cycles. Dunwich has old buildings with history. You can't just impose modern street lighting and call it upgraded. You have to work within community character. We designed a warm, heritage-sensitive lighting scheme: replaced the harsh existing street lighting with warm 3000K LED units that created friendlier atmosphere, added subtle accent lighting on heritage buildings to celebrate architectural character, and distributed ground-level pathway lighting to guide pedestrian flow and create visual interest. The installation was phased over four weeks so the town centre never felt disrupted. We worked with local businesses to ensure that our lighting complimented (not competed with) their own facade lighting. The impact was immediate. Evening foot traffic increased. Restaurants and cafes reported longer lingering times. Retailers extended their operating hours because the evening trade justified it. Visitors who'd only experienced Dunwich during daytime discovered a completely different character once the sun set. By November, Dunwich town centre had transformed from "a place you visit during the day" to "a place you'd bring friends to in the evening." The lighting had created psychological shift: evening felt safe, friendly, and destination-like. The council studied visitor feedback and found that the majority of new evening visitors were tourists who'd previously only known Dunwich during the day. The lighting had expanded the destination's appeal to a completely different visitor profile. By year-end, the council had committed to expanding similar upgrades to other island towns. They'd realized that town centre lighting was a genuine economic development tool, not just a safety utility. The real lesson: heritage towns can feel contemporary without losing character. When you light them thoughtfully—warm, respectful of existing architecture, focused on creating atmosphere rather than pure illumination—you unlock evening potential while maintaining the character that makes people want to visit in the first place.