The site was a former harness-racing and greyhound track – flat, featureless, ringed by Gold Coast University Hospital, Griffith University and remnant bushland. The brief was to design an athletes village that, after the Games, would convert into a permanent community of 2,500 residents. The design had to work twice: as temporary accommodation for two weeks, and as a neighbourhood for decades.

The masterplan organises itself around a main street connecting Parklands Drive to Hospital Boulevard, with the Village Heart and central park at its centre. The model is a village, not a suburb – buildings taller and closer together than conventional residential development, which frees up more ground for public space. Seven hectares of outdoor space is managed by the City of Gold Coast for public use.

There’s nothing generic in the urban design, which draws on the Gold Coast's subtropical landscape – hinterland and coastline, shade and water, natural ventilation and light. A blooming double-helix snakes through the site – a yellow-rimmed arbour that twists around a water feature at the Village Heart. Referencing a much-loved waterfall at the nearby Springbrook National Park, water cascades through The Disc. It’s a striking focal point providing shade and natural evaporative cooling for the public plaza.

The tenancy model was as innovative as the design. Long leases, pets allowed, pictures on walls, no landlord evictions – rights that most Australian renters didn’t have at the time. Australia's first build-to-rent community earnt ten urban design awards including the UDIA National Award for Australia's Best Master Planned Development. It achieved 6-star Green Star Communities and UDIA 6-leaf EnviroDevelopment ratings.

Biggest construction job in town? For Gold Coast, it’s been the city’s biggest urban renewal project ever.