Craig & Karl, Wintergarden Brisbane, for IFM Investors. Art strategy and project curation by ART AID.
Every major development begins its public life behind a hoarding.
It goes up before the marketing suite opens, before the renders circulate, sometimes years before anyone walks through a finished lobby. For the life of demolition and construction, that temporary wall is the development's most visible and longest-running public presence, seen by more people, more often, than almost anything the project will ever publish.
Which makes it strange how it is usually treated. As a compliance line. A fence with a permit number.
Three ways developers respond
Watch any city closely and you see three approaches. Some developers brand their hoarding, wrapping the site in logos and lifestyle renders. Some reach for the archive, licensing existing images or artworks from council collections to satisfy the requirement efficiently. And some understand, from the very beginning, what the hoarding actually is. A commissioning opportunity. These developers engage artists to create work specifically for the site, and in doing so they buy something the other two approaches cannot, a bespoke, premium public presence from day one, and the beginning of the development's story told in its own voice.
I have always admired the developers who choose the third path. It signals a commitment to community and to the story of the site before a single tenant moves in, and the public reads that signal accurately.
Alex Lehours for Coronation Property. Project curation and production by ART AID.
What separates the best
The developers who get the most from this moment share one habit. They start earlier than everyone else. A commission is only ever as strong as the thinking that precedes it. An artist handed a blank wall and no context will deliver something attractive and interchangeable, art that can be featured anywhere in the country. That is not a failure of the artist. It is a failure of the brief.
Before any artist is considered, there should be a close reading of the site's context and history, the vision for what the development will become, and where relevant, the relationship to the permanent artworks or architecture that will follow. That strategy shapes both the artist brief and the shortlist, so that every artist invited to respond is genuinely equipped to translate the site's key features through their own practice. The artwork that results belongs to that place and could belong nowhere else.
This is not branding, and the distinction is worth holding onto. Branding is a separate discipline with a separate job. What we are describing is site storytelling, and in some cities, the rules enforce the difference.
Justine McAllister at Melbourne Quarter, for Lendlease. Project curation and production by ART AID.
What the rules actually say
In Sydney, the distinction is written into policy. Since 2016, the City of Sydney has required eligible hoardings to carry creative graphics, and developers must cover their hoardings in art by a living Australian artist or in historical images relevant to the area, either commissioning their own artist or drawing on the City's licensed collection at no charge. The rules are specific about intent, bespoke works are to be stand-alone art that enlivens the streetscape, as distinct from artwork with promotional content, and heritage sites are directed to historic images, while high-visibility city centre sites require artwork. In practical terms, a hoarding in central Sydney cannot be a branding exercise. It must be art, and the approval pathway rewards developers who treat it that way, with concept approval sought before the temporary structure application is lodged.
Melbourne has taken a different route. The City of Melbourne runs an opt-in Creative Hoardings trial, supporting developers with council-commissioned artworks ready to print, access to a panel of artists for new commissions, and advice on commissioning independently, including guidelines, sample contracts, and fee guidance. Advertising is tightly contained, with a single panel under ten square metres publicising the sale or letting of the property exempt from planning permission, and artwork attribution panels required on each frontage. Participation is voluntary, which means in Melbourne, a commissioned hoarding is a choice, and the developers who make it stand out for it.
Brisbane regulates from the other direction. There is no citywide creative hoarding mandate, but branded hoarding is treated as signage, assessed under the council's advertising device framework, where approval requirements depend on the device type and location, and a heritage overlay triggers full assessment. The canvas is more open, and so is the opportunity for developers willing to lead rather than follow.
Elliott Routledge at Melbourne Quarter, for Lendlease. Project curation and production by ART AID.
Justine McAllister at King Street, Brisbane, for Lendlease. Project curation and production by ART AID.
What the developer gets
"The hoarding budget was always going to be spent. The difference is whether it buys a fence or a flagship."
Consider what the commissioning developer walks away with. A premium public presence from the first week of works, at the exact moment most projects look their worst. A community that has been given something rather than asked to endure something, and the goodwill that follows. A story worth telling, the artist, the site history, the reveal, content that marketing teams spend real budgets trying to manufacture. And with licensing structured correctly from the start, a genuine asset, artwork that extends across marketing collateral, wayfinding, uniforms, digital signage, and the campaign itself.
And the temporary work need not always sit outside the public art obligation. Some councils recognise temporary and ephemeral work within their public art frameworks, and in the right circumstances a well-argued public art plan can position a commissioned hoarding as the first stage of a development's public art program rather than an extra line. It varies city by city and project by project, which is exactly why the strategy comes first.
Elliott Routledge and Shannon Crees for Coronation Property, 'Charlie Parker', Harris Park. Project curation and production by ART AID.
One commission, many touch-points. The 'Charlie Parker' artwork extended across hoarding and campaign collateral.
Beyond the hoarding
The thinking does not stop at construction sites. The same approach transforms empty retail tenancies, the papered-over shopfronts that sit dark through development and leasing campaigns. A commissioned artwork across a vacant tenancy gives something considered back to the street and its community at precisely the moment a precinct is asking for their patience.
Dennis Golding at Melbourne Quarter, for Lendlease. Project curation and production by ART AID.
And a well-commissioned artwork can travel further still. With the correct licensing in place from the outset, the artwork keeps working long after the fence comes down. At Collins Place, we took it somewhere warmer, printing the commissioned artworks to canvas and gifting them to the development's new tenants. The hoarding came down. The artwork stayed in the building's life.
That is the difference a strategy makes. The hoarding is temporary. The thinking should not be.
Artwork gifting for Collins Place. Artworks by Tommy Day III and Jason Parker, art direction and design by Eddie Zammit under ART AID.
Artist merchandise by ART AID, artwork by Jason Parker.
If your project has a hoarding condition approaching, or a precinct that deserves better than branded vinyl, this is exactly the work ART AID leads, from strategy and artist selection through approvals, production, and licensing. We would love to talk.
This is the first in a short series on temporary art in the built environment. The next piece looks at pop-up experiences in empty retail tenancies, and what a decade of producing them has taught us.
ART AID is a public art and cultural consultancy working at the intersection of art, community, and place. To find out more about our work visit art-aid.co or follow @artaidau.
