A FIVE day intensive workshop involving Australia's leading architects, urban designers and town planners last month kicked off the detailed design stage of Marsim development at the top of Paradise Point. They were joined by two of the United States' most prominent architects, Philadelphia-based DPZ head designer, Ludwig Fontalvo-Abello and renowned New York architect Walter Chatham

The $530 million project, which received the green light from the Gold Coast City Council in November last year, will be set on a 10.8 hectare waterfront site at the northern tip of Paradise Point.

It will provide 470 apartments and villas and is poised to set an Australian benchmark for community living. According to Marsim Queensland development director, Matthew Gollan, the workshop is itself 'a landmark' and 'a tradition that is used commonly to design traditional towns throughout Europe.

"The workshop concept is designed to compress the process - achieving within five days what would normally take four, five or six months if the team members were to be away in their own offices, working in isolation," he says.

Mr Gollan said the project brief was to 'achieve the application of timeless town planning principles in modern architecture' and to 'create a sense of place'.