Aims and Background
In the last ten years the ‘creative cluster’ has emerged as a central organising concept for creative industries policy in many major cities in the developed world, increasingly in East Asia and most especially in China (Kong and O’Connor 2009). Historically creative clusters have been ‘spontaneous’ or ‘organic’, emerging from the interstices of the planning regime, property market and urban cultural dynamics, and this will no doubt continue. However, in the last ten years the scenario has changed considerably. The creative industries agenda has moved centre stage, closer to economic development, through its contribution to employment and wealth creation, and its links to innovation and R&D strategies. Equally the link between urban regeneration, property development and culture has now become a central (often disruptive) driver in strategic urban planning, making ‘spontaneous’ clusters less likely. Creative industry clusters are, therefore, increasingly being purpose built as part of a wider strategic vision. This is especially so in China, which is now in the process of constructing over one hundred creative clusters across the country, in a very heavily planned process.
Understanding how these cluster function and what they require to maximize their potential is crucial to their sustainability. Essential to this understanding is the notion of ‘soft infrastructure’ which we use here to designate those complex, locally embedded socio-cultural factors which stand in contrast to the ‘hard’ infrastructure of the built form and critically complement those ‘pure’ economic factors frequently used by standard business theorists.
This project aims to conduct an extensive and critical examination of how purpose built clusters differ from more ‘spontaneous’ cases, and what specific challenges they face. It will take account of the ‘lifecycle’ from policy vision through to ongoing management as well as investigate the (often conflicting) uses by different constituencies and how they are inserted into the wider urban context, and beyond. It will also seek to address the interface between ICT and human uses and explore how new media technologies and urban informatics might impact on highly networked urban clusters. The potential of these new technologies to bring added value to the ‘soft infrastructure’, and their necessary links to planning and design models, will be a central focus of this project. They also potentially represent a significant advantage available to purpose – built clusters.
The Research Team
Chief Investigator (Leader of the project): Prof. Justin O’Connor (Queensland University of Technology)
Chief Investigator: Associate Prof. Michael Keane (QUT)
Chief Investigator: Prof. Greg Hearn (QUT)
Partner Investigator: Dan Hill (Arup, Sydney)
Partner Investigator: Prof. Fan Zhou (Communication University of China, Beijing)
Partner Investigator: Ma Da (Creative 100, Qing Dao, China)
Partner Investigator: Prof. Zhang Jing Chen (Beijing Academy of Science and Technology)
Researchers:
Senior Research Associate: Dr. Xin Gu (QUT)
Postgraduate Student: Lei Liu (QUT)
Visiting Scholar: Associate Prof. Yu Xia (Guangzhou Business School, Guangzhou, China). April 09 – Mar 10.
China Scholarship PhD candidate: Tan Na (Shanghai Donghua University, China)
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