Director of the Queen’s Wharf design team, Naveen Dath, reflected on the history of Brisbane as a penal colony and how the design vision contributes to its transition into a bustling and thriving “Olympics” city. Cottee Parker’s Senior Associate Susanne MacDonald reflected on her 14-year tenure with our practice and the changes she has seen in our industry to support working parents:

“What interests me personally about the Queen’s Wharf project is that half of the architectural team are women, and they lead a significant portion of the client-facing work on the project. The developers’ marketing team with whom we had close association with are predominantly women, and the project management team Bluebird Property is a female led team. I have been at Cottee Parker since I was a student, and this has been the first time I’ve seen gender diversity achieved across the entire project team – from developers, marketing, consultants and design firms.”

“I was promoted to Associate at Cottee Parker at 8 months pregnant. With the support of an exceptional team, I work flexible hours. Some of those hours are after 8pm so I can be home to support my husband through the trauma of the night-time routine with two toddlers! Our team is made up of 4 parents with young children, 3 mums and 1 dad, and we all work flexible hours. Thanks to COVID, remote meetings have become the norm. This has been the change in just our practice in the last 20 years.”