Last week's speaker: DGN Darrell Brown: My Gold Coast
Posted by Franz Huber
on Jun 12, 2016
For those of us who have lived on the Gold Coast for a while, or even have grown up here, Darrell's presentation evoked many nostalgic memories. With a 40 year history of designing High-Rise buildings in this city, he can indeed proudly use the title "My Gold Coast" for his speech: Starting with The Anchorage in 1970 through a list of landmark buildings. HiHo, Pacific Plaza, "The Mara's" (there are three of them), Gemini Court...Darrell channeled Sir Clem Renouf, Past RI President (1978-79) who said: “Rotary gives ordinary people, extraordinary opportunities to do more with their lives than they ever dreamed possible.” (Sir Clem was the principal instigator of the Polio eradication campaign, and again re-kicked it into action in 2010. Click here to see an ABC 7:30 report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scTIoeepZFg.) Too right! Darrell was selected in the 1972 GSE Team to Pennsylvania (yes - where the recent team came from). And he never looked back. Immediately upon his return he joined Rotary, where he met up with his future business partner, Ron Burling, to found the now world famous Burling Brown & Co Architects.
Silver Point, Contessa, Spinnaker, Rivage Royal, Belle Maison... and so the list (and evolution of design) goes on. Not just High-Rise, but also schools (TSS, St Hilda's, All Saints, St Andrews). They include Resorts such as Greenmount Beach Resort. Then came a quite different challenge: the Theme Parks, starting with Seaworld. 
And just to prove that the Gold Coast isn't the only town: Quite some time ago, Darrell was commissioned to design buildings in Darwin. Lots of them, to the extent that he has now become a regular commuter between the two cities.
"Architectural design today has changed" Darrell remarked somewhat wistfully. Look at Q1, Soul and Surfers Paradise Jewel (see photo on right), a $1 Billion project, financed by a Chinese company. You are not wrong, Darrell! But, as Greek Philosopher Heraclitus (535 - 475 BC) said about 2,500 years ago: "The only thing that is constant is change".