Think St - Challenging Graffiti

Stakeholder: City of Sydney

In response to the brief this proposal suggests creating cultural hubs within the city by bringing together property owners, community agencies, youth workers, respected street artists and young people to cultivate a unique and vibrant identity for the CBD.

Think St involves creating a communications package to bridge the gap between all stakeholders and reduce any sense of alienation between groups challeging graffiti.

The project utilises alternative consultative strategies to ensure transparent and cooperative relationships between stakeholders such as engaging respected street artists to work alongside youth, youth workers and community agencies.

In the long term the project proposes an ongoing partnership to transform and maintain the condition of the laneways through street art.

In the short term the project recognises the need for a solution to illegal tagging, stencils and throw-ups prevailing on laneways. The dark and unused laneways within the city centre have been mapped out in order to identify the most appropriate surface treatments for each area.

Think St proposes using a range of surface treatments for a variety of applicable areas. A system of signposting laneways by block-colouring garages and roller doors in combination with an anti-graffiti coating could liven up darkened spaces of the city. This means hard-to-clean roller door surfaces will become easier to clean and also fits in with the coloured sticker system.

Additionally a system of sensory lights was proposed for deep doorways in laneways.