Parking Technology

I wandered along to the Australian Technology Park the other day.  For those not familiar with this concept a technology park is sort of like an industrial estate for smart people.  It is packed with research institutions, high tech companies and Channel 7 in what I can only assume is an act of unconscious irony.  Some years ago the state government decided it would be a great idea to create a precinct where just institutions could operate.  Apparently being a cutting edge innovator doesn't mean you can innovate yourself a place to work.

So the word went out from on high (Macquarie Street actually);
"Let there be a technology park that Australian ingenuity and creativity shall have a home where it can be nurtured and thrive.  And just for laughs, let's chuck Channel 7 in there as well."
But where could such a precinct be placed?  Hastily the government shuffled through such of its property portfolio as hadn't already been earmarked for casinos and toll roads.  In some desperation they selected one at random and said, "This is the place!"

Just near Redfern there was a wide swathe of post industrial wilderness littered with sheds, rails, workshops and derelict rolling stock.  This tangled piece of industrial decay dated from a time when Australia was deemed capable of building and maintaining its own trains and was thus very surplus to requirements.

Without a hint of irony the state government decided to build its technology park on the grave of what was once one of the largest and most cutting edge centres of heavy engineering in the southern hemisphere.  Quite a lot of the old buildings were still solid so they kept them.  They then picked up all of the old tools and equipment lying around and, finding enough for a museum, dumped them in one of the buildings.  The intention is to turn it into a museum one day, maybe.  With space cleared, grass mowed (and then covered in bricks) and the remnants of yesterday's technological achievements herded onto a reservation the way was cleared to put in plazas and new modern looking buildings.  At the moment they're building a car park.  How technological is that.

I dropped by the technology park for a visit last Saturday to check out this home such of our brightest and best who aren't working overseas.  It was quite pleasant to walk about with its broad plazas, repurposed old buildings of red brick and brand new buildings totally failing to blend in.  All in all it was rather impressive.  It was also deserted, apparently innovation doesn't work weekends.  The only activity came from the centre of the site where the property developer that the government sold the place to was, as previously mentioned, engaged in digging a relatively non innovative car park.  Still once development is completed (in just a few years into the future, honest) the developer claims it will be a vibrant, lively precinct for people to work and play.  They've just got to finish the car park first.

In ninety or a hundred years time when our insect overlords decide to build a new technology park to highlight the achievements Australia has made under cockroach domination I'm sure they'll be able to repurpose the old railway sheds again.  The more modern buildings will probably have to be demolished though.  And we'll need more parking.