What It’s Like to Go Gorilla Trekking in the Congo
For the experienced safari-goer, an intimate Kamba safari in this African country is the next great adventure.
It’s around 5:45 a.m., dawn in Republic of the Congo. The sun is burning off the final clouds from last night’s rain, and there’s a gentle breeze rippling the thick humidity in the air. I’m waist-deep in the waters of Lango Baï, a swampy waterway deep in the forest of Odzala-Kokoua National Park, absorbed by the near-total silence of the nascent morning. Suddenly the breeze changes direction. Just a few meters away, the adolescent bull elephant that my group spotted seconds earlier, freezing us to our spot, sharply lifts his trunk and flares his ears. He can smell us now. He knows we’re there.
On most traditional safaris, boots-on-the-ground encounters like this would be rare, perhaps even cause for concern. On a Kamba Africa walking safari, they’re intentional. Their expeditions through the Congo Basin (in the safe and stable ROC as opposed to the more volatile Democratic Republic of Congo) are designed to be slower and more focused than the vehicle-based safaris luxury travellers are accustomed to. The result is an experience unlike any other I have encountered: intense, challenging, rewarding, and exhilarating, all at the same time.
But the swamp is not where a Kamba journey begins. After arriving at Brazzaville’s Maya-Maya International Airport (Air France via Paris is the recommended commercial route; private landings can also be arranged) their representatives meet you airside. Kamba, a conservation company turned tour operator that’s been active here since 2012, has special dispensation from the government to process visas on arrival, which is far more convenient than having to deal with the ROC mission in your home country. After an overnight stay in Brazzaville’s Hilton, housed in two gleaming glass towers with exceptional views of the mighty Congo River, a private charter heads north into Odzala before a roughly two-hour jeep transfer into the forest. Destination: Ngaga Lodge. Aside from transfers between Kamba’s three luxury camps, that’s the last you’ll be in a vehicle for the duration of your expedition.
Ngaga can barely be seen amid the rainforest canopy—the same seemingly impenetrable jungle that’s home to lowland forest gorillas we’re hoping to witness. The 11-day Odzala Immersion begins with four nights at Ngaga and three gorilla treks—one each morning into the dense Marantaceae foliage to search for the semi-habituated families who live nearby.
Gorilla treks at Ngaga begin before dawn and are entirely on foot. Just a few steps from breakfast is the forest, and silence. Kamba’s trackers rely on sound as much as sight to locate the three gorilla groups habituated enough to receive guests, and the tension and focus is high—more so than any other gorilla encounter I’ve had. Keeping up with the tracker adds another layer of stress, as they seem to glide through the vegetation at speed. Then a sudden stop: the guide hears the chewing of leaves, smells the bittersweetness of the animals’ sweat. To a layman like me nothing has changed, but to an expert the signs are clear: we have found the family at their breakfast.
The following 60-minute observation is breathtaking. The need for stillness to appease the gorillas also means your attention to them is unbroken; their lack of concern for and interest in you makes the behaviour you see truly authentic. These gorillas have had far less human exposure than their mountain-dwelling cousins farther east in Rwanda and Uganda, and the overwhelming majority of that has been hands-off scientific observations. They are wary, yet tolerant, of our presence, rather than curious or enthusiastic. And they spend more time high up in the trees than on the ground; the grace with which the large males flit between branches contradicts their 160-kilogram mass. I kneel on the forest floor, concentrating my breathing to slow my heart rate after the hike, and gaze up at an infant copying every move of its mother to try to reach the tastiest leaves. Comparison in hindsight made my previous trip to Rwanda feel like an extravagant zoo visit.
Each gorilla trek has a strict one-hour time limit. Once we’re back in camp—greeted by a second lavish breakfast to supplement our pre-dawn meal—our group trades tales of the morning’s visits. No more than six people can visit one family of gorillas at a time (one tracker, one guide, and four guests) so a full camp of up to 12 people is split into smaller teams and visits a different gorilla family each morning. A few hours’ rest and recovery is followed by light lunch and a more gentle afternoon activity: a forest walk that ends in sundowners with your feet in a stream; a trip to a local village whose inhabitants work with Kamba, be it in the lodge’s back of house, on conservation efforts, or as Forest Guardians, an initiative to both train locals in conservation and help them use their existing knowledge of the forest to protect it. Proper observation and immersion are the goals of a Kamba trip.
Like any top-tier safari operator, Kamba has exclusive access to the area in which it operates. Only a few hundred people per year enter this forest; in contrast, Rwanda makes 35,000 tracking permits available annually. That exclusivity, along with the extraordinarily close connection to the ecosystem, is just one reason Kamba is trusted by leading tour operators like Cookson Adventures, one of Robb Report’s own Travel Masters: “This is next-level safari. It’s extremely remote,” says Carlo Muies, a senior project manager with Cookson with experience leading guests on bespoke versions of the Kamba trip. Another advantage to working with Kamba is the opportunity for lasting, meaningful philanthropy. “[On a previous bespoke tour] we brought in two helicopters, which was the first time it had been done,” Muies tells Robb, “and took clients into the most remote part [of the Congo Basin]. They wanted to bring local scientists and herbologists from the capital, looking for species thought to be extinct. The local ranger told us the last time anyone had been there were park officials in the ‘90s.”
A wise guide once told me safari should be less about the Big 5 and more about the Small 500. Time spent in Lango and Mboko, Kamba’s two other lodges just a few miles north and east of Ngaga, focuses on exactly that. After the first four nights at Ngaga, we journeyed on to Lango Baï, seeing how the different ecosystems of Odzala-Kokoua National Park give way to one another: from forest to savannah to swamp, then a kayak down the Lekoli River. To see the rainforest from this angle, and at this gentle pace, is special. The gentle drift of the river’s current gives kayakers time to truly appreciate the myriad shades of green in the foliage; the clashing blues and greys in the imposing sky. If you’re really lucky, chimpanzees may make their way through the trees lining the river bank.
At that speed, 30 minutes of kayaking feels like a full afternoon. By the time I moor my craft in the shallows where the baï meets the stream, the sky is beginning to darken, though the journey isn’t quite over. After the first in a series of ‘wet walks,’ sloshing through knee-deep water, one wary eye always on the nearby grazing herd of buffalo, Lango emerges from the distance, just as the pink sky turns dark purple.
Much of the next few days is spent hip-deep in water or knee deep in mud. Distances are measured in metres rather than miles. Tiny creatures are appreciated for their beauty. Suddenly, every minute detail is perceptible and mesmerising: the sharp flash of a violet Ipomoea flower among the endless green; the contrast markings of an inchworm crawling along a branch. The cacophony of the forest shocks me on the first night; by the second it’s a comfort.
Instead of being a safari observer, perched high above nature behind the steel barrier of a vehicle, I was part of it. My feet were in the tracks of that elephant in the baï, and of the buffalo and bongo (a rare forest antelope known for their striped pattern) we had seen on the mornings before. Our final swamp trek brings us to a forest known for an unusually high concentration of African grey parrots; Kamba’s head guide Dylan Smith informs us only around 50 other people had made it there all year. The parrots are elusive, conditioned by years of poaching to avoid humans, but after patience and perseverance we spy them, flocking above us in such numbers and with such noise it was a mystery how they managed to hide from us for so long. That forest feels primordial, ancient—like a place no human had ever dared tread before. Comfortable lodges and lavish meals are one thing, but that sensation is true luxury.
Full Buyout of the 11-night Odzala Immersion (up to 12 guests) from $251,000. See kambaafrica.com. Special experiences like the helicopter access mentioned can be arranged separately by Cookson Adventures.
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This Stylish, Water-Resistant Dopp Kit Might Be the Last One You Ever Buy
Patricks’s limited-edition wash bag is designed to keep liquids in and out, so it can come along wherever your travels take you.
If all you’re going to do is look at it, a leather Dopp kit from a fashion house is a fine choice. But if you take travelling seriously—and do it often, for business, pleasure, or both—such a bag will inevitably end up blemished with droplets of water or stained by errant flecks of toothpaste. Get stuck with a cavalier team of baggage handlers, and it can even get soaked in your favourite fragrance or anti-ageing serum.
But Patricks, the high-performance Australian grooming brand stocked in Harrods and Bergdorf Goodman, has a solution. Its limited-edition bathroom bag, called BB1, is purpose-built to protect everything inside and out. Conceived by industrial designer George Cunningham with brand founder Patrick Kidd, the cuboid design is executed in a water-resistant recycled nylon you can rinse clean. It’s lined with a thin layer of shock-absorbing foam to safeguard your products, but if a bottle somehow gets cracked in transit, the two-way water-resistant zippers and sealed seams (which keep liquids from seeping in or out) ensure that whatever leaks won’t ruin your cashmere. Inside, two dual-sided zippered compartments are ideally sized to fit toothbrushes, razors, and other small essentials.
And though its clean lines and rugged construction make it undeniably masculine, its greatest feature is borrowed from women’s makeup bags. Like the best of these, BB1 unzips to lie flat, giving you unobstructed access to everything inside. Well, you and the 999 other gentlemen who move fast enough to snag one. $289
Courtesy of Patricks
1. Hanging Loop
The G-hook system isn’t just a stylish handle: You can also use it to hang the bag from a hook or secure it to your carry-on.
2. Two-Way Zipper
The closures are water-resistant in both directions, meaning liquids won’t get in or out.
3. Fold-flat Construction
BB1 opens to 180 degrees, letting you scan its 4.2-litre capacity at a quick glance.
4. Technical-Fabric Shell
The durable recycled-nylon is easy to maintain and woven to survive splashes and leaks from your go-to products.
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Mauve on Up
Brisbane boutique stay Miss Midgley’s offers a viscerally human experience—especially if you dig pink.
On a sun-bleached corner of Brisbane’s New Farm, where the scent of frangipani mingles with the clink of coffee cups, stands a building that has lived more lives than most people. Once a premier’s residence, an orphanage, a hospital and a private school, the 160-year-old stone structure now finds itself reborn as Miss Midgley’s—a boutique stay that teaches a masterclass in how to make heritage feel modern.
Designed and run by architect-mother-daughter duo Lisa and Isabella White, Miss Midgley’s captures the cultural confidence of a city in bloom. Nowhere is that new confidence more visible than along James Street—the leafy, slow-burn heart of the city’s fashion and dining scene—where Miss Midgley’s sits quietly at the edge, its shell-pink façade glowing in the subtropical light.
Built of Brisbane’s rare volcanic tuff, the building’s soft mauves and pinks are more than aesthetic; they are its identity. Locals still remember its 1950s incarnation as the Pink Flats, and the Whites have honoured that legacy with a contemporary blush-toned exterior, chosen to harmonise with the stone’s peachy undertones. Inside, those hues continue in dusty terracottas, russets and the faint shimmer of brass tapware. “Design can’t afford to be for the sake of fashion,” Isabella White has said. “It has to respond to what’s in front of you.”
That sentiment is tangible in every corner. Five apartments, each with their own idiosyncratic floor plan, occupy the building. Ceilings bloom with heritage plasterwork, 19th-century wallpaper fragments have been preserved in the kitchens, and tiny hand-painted notes left by the architects point out original quirks: a misaligned beam here, a hidden archway there. It’s a kind of adult treasure hunt for design lovers, where discovery feels personal and unforced.
Even the picket fence, a heritage requirement, has been reimagined in corten steel—a sly nod to regulation turned into sculpture. It’s this blend of reverence and rebellion that gives Miss Midgley’s its edge: heritage without starch, nostalgia without sentimentality.
True to Brisbane’s easy elegance, luxury here is measured not in marble or minibar but in proportion, privacy, and personality. Each apartment—from the Drawing Room and the Assembly Hall to the Principal’s Office—is a self-contained sanctuary with its own kitchen, large bathroom and outdoor space. The ground-floor units open onto leafy courtyards and welcome small dogs; upstairs, the larger suites spill onto verandahs shaded by jacarandas.
At the heart of the property lies a solar-heated pool hemmed with tropical greenery and fringed umbrellas—more mid-century Palm Springs than colonial Brisbane. Around it, guests share a petite laundry, a communal library and that rarest of urban luxuries: a car park per apartment. The atmosphere is quietly collegiate—a handful of travellers who might nod to each other on the stairs but otherwise inhabit their own creative bubbles.
The hotel’s namesake, Annie Midgley, lends the project both its name and its spirit. An ambidextrous artist and teacher, she famously instructed two students at once, writing with both hands simultaneously—a fitting metaphor for the dual vision the Whites bring to the building: one hand rooted in history, the other sketching toward the future. “Not famous, yet known,” goes the property’s understated tagline—and indeed, Miss Midgley’s has quietly become that most desirable of addresses: the one whispered about by people who know.
Sustainability isn’t an accessory here; it’s structural. The adaptive reuse of the heritage building is its boldest environmental act. Solar panels power the property; an electric heat pump warms the pool; recycled decking and tiles frame the courtyard. The metre-thick tuff walls regulate temperature naturally, and the amenities follow suit—refillable bath products, biodegradable pods, Seljak blankets spun from textile off-cuts, and compendiums wrapped in Australian-made kangaroo leather. It’s slow luxury in the truest sense.
In a world of carbon-copy hotels, Miss Midgley’s feels deeply human—a place where history isn’t curated behind glass but lives in the warmth of stone and the flicker of afternoon light. The lesson it offers is simple and resonant: that the most elegant modernity often comes not from reinvention, but from listening to what’s already there.
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My Brisbane…Monique Kawecki
The Queensland capital is carving its own distinctive take on Australian culture. Here, a clued-up local aesthete takes us around town.
It’s almost a given that all globally minded creatives will, at some juncture in their careers, choose a path that leads directly to one of the planet’s vital cultural hubs—metropolises with the cosmopolitan thrum of New York, the lofty elegance of Paris, the futuristic edge of Tokyo.
True to form, Monique Kawecki’s work odyssey transported her to the buzz of London for over a decade, but the editor and creative consultant now admits to “finding a balance” in Brisbane, using the Queensland capital as a base for generating international content. Together with her husband, industrial designer Alexander Lotersztain, she’s proud to call the fast-blooming city her home.
Driven by curiosity, Monique joins the dots between creative communities and helps bring visionary projects to life through her studio Champ Creative, a space she runs with her twin sister in Tokyo. Her work as co-founder and editorial director of Ala Champ Magazine, a print-turned-digital-media platform rooted in design, architecture and creative culture, allies thinkers and makers who are shaping the future.
EAT
Central
Step underground and you’ll find more than just a Hong Kong-inspired eatery. This vibrant enclave in the CBD is the vision of chef Benny Lam and young restaurateur David Flynn, combining an avant-garde space—designed by up-and-coming J.AR Office—with inventive Asian-fusion plates and a curated Chinese and Australian wine list. Every detail, from the menu to the disco-era soundscape, combines for a memorable experience.
Gerards
A restaurant that has long held its place among Brisbane’s primo venues, and its makeover by J.AR Office has confirmed it is a mainstay in the city. Rich, rammed-earth textures and sleek steel set the stage for the Levantine-inflected fare, where Queensland produce meets Middle Eastern tradition—all served on textured Sally Kerkin tableware that casts the eclectic dishes in an even more visually pleasing light.
DRINK
+81 Aizome Bar
Inspired by the hidden cocktail bars in Tokyo’s Ginza district, an intimate, indigo-hued 10-seater designed by Alexander Lotersztain. The dimly lit space presents drinks served over hand-cut Japanese ice and expertly crafted “neo cocktails” courtesy of mixologist Tony Huang. Champ Creative curated and sourced the artisan-made tableware and glassware from Japan, making sure the experience is as authentic as possible.
Bar Miette
Overlooking the Brisbane River, Australian chef Andrew McConnell has enlisted executive chef Jason Barratt to direct two of his standout dining ventures—this venue and Supernormal—on the waterfront at 443 Queen Street. Both offer stellar dining—the milk bun with mortadella and smoked maple syrup is simple yet sublime—but this is the spot to visit for a glass of wine accompanied by water vistas.
ART & CULTURE
QAGOMA
Together, the Queensland Art Gallery (QA) and Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) form Australia’s largest modern and contemporary art gallery. Roosting on Brisbane’s South Bank, the establishment showcases exemplary art from Australia, Asia and the Pacific, and, as such, has become a firm favourite among both locals and tourists. By day, world-class exhibitions such as Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’s Presence—beginning December 6th—take centre stage; after dark, expect illuminated theatrics as GOMA permanently projects an intense, multi-hued James Turrell artwork onto its facade.
SHOP
BrownHaus
The experience of entering the luxurious, travertine-clad space is as beautiful as the creations the jewellery studio constructs. The culmination of founder Drew Brown’s 25 years of refining his craft, fine jewels and elevated everyday pieces for both men and women captivate your gaze, each example formed with the utmost intention and care. Moreover, Brown is redefining traditional artisanship and service in a new, modern way, ensuring the flagship store is accessible and exciting in equal measure.
James Street Precinct
For shopping, dining or even just perfecting the time-honoured art of people-watching, James Street is a one-stop hub where fashion, cinema, design and dining converge in Fortitude Valley. Wandering through the streets, discovering fresh, and established, ventures is a cinch. Restaurants sAme sAme and Biànca (from the team behind Agnes and the new Idle bakery) are hard to pass up; next door, be prepared to queue for a cone at Gelato Messina. A recent arrival to the zone is Heidi Middleton’s Artclub atelier, while Australian tailoring brand P. Johnson recently launched its new store, designed by the renowned Tamsin Johnson, across from The Calile hotel.
WELLNESS
The Bathhouse Albion
In Brisbane is home to multiple wellness centres in which one can work out or unwind, such as the five-floor, $80 million TotalFusion Platinum Newstead. This facility, designed by architectural practice Hogg & Lamb, presents a more serene, temple-like experience in the once-industrial Albion Fine Trades district, delivering a communal yet luxe bathhouse with spa, cold plunge, sauna, float, and steam room. With a separate area for hydration spruiking organic TeaGood loose-leaf teas, an hour session ensures a restorative reset.
DAY TRIP
Lady Elliot Island
Visiting one of the most pristine sections of the Great Barrier Reef in one day from Brisbane? Yes, it is indeed possible—and in style, too. With an early start from Redcliffe, around 40 minutes’ drive from the city, take a 90-minute flight to the 45-hectare island and then indulge in a glass-bottom boat viewing, an island tour, and a guided snorkel where you will swoon over mesmerising coral and other-worldly marine life. Lunch is included.
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Tropical Storm
Brisbane’s design-led renaissance is gathering momentum and redefining the city as a destination of distinction.
When it comes to the question of which Australian city can claim to be the country’s epicentre of cool, it’s always been a two-horse race between you-know-who. But challengers to the municipal hegemony do periodically raise their heads above the cultural parapet: Hobart has the world-class MONA in its corner; Perth flexes its white-sand beaches and direct flights to London; plucky Canberra enduringly punches above its weight, wielding a Pollock masterpiece or two at the National Gallery. Now, Brisbane— for decades ironically nicknamed “BrisVegas” as a jibe at its lack of places to see and be seen—is ready to assert itself as a serious contender to break the Sydney-Melbourne monopoly.
The Queensland capital is booming, buzzing and bougier than ever. In the past twelve months alone, Brisbane has seen the addition of $80 million ultra-luxe members’ wellness club TotalFusion Platinum, and earned a place on Condé Nast Traveller’s Hot List for hosting the second outpost of Andrew McConnell’s renowned restaurant Supernormal—both designed by Sydney-based multidisciplinary studio ACME. Since the latter’s opening, the upscale dining scene in the CBD—once steeped in starched white-tablecloth tradition—has come into its own with high-concept, slick and scene-y establishments you’ve likely already seen on Instagram.
Among them is Central, named Australia’s best-designed space at this year’s Interior Design Awards. The subterranean late-night dumpling-bar-meets-disco, designed by one-to-watch local firm J.AR Office, is bathed in bright white light and features a DJ booth built into the open, epicentral kitchen. A 10-minute walk along the river towards the Botanic Gardens reveals Golden Avenue, a buzzy collaboration between J.AR Office and Anyday, the Brisbane hospitality group behind some of the city’s most beloved restaurants of the last decade (Biànca, hôntô, sAme sAme, and Agnes). A skylit oasis where palm fronds cast slivers of shade over tiled tables laden with bowls of baba ganoush and clay pots of blistered prawns, the Middle Eastern-inspired eatery feels like Queensland’s answer to Morocco’s walled courtyard gardens.
That design-forward premises anchor much of the buzz around Brisbane’s new pulse points should come as no surprise. After all, this is an urban centre whose perception and personality were transformed in the 2010s by the brutalist breeze-block facades of the then-burgeoning James Street Precinct. Financed by local developers the Malouf family, and designed by Brisbane’s architecture power couple Adrian Spence and Ingrid Richards, the zone has become a desirable, nationally recognised address for flashy flagships and big-name boutiques (just ask Artclub’s Heidi Middleton and The New Trend’s Vanessa Spencer, who each unveiled plush piled-carpet stores along the strip in October).
But it wasn’t until the 2018 opening of The Calile Hotel that Brisbane truly shed its “big country town” image, staking its claim on the international stage. The Palm Springs-inflected urban resort—which, by now, surely needs no introduction—landed 12th in 2023’s inaugural World’s 50 Best Hotels ranking, ahead of Claridge’s and Raffles.
“That was really quite massive for the optics of what Brisbane has to offer the rest of Australia,” says Ty Simon, a born-and-bred Brisbanite and one of the four visionaries behind the Anyday group, along with his details-driven Milanese wife Bianca, executive chef Ben Williamson, and financial backer Frank Li. From that point on, the use of elite architects and designers became de rigueur across the enclave, weaving a sense of permanence into the local fabric. “We believe in what’s happening here,” says Marie-Louise Theile, creative director of the James Street Initiative and PR executive behind many of the city’s primo spots. “And we’re digging in.”
For in-demand Australian interior designer Tamsin Johnson, the mastermind behind some of James Street’s most carefully curated properties—including her husband Patrick Johnson’s P. Johnson Femme showroom, which opened in September—this momentum is “a wonderful thing”. Idle, Johnson’s August-launched first project with Anyday, is a prime example of what she calls a “contemporary sleekness” that feels intrinsic to the new mood taking hold in Brisbane. A modern-day answer to Milan’s 140-year-old gourmet emporium Peck, the site is a study in how mixed materials—glass, concrete, stainless steel and terrazzo—can create a sense of freshness with a 20th-century overtone.
It’s this dialogue between old and new, so intrinsic to Johnson’s work, that makes Brisbane such a compelling canvas for the Melbourne-born, Sydney-based creative. “I think Brisbane is striving hard for its own identity and voice in Australia, and it is clearly working,” she says. For Johnson, that evolution is also “a process of recognising what you have”, a nod to the strong bones the city has to work with and revisit. From the airy stilted Queenslanders to GOMA’s riverside glass pavilion and the subtropical modernism of Donovan Hill’s landmark C House, Brisbane’s design heritage is a quiet yet potent force, infused with what Johnson calls “the subtle memory of bucolic Australia”. Brisbane’s best contemporary architecture reflects what Richards and Spence described when designing The Calile as “a gentle brutalism”. It incorporates the style’s characteristic heaviness—concrete, rigid geometry and cavernous interiors—but, in response to the climate, does away with barriers between outside and in, and welcomes light, air and a feeling of weightlessness that creates spaces that feel open, relaxed and intimately connected to their surroundings.
Johnson will explore this language further in Anyday’s most ambitious venture yet: a four-level dining destination within the colonial-era Coal Board Building, just across from Golden Avenue. Its debut concept The French Exit—a wood-panelled brasserie with half-height curtains and a 2.00 am licence—is set to be unveiled by year’s end, ensuring the once-sleepy heart will beat well into the early hours.
Luring big names to lend the city their cool factor for one-off projects is one thing, but perhaps the most profound sign that Brisbane still bursts with promise is the fact that so many creative forces are choosing to stay, rather than take their talent elsewhere. “I never thought I’d still be in Brisbane,” laughs J.AR Office director Jared Webb, a local-for-life who started the firm in Fortitude Valley in 2022 after a decade spent working under Richards and Spence. “Trying to entice people to stay and see Brisbane as a city to live in, and to visit, is a big undertone of all our work on a much broader scale,” says Webb, whose designs rely heavily on steel, concrete and stone, both as a means to temper the tropical climate and evoke an aura of continuity he believes Brisbane’s built environment has lacked. (Once dubbed the demolition capital of Australia, the municipality lost more than 60 historic buildings during the ’70s and ’80s under former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, whose two-decade rule was recently revisited in a dramatised documentary available to stream on Stan).
Translating Brisbane’s current buzz into something lasting seems to weigh on the minds of many of the city’s creatives. Vince Alafaci, who forms one half of ACME with his partner Caroline Choker, shares this sentiment when reflecting on their design for Supernormal. “It’s about creating spaces that evolve with time, not ones that date,” he says. “We wanted every element to feel timeless—grounded, honest and enduring.” That pursuit of longevity is something Tamsin Johnson recognises, too: “It’s the people pushing for it that excite me the most. They’re committed,” she says, reflecting on the city’s creative ambition. “I think our designers, the most committed ones, want to leave landmarks and character, bucking against the trend of mundane, short-term and artless developments that all our capitals have experienced. And perhaps Brisbane is leading this mentality.”
