The first building delivered in the HOTA masterplan makes the most of the Gold Coast’s greatest asset – its great outdoors.

The HOTA Outdoor Stage is a double-sided venue nestled beneath a landscaped mound. A black-box theatre on one side has its own entrance, commercial kitchen, dressing rooms and full backstage amenities. On the other, a back wall folds away completely, opening the box onto an outdoor amphitheatre with seating and lawn for 5,000 people. It’s hosted opera, ballet, raves, Ministry of Sound, and a world record attempt for the most guitarists playing simultaneously.

The design makes all the elements come together and actually work – not provisionally, but convincingly. This is made possible by the infrastructure: state of the art rigging, power, acoustics, drainage, temporary fencing positions, food truck locations – all designed in, not bolted on or added later. For a 5,000-person space, it's also quietly intimate – the double-sized concrete steps at the front create an optical illusion that compresses perceived distance between audience and stage. The sightlines are those of a proper theatre.

Above it all, the mound is a landscape in its own right: an adventure path through succulents, coastal rainforest species and mountain heath grasses from across the Gold Coast region, covering the building that sits beneath. It's a walking track, a lookout, a picnic lawn. When there's no show on, you can put on your own little show on the stage steps. It was the right building to do first – a forerunner for everything that followed.