Evelyn Reynolds

The $2.2 billion, 3,000-home Ivanhoe housing estate in Macquarie Park, north-west Sydney is taking shape, with a development application for the next stage of development on public exhibit.
Stage two of the massive development, masterplanned by Bates Smart and Hassell, involves three distinct lots, with buildings in each of them designed by different architects.
Designed by Cox Architecture with landscape by Hassell, Lot C4 will feature a 17-storey social housing tower with 216 social units, a 24-storey market tower with 268 units, and four market townhouses of three storeys each. Cox explains that the buildings play an important role in the transition from the urban character of the housing estate to the natural Shrimptons Creek nature corridor.
“The tower massing has been crafted to respond to two separate conditions, the north-western most tower responds to its more urban context and is more orthogonal in nature, while the south-eastern tower responds to Shrimptons Creek and is more organic in nature,” the firm says in planning documents.
Lot C3 comprises a 16-storey residential tower designed by Fox Johnston with McGregor Coxall. It sits closer to the centre of the masterplan, looking over the central village green. Fox Johnston describes how the tower is split into two distinct forms to break up the bulk and allow for the inclusion of communal landscaped spaces dubbed “forest rooms.”
The village green sits within Lot C2, along with a community centre with a “social enterprise cafe,” a pool and a gym. Chrofi and McGregor Coxall were recently announced as the winners of a design competition for this lot, which will sit at the heart of the estate. The various uses occupy a single-storey, linear built form that wraps around the central park and creates an active relationship with the village green.
The NSW Land and Housing Commission first submitted a development application for the overall project in 2018. It is being delivered by the Aspire Consortium with developers Frasers Property Australia and Citta Property Group, on behalf of the commission. The project has been criticized for its relative lack of social and affordable housing, and concerns have been raised over density.
Construction on stage one started in 2020. More

Designs for two more train stations in Melbourne have been unveiled, designed by Wood Marsh, with landscape architect Tract Consultants.
Bell Station and Preston Station in the city’s north, delivered as part of the state government’s wide-ranging level crossing removal program, will offer improved amenity and connectivity on the Mernda Line.
Both stations will be splashed with a purple pigmentation to stand out and give the line a unique identity, while the two designs will take separate approaches to capture the qualities of the local landmarks of each site.
Bell Station will respond to the typical post-war roof forms of the surrounding houses.
“It interested me that post-war housing stock is heritage listed in Darebin,” said Wood Marsh director Roger Wood. “So we decided to condense an abstraction of an aerial of photograph of the roofscape of the surrounding area and then cast it in concrete and lifted it onto the facade of the building to create the building’s texture.”
Pastel coloured acrylic panels will activate the interior spaces with reflections and refractions during the day, while a band of glazing at the top will bring light onto the platforms.

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Preston Station by Wood Marsh, with landscape architect Tract Consultants.

The design for the Preston Station takes inspiration from its proximity to the Preston Markets, with its facade resembling a barcode used by the market vendors.
“We started with a black facade that is pleated,” said Wood. “Then we’ve scanned the barcode in vibrant colours so when the carparks empty, there’s still a sense of the marketplace vibrancy about the station.”
By lifting the railway, the project will create new landscaped open space, designed by Tract, reconnecting the neighbourhoods and providing new areas for recreation below the railway and between the two stations.
A motif running through this space will be a modern interpretation of Wurundjeri shield markings, developed in collaboration with a number of Wurundjeri Aunties and WSP, which will run the entire length of the project along a viaduct, casting shadows onto the rails.
The landscaping will also include spaces for yarning circles and plantings for weaving as well as food sources that can be harvested by the local Indigenous community.
Construction on the stations is now underway. More

The National Gallery of Victoria is accepting submissions for the 2022 edition of the NGV Architecture Commission Competition from Wednesday, 20 October.
The annual commission is selected via a two-stage national competition, in which architects or multi-disciplinary teams are invited to submit a design that is “thought-provoking, issues-led, relevant and resonant and that can, in a non-didactic way, facilitate or instigate conversations, dialogue, immersion, or reflection.”
The 2021 commission, a pink pond installation designed by Taylor Knights in collaboration with artist James Carey, will open in November.
The gallery said that design proposals “can be many things,” including a performance space, a work of speculative architecture, a landscape intervention, a place designed for playful interaction, or an immersive space for reflection.
“While titled an architecture commission, it is an important ambition of this annual site-specific commission that it continues to offer the opportunity for architecture to be enacted in the broadest sense,” a statement from NGV reads. “To this end the gallery specifically invites design proposals that promote collaboration and multi-disciplinary thinking. Proposals should demonstrate the capacity of design to actively engage the community.”
The first stage of the competition calls for anonymous “high level design proposals,” of which up to five will be chosen to proceed to a paid second stage.
The five shortlisted submissions will be further developed and refined in stage two, for presentation to the competition jury. The jury will select a winner, who will be commissioned by the NGV to complete the design development and delivery of the 2022 NGV Architecture Commission.
The 2022 jury comprises Don Heron (chair, assistant director exhibitions management and design, NGV), Amaia Sanchez-Velasco (lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney), Linda Cheng (editor, ArchitectureAU), Michael Banney (founding director, M3 Architecture), Mel Dodd (head of Department of Architecture, Monash University), and Rachel Nolan (founding director, Kennedy Nolan).
Registrations for the competition are now open. More

A fermentation hub that could produce everything from cheese to booze will be built in northern Tasmania, now that local not-for-profit Fermentasmania has secured $7.5 million in federal funding.
Part factory, part laboratory, part tourist attraction, the 1,800 square metre facility will be designed by architecture firm Cumulus and landscape architect SLBA Studio and will be located 10 kilometres northwest of Launceston. The idea is that it will support local fermentation start-ups making a range of different products by providing low-cost access to specialized equipment, research, and education.
“Our collaboration with Fermentas has been essential to solving the complexities of the space, which needed to house highly prescribed production processes while still providing an accessible and engaging public face,” said Cumulus associate Jet O’Rourke.
The public areas will be designed so that visitors can get up close and personal with the fermentation process, with visible fermentation vessels, equipment pipes, and production zones. The screening along the facade has been “playfully lifted” at the corners of the building, giving way to full glazing to give passers-by a glimpse into the inner workings of the hub.

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The landscape plan by SBLA Studio.

The roof, which follows the alternating contours of the facade, creates a second level housing specialized plant equipment necessary for the different fermentation processes.
“As the site lies along the West Tamar Highway, we had to consider a design that would invite curiosity from people driving by,” said O’Rourke. “The shifting facade lifts the veil on the traditional ’big shed’ structure, opening the space and connecting the interior to the landscape.”
The landscape design features sculptural planting that references moulds, yeast cultures and bacteria, as if viewed under a microscope.
Some the plantings will look like champagne bubbles and the paving patterns will be designed to resemble bacteria on an agar plate. There will also be productive garden areas where visitors can source native and exotic plants to feed into the fermentation production process inside.
“We worked closely with Fermentas and botanist Pippa French, who will continue to collaborate with us on how the landscape can celebrate the wonder that is occurring within the building,” said SBLA Studio creative director Simone Bliss.
Construction of the facility will begin this year with completion scheduled for 2022. More

A number of projects by architects have clinched top prizes at the 2021 Good Design Awards, announced across five days from 11 to 15 October.
The awards program celebrates 12 main disciplines, including design and architecture, across 30 categories. It received 930 submissions in 2021.
Prahran Square by Lyons and Aspect Studios won Best in Class in both the Architecture – Urban and Precinct Design categories. Brian Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia and chair of the awards said, “The space ebbs and flows with the mood of each day and the people that occupy it, allowing the community to define its meaning. This flexibility and accessibility is key in creating a safe public realm. By giving space back to the people, Prahran Square has already transformed a community by making it their own.”

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SRG House by Fox Johnston Image:

Anson Smart

In the Architecture – Interior category, SRG House by Fox Johnston won Best in Class for its “superb revitalisation of an existing quality piece of architecture,” the jury commented. “It is respectful of the original design, has a clear sense of place and engagement with its harbour context, and will ensure a long future for this quality home.”
Board Grove Architects also took home a Best in Class accolade in the Product Design – Furniture and Lighting category for its Stool Dolly chair designed for the 2020 MPavilion
Puntukurnu AMS Healthcare Hub by Kaunitz Yeung Architecture was named Best in Class for Architecture – commercial and residential as well as the winner of the Good Design Award for Sustainability.
“The designers should be commended for delivering such a beautifully designed, environmentally sustainable, and culturally appropriate health facility in one of the most remote and hottest towns in Australia,” the jury said. “The building has been sensitively co-designed with the traditional owners of the land. This consultative design process and the inclusion of local artists and communities have come together to create a successful place dedicated to the wellbeing of the people it serves. Well done.”
Elsewhere in the awards, Simone LeAmon, curator of contemporary design and architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria, received the Women in Design Award, which recognizes women who have made significant contributions to the industry.
The Australian Design Prize was awarded to Ros and John Moriarty for their Qantas Flying Art Aircraft series; the Good Design Team of the Year Award went to Black Magic, and the award’s highest accolade, the Good Design of the Year Award, went to a personal mobility vehicle, the Whill model C2.
For the full list of award recipients, head to the Good Design Australia website. More

FJMT has designed a five-building mixed-use complex on a three-hectare site in Moorabbin in Melbourne’s south east. Housing 32,000 square metres of office space, the complex dubbed Common Grounds is being touted as a “new ecology of work and play [that is] defined by its civic sensibility.” The buildings also accommodate a range of uses […] More

A nostalgic nod to the universally recognized analogue game of Hangman, the light is an exercise in playful design and simple, yet magically executed geometry. “Hangman channels light through the most minimal structure, while giving a high degree of functionality via numerous positions and light directions,” said Mr Goodrum of the collection, which encompasses a […] More

Two multiresidential developments incorporating social and affordable housing units will be built in Melbourne’s south east, after the proposed sites were rezoned through the Victorian government’s fast track approval scheme. In Clayton, a 680-apartment building designed by Jackson Clements Burrows with landscape architecture by Rush Wright will be built at the former PMP Printing site, […] More