Evelyn Reynolds

The multicultural suburb of Dandenong in Melbourne’s south-east is set for major urban renewal, with $600 million to be spent on transforming the area around Dandenong Station into a “vibrant and integrated mixed-use precinct.”
The Victorian government announced in late 2020 that Melbourne developer Capital Alliance had won exclusive development right to deliver the Revitalising Central Dandenong project. Architecture firm DKO has prepared the masterplan for the two-hectare site, which includes the provision of a minimum of 500 dwellings, along with a new Little India.

The first stage of the project will be the development of the new “Little India” precinct to minimize disruptions to the existing traders and maintain the cultural identity of what is Melbourne’s oldest hub of Indian culture and commerce.
The project will also deliver new community space, commercial offices, a hotel and conference centre, an urban brewery entertainment district, an educational training facility, retail tenancies, a cinema and a new dining precinct.

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Revitalising Central Dandenong masterplan by DKO.

Capital Alliance says the project will act as future city hub for the region.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to further urbanize and give central Dandenong the investment it needs to cement its status as the capital of the south eastern corridor of Melbourne”, said the company’s chief executive, Mohan Du.
“We envisage the project at completion will add $1.5 billion in value to central Dandenong, drastically improving the urban experience and overall prosperity for Dandenong.”

The Revitalising Central Dandenong project was first initiated by the state government in 2006. In 2014, RMIT’s director of International Urban and Environmental Management, Beau Beza, described the reasoning behind the urban renewal program in Landscape Architecture Australia.

“Firstly, Dandenong has experienced socio-economic decline/stagnation – high unemployment, slow population growth, and low incomes compared to metropolitan Melbourne,” he wrote. “Secondly, the area has suffered from a diminishing appeal, which is a result of poor urban planning, ‘inefficient urban design and structural economic challenges.’ Thirdly, it was recognized that a long-term term approach created through a range of partnerships was needed to tackle these challenges.”

Capital Alliance will be delivering the project alongside Development Victoria.
“This will be an absolute game-changer for the Dandenong region,” said Development Victoria CEO Angela Skandarajah. “We look forward to working closely with Capital Alliance to ensure the vision is fully realised and that this strategic site adjacent to the Dandenong transport hub is transformed into a vibrant and thriving economic precinct.”
Construction is scheduled to begin “no later than 2023.” More

The $400 million redevelopment of Adelaide’s Central Market Arcade has been approved by South Australia’s State Commission Assessment Panel.
The project, designed by Woods Bagot, will see the existing Adelaide Central Market expanded and restored, bringing back a number of arches that were partially demolished in the 1960s.
The development will also include a 35-storey tower that will house a hotel, office spaces, residences and retail spaces.
The design will integrate the redeveloped arcade with the existing Adelaide Central Market and create a continuous connection between them. The precinct will also include public amenities such as an elevated garden terrace and the Market Hall atrium.

The project was first unveiled in December 2019. At the time, Woods Bagot associate principal and the project’s design director Alex Hall said, “This is a design exploration of the market’s heritage beyond just a facade treatment and makes its brick arches – which have always been emblematic of the market – part of the whole experience.”

The approved design is a direct evolution of the original ideas. “Respecting the grittiness and authentic feel of the Market, and holding close those things locals love about it, the design is the result of great dialogue and collaboration with the Adelaide Central Market Authority, the City of Adelaide, ICD Property and the Office for Design and Architecture SA,” Hall said.

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Adelaide Central Market Arcade redevelopment by Woods Bagot.

City of Adelaide lord mayor Sandy Verschoor said the development would be a once in a generation opportunity for an icon of the city.
“The City of Adelaide is proud to announce that the redevelopment of the Central Market Arcade has been approved,” she said. “This investment provides a unique opportunity to build on what people already love about the market district. “We are excited to be part of ICD Property’s Adelaide’s flagship development, Market Square, building on the Central Market’s importance as a South Australian icon, and provide better connections to Victoria Square and the surrounding streets.”

City of Adelaide assumed control of the shopping centre in September 2018 following 50-years of private ownership. ICD Property was appointed the development parter two years later.
“Market Square will be a celebration of the best of South Australia, and feature fresh new retail opportunities,” said ICD Property managing director Matthew Khoo. “The seamless connection and close partnership with the Central Market is a huge asset to this project.”
The project is expected to break ground in the second half of 2021 and is estimated to take three and half years to construct although a builder is yet to be appointed. More

Peter Crone, a modernist architect, skilled woodworker, conservationist, and expert on the work of Le Corbusier, has died following a cardiac arrest.
Over his half-century career, Crone won numerous awards for his house designs and school buildings, including the Victorian Architecture Medal for the Chapel at Trinity Grammar School in 1993. More recently, he won widespread acclaim for the meticulous conservation of Harold Desbrowe-Annear’s Chadwick House, which he and his wife Jane lived in and restored over a period of 30 years. A piece written by Crone for the May 2009 issue of Architecture Australia, details the extraordinary amount of time and effort that went into the project. “Work over the last 20 years has seen 18 sash windows and hoppers rebuilt and installed by myself,” he recalled. “Work on the living room took more than 18 months of weekends and spare evenings. Throughout our 20 years of completing stage one of the restorations, no drawings or photographs of the original house have been discovered.”

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Harold Desbrowe-Annear’s Chadwick House, restored by Peter Crone.

Peter Crone Architects won the 2008 Australian Institute of Architects’ National Award for Heritage for stage 1 of the restoration.
Born in 1944, Crone trained as an architect at RMIT University in Melbourne, working as a student for Bates Smart and McCutcheon, and Bernard Joyce. He graduated in 1970, before heading to Europe on a Haddon Travelling Scholarship to study the works of the seminal modernist Le Corbusier.
Returning to Melbourne in 1974, he designed a string of modernist private homes. His entry in the Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, written by Conrad Hamann, describes the houses of this period. Eruat House in Belgrave, Victoria (designed with Max May) “harnessed the chamfered, timber style then popular in Melbourne to a bold and monumental scale by dint of angled wings that amplified the house scale in a fusion of ideas paralleling Le Corbusier and United States architect Robert Venturi.” Huebner House in Olinda, Victoria was “a highly urbane, hovering design in concrete block that used a set of forms stemming from Norman Foster, Le Corbusier and the 1960s and early 1970s houses of United States architects Richard Meier, Charles Moore and Charles Gwathmey.”

He designed a range of infill public housing under housing commissioner John Devenish’s program in the early 1980s for the Victorian Ministry of Housing, before becoming the chief design architect for the Public Works Department of Victoria from 1986 to 1989. From 1987 to 2005, Crone and Mick Ross worked as Crone Ross, a school-based practice. Since 2006, Crone continued to design education buildings, completing major works at Presbyterian Ladies College, Burwood, Camberwell Boys Grammar School and Fintona Girls School, Balwyn.
A life fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects, he retired at the end of 2018. More

Two distinguished architects, from Queensland and Victoria, have been recognized in the 2021 Australia Day Honours. More

A three-tower residential complex in Brisbane’s Hamilton would create an improved connection to the Brisbane River, in contrast to recent “disorientating” developments in the Portside Wharf precinct, according to the scheme’s architects.
Fuse Architecture’s proposed scheme for 19 Hercules Street replaces two earlier multi-tower proposals for the site, the first approved in 2011 and the second, designed by Custance, approved in 2014.
The latest proposal would be delivered in three stages, the first stage being a 29-storey residential tower, retail podium and landscaped public forecourt.

“The recent developments of Hamilton have lacked consideration to its context and neighbouring site, especially at its ground level,” the architects state in planning documents now before council. “Buildings form physical barriers to the Brisbane River [leading to] disorientation in navigating the neighbourhood”

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Platinum at 19 Hercules Street by Fuse Architecture.

By contrast, Fuse’s proposed complex, dubbed Platinum, would seek to “stitch together” its neighbouring precincts, creating visual connection between the new park and the Brisbane River and guiding the pedestrian as they walk through the site, “with the visual corridor opening up as they continue from the park to the river and vice versa.”
The design of the first residential tower is defined by the incorporation of a series of communal outdoor spaces, or “sky gardens,” scattered throughout the tower. The north facade of the building will act as an environmental screen that will shade the tower from solar glare and gain, while still allowing residents views out over the city.
“The open seams along the north will run the full height of the tower, forming a “vertical boulevard” of stacked outdoor balconies beginning at the green foot of the building and running through to the sky terraces,” the architects write.
The tower would house 153 apartments, broken down into 53 two-bedroom units, 49 three-bedroom units and 51 four-bedroom units. There would also be a pool and clubhouse with BBQ, planting and seating areas for residents. More

An uninspiring hotel in the beachside suburb of St Kilda, Melbourne, could be transformed into a bigger, five-star hotel with a dramatic “sheer dress” facade draped over the extended building.
Victorian planning minister Richard Wynne is considering fast-tracking the development approval for the hotel at 33, 35–37 Fitzroy Street on the recommendation of the Building Victoria’s Recovery Taskforce and is seeking public feedback on the proposal.
There is currently an approval for a two-storey extension at the site but the proponent says the new proposal enhances the earlier design, creating a more functional space with improved internal amenities and connection to a new lift core. The existing Rydges Hotel on the site has 81 hotel rooms, with the neighbouring property at 33 Fitzroy Street derelict.

The architect of the new proposal, Sydney firm Mostaghim, says the the design intent is to present one combined development, “draped in a new, textural layer of architecture.”

“The extension is white to tie it in with the existing hotel and [it] aligns with its parapet, but in contrast to the solid, rigid, masculine facade of the existing hotel, the extension is light, informal and feminine,” the architects write in planning documents.
“The inspiration for the facade treatment is a sheer dress that drapes over the glass building. The dress is notionally pushed askew by the building adjacent at no. 31, acknowledging it, respecting it and creating a simple backdrop for its appreciation. In addition, across the new facade is a solid waist band aligning with a decorative frieze on no. 31 below which the dress flares up, clearly delineating the new hotel entry.”

Within the deep reveals of the existing windows, fabric awnings will be introduced to create additional detail, colour, and contrast to the “otherwise rigid orthogonal facade.”
In terms of the massing of the hotel, the proponents note that the existing building is taller than its immediate neighbours, but fits in with the “eclectic mix” of architecture along Fitzroy Street. The new two-storey extension on top of the existing structure will be set back 12 metres so that it is not visible directly across the street on Fitzroy Street. It will be slightly lower than that of the recently approved Pride Centre in the same area.
The new building would be run as a QT branded hotel. More

The development application for Atlassian’s headquarters, designed by Shop Architects and BVN, has been submitted, revealing details of how the world’s tallest hybrid timber tower will be constructed.
Shop Architects and BVN won a design excellence competition for the project beating out John Wardle Aarchitects and So-il, 3XN and GXN and MVRDV and Cox Architecture, and Shigeru Ban, Toland and PTW.
“The Shop and BVN proposal delivered a well-proportioned, refined and elegant tower form with expressed diagrid structure,” said the jury.

The 38-storey tower will have an exoskeleton of large steel rings and “mega floors” supporting eight four-storey section constructed from mass timber stacked on top of each other.
“The [exoskeleton] system was conceived to maximize both the architectural effect of the mass-timber habitats it carries, as well as the amount of lettable floor area within the building,” the architects state in the development application.

The innovative system will allow for flexibility in both form and function with the interiors free from structural steel columns.
Each four-storey section, to be known as “habitats” will have a naturally ventilated area, like a garden, located on the north west side.

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Atlassian Central Development by Shop Architects and BVN.

The building will be sheathed in a double layer façade, which will allow the building to “leverage Sydney’s climate at all times of the year in a choreographed play of natural and artificial ventilation that results in tremendous savings on energy and a reduced carbon footprint while increasing the wellness and comfort of the building’s occupants.”
The jury considered the double skin a key design excellence element of the scheme. “The Jury were impressed by the approach that was taken which explored the performance and use of the building as a way to inform the aesthetic,” said the jury. “There is a distinctive, playful and connected character between the interior functions of the building and the outside.”

The top of the tower will accommodate offices lined with outdoor terraces. “At the highest levels of the tower provide a more extroverted expression of wood and plants framed by a crenelated exterior facade. Primarily devoted to gathering, the exuberant program of the tower crown is a fitting counterpart to its architectural expression.”
The proposed tower directly adjoins the Central Station rail environment and will be the first development in a new technology precinct.
It is intended to be a demonstration project for the Australian software company, representing their commitment to environmental sustainability.
The development application is on public exhibition until 3 February. More

The board of Architecture Media, through its chairman Gavan Ranger, have announced the appointment of Jacinta Reedy to the newly created position of chief executive officer. She will take up the role on 1 February.
Ms Reedy has been with Architecture Media for more than 15 years and has worked across most aspects of the business. Highly regarded by staff and well respected by external stakeholders, she has a well-grounded understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing the design media industry and the audience it serves.

After more than 33 years as managing director, Ian Close is stepping back from hands-on management of the company he created together with the Australian Institute of Architects in 1987. He will remain on the board as director and company secretary.
“With Jacinta leading the business, I know I can step back with confidence and look forward to exciting future developments,” he said. More