Architecture

The National Gallery of Victoria, in partnership with Melbourne Art Foundation will launch the inaugural Melbourne Design Fair, which will be a key event of the 2022 Melbourne Design Week program in March.
Melbourne Design Fair will be the first of its kind to bring together designers, design organizations, studios, galleries and collectors together in a commercial showcase of limited edition, rare, one-of-a-kind collectable pieces by Australia’s leading designer-makers.
The fair will be exhibited across two platforms: “Present” will feature galleries, design organizations, agencies, studios – dedicated displays by design creative they represent. Participating organizations, curated by NGV, include Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sophie Gannon Gallery, Studio Roland Snooks, Sullivan and Strumpf, Broached Commissions, Agency Projects, Christopher Boots, C. Gallery, Craft Victoria, Jam Factory, Local Design, Modern Times and Design Tasmania.

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Adam Goodrum, Big Talk. Image:

Luke Evens

“Select” will be curated exhibition featuring works from 35 designers across Australia, hand picked by NGV curator of contemporary design and architecture Simone LeAmon. They include Dale Hardiman, Elliot Bastianon, Jordan Fleming, Adam Goodrum, Brodie Neill, Susan Cohn, Helen Kontouris, Jon Goulder, Damien Wright and many more.
“Collectible contemporary design is cultural production reflecting our time, offering alternative points of view, commentary or insights into the design, and making of objects anchored to function and the rituals of everyday life,” LeAmon said. “Audiences will find prototypes, limited edition, limited serial production and one-of-a-kind, works on offer. Collectible design invites us to explore and contemplate Australian material culture through the convergence of ideas, materials and making, which is what makes the Melbourne Design Fair an event not to be missed.”
All works exhibited will be available for purchase. Melbourne Design Fair will also include a series of talks and conversations with the designers, as well as a film series.
The fair will take place over five days at Warehouse 16, 28 Duke Street Abbotsford.
For more information about Melbourne Design Week, click here. More

Scott Carver has designed a 30-storey building for 37-41 Oxford Street in Epping, Sydney that would include a 211-unit shop-top housing tower atop a two-storey podium with retail, office space and a childcare centre. Planning documents describe an “elegant tryptic [sic] staggered tower,” with the apparent bulk and scale of the building reduced through the […] More

Two of Australia’s major zoos are evolving, with a new reptile centre at Taronga Zoo given the green light and a masterplan for Perth Zoo coming to life. The approved Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Centre at Taronga in Sydney, designed by DWP (Design Worldwide Partnership) with landscape architecture by Context Landscape Architecture, will replace Reptile […] More

A Catholic primary school planned for Westmead in Parramatta could become Sydney’s newest vertical school, with the council and state planning department lending support to the project despite concerns over traffic and access to open space.
Proposed by the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, the Westmead Catholic Community Project would include the delivery of a six-storey primary school building at the church’s Darcy Street campus, currently home to three schools, Catherine McAuley Westmead (secondary girls’ school), Parramatta Marist High School (secondary boys’ school) and Mother Teresa Primary School.
Designed Alleanza Architecture, the new building would accommodate the Mother Theresa Primary School as well as the Sacred Heart Primary School, which would be relocated from its current Ralph Street address. The school would cater for an additional 1,680 students.
The Sacred Heart Parish of Westmead would also be moved to Darcy Street, with a new 400-seat church planned as part of the proposal. The ground floor of the existing Mother Theresa Primary School building on the site would be converted for use as the Catholic Early Learning Centre.

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Westmead Catholic Community Project by Alleanza Architecture.

The City of Parramatta initially objected to the proposal because of concerns about the impact on traffic, the lack of pedestrian connections to the surrounding area and limited access to sports fields and active recreation facilities. However, it dropped its objections in September 2021, citing improvements to the urban connections and provision of open space.
The NSW planning department is supportive of the proposal overall, but also noted the potential for “significant adverse impacts on the Darcy Road/Bridge Road/Coles car park intersection.” The department, in consultation with Transport for NSW, is recommended that the scool be required to conduct regular traffic assessment of the intersection once the school opens, and that it should pay for the upgrade of the intersection when required.
The Independent Planning Commission is considering the proposal.
In planning documents, Alleanza Architecture note, “The new K- 6 School building is an innovative, contemporary school designed to facilitate the latest developments in Teaching and Learning for Primary Schools… the building is characterized by integration of internal and external Teaching and Learning facilities and spaces in a building form where constructed open space almost equals enclosed space.
“Distinct horizontal expression and provision of voids vertically through the three-dimensional form of the building, combined with landscaping within the voids, will provide a dramatic vision of gardens in the sky, softening the facade as well as providing shade at the upper levels.” More

Architectus has designed a wedge-shaped hotel for a narrow site in Sydney’s burgeoning tech precinct near Central Station. The 144-room hotel will be built at 323 Castlereagh Street, between a 1970s office building designed by Fox and Associates known as Central Square and the Belmore Park substation. The hotel will form the final piece of […] More

Grimshaw and Greenaway Architecture have been appointed to design a $16 million environmental research and ecotourism facility in a regenerated wetland in Melbourne’s west.
The Hobsons Bay Wetlands Centre will be located at the HD Graham Reserve in Altona Meadows, near the Cheetham Wetlands – ecologically significant wetlands covering 420 hectares of former salt works land – and other biodiversity hotspots.
The multifunctional centre will include a field studies centre, classrooms, connected walking trails, boardwalks and nature play areas, along with offices and a café.
Grimshaw is designing the centre in partnership with Greenaway Architecture, McGregor Coxall, Greenshoot Consulting, Integral Group, Bollinger and Grohmann, and Slattery.

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Hobsons Bay Wetlands Centre by Grimshaw with Greenaway Architecture. Image: Grimshaw

The design team is also working alongside the Traditional Owners, the Bunurong Land Council.
“The purpose-built Wetlands Centre is set within the unique, natural habitat of Melbourne’s inner western suburbs, amidst a transforming, largely industrial landscape,” Grimshaw notes in a design statement.
“The design vision celebrates this significant setting through a proposal that incorporates regenerative, climate resilient and biophilic design principles within a range of facilities and services oriented towards the needs of health and recreation, and natural environment education, research and conservation.”
“The design principles are supported by ephemeral wetland and landscape features, connecting visitors to the adjacent Truganina Park and Cheetham Wetlands in order to create a unique visitor and learning experience.”
“Considered visitor journey experiences and connections throughout the site celebrate the landscape as the primary element, while the architecture of the proposed Visitors Centre, Lookout Platform and Research Cluster, support this approach and the transformation of the site into an economically beneficial eco-tourism destination for Melbourne’s west.”
The parties behind the proposal are the Hobsons Bay Council and the not-for-profit organization Hobsons Bay Wetlands Centre Inc., who have together entered a memorandum-of-understanding partnership with Deakin University, Melbourne Water, Greater Western Water, Ecolinc, Cirqit Health, Birdlife Australia.
They are seeking funding from the state and federal governments. More

A late-1980s office tower at the east end of Collins Street in Melbourne’s CBD could have a 15-storey glass addition added to its top, under plans lodged with planning authorities. Fender Katsalidis has designed the glass topper for 90 Collins Street, a 21-storey tower originally designed by Jackson Architecture. “The revitalized 90 Collins Street involves […] More

The National Gallery of Victoria has announced the five shortlisted teams that will compete to design the 2022 NGV Architecture Commission.
Four Victorian teams and a Western Australian team will now progress to stage two of the design competition. They are:

Adam Newman and Kelvin Tsang (Vic)
Austin Maynard Architects (Vic)
Antarctica Architects (Vic)
Bryan Chung and Patrick Byrne (Vic)
Yang Yang Lee and Louise Allen (WA)

Each year, the NGV holds a two-stage national competition, in which architects or multi-disciplinary teams are invited to submit a proposal 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.”
In the first stage, all submissions are judged blind and jury of experts may chose up to five proposals to progress to the second stage.
“The NGV Architecture Commission series to offer a unique opportunity for Australian architects and designers to propose a compelling design idea for presentation within one of Australia’s great civic and cultural spaces – the Grollo Equiset Garden at NGV International,” said Ewan McEoin, senior curator of design and architecture at NGV.
“The series has moved in unanticipated and exciting directions since we started it in 2015, a direct result of the breath of ideas fielded in the open competition process and the vigorous efforts of the competition juries over the years. We have engaged the public in conversations about suburbia, borders, memory, Indigenous systems of living, and fragile ecologies. These five shortlisted teams offer diverse and engaging propositions – we are excited to see who wins, and what is in store for the Commission for 2022.”
The five shortlisted teams will now further develop their proposals for the second stage of the competition which will close on 25 February 2022, before presenting to the jury on 3 March.
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).
The winner of the 2021 commission is Pond[er] by Taylor Knights and James Carey. More