Architecture

A Woods Bagot-designed office building will form a key part of the Perth City Link precinct – an area that will reconnect Perth CBD and Northbridge.
The 14-storey King Street Campus building will occupy Lot 10, one of the parcels of land released by Development WA as part of the precinct transformation.
Perth City Link is an area of 13.5 hectares freed up by the sinking of the railway lines and bus station. It includes Yagan Square by Lyons Architecture with Iredale Pedersen Hook and Aspect Studios and a future Edith Cowan University campus.
Woods Bagot’s design is inspired by a historic lake and river ecosystem that was an important part of the Mooro people’s land, drawing on the river cliffs of that ancient ecology.
“The carving of the eastern and northern facades is where we see this most prominently,” the architects state in planning documents.
“The facades are broken up to create overhangs, under-hangs, stone faces, glimpses of timber and concrete-like materials, and planted landscapes.
“The voids on the eastern facade are generous and pull deeply into the floorplate.”
The building will accommodate 26,350 square metres of office floorspace, as well as food, beverage and retail tenancies fronting King and Roe streets, and a “wellness centre” and end-of-trip facilities for office workers fronting Jilli Path.

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King Street Campus by Woods Bagot.

The main pedestrian access will be via a prominent, staired entry on King Street, oriented towards primary pedestrian flows from the Perth Busport and Perth Railway Station.
Designs were presented to Development WA’s design review panel on 3 March 2021. The panel praised the high levels of street activation and said the development was “on the correct path to achieving design excellence.” It did, however, raise concerns about the large expanses of limestone cladding at the lower levels, which could create a “harsh environment” before the landscaping matures.
In response, the design team said that the carved “cliff” under the plaza-level “outcrops” was one of the key design features.
“This carved component forms a solid foundation to the building, without impacting transparency. It also forms an aesthetically pleasing feature to screen the car-parking levels. The carved plane becomes a backdrop to the retail tenancies – allowing their fit-out to float in front of the double-height wall at the back of the tenancies.”
The design will be refined in consultation with the anchor tenant, who has not yet been revealed. The landscape architect is Plan E.
Public comments on the proposal are open until 6 May. More

Construction has begun on a mammoth commercial development in Melbourne’s CBD designed by Cox Architecture and Gensler. Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas and Melbourne mayor Sally Capp turned the first sod for the $1.5 billion project at a ceremony on 21 April, touting construction jobs and economic stimulus. The two-tower project will accommodate 84,000 square metres […] More

Cumulus Studio has completed a 25-unit social housing development in inner-city Hobart. The $11.7 million project is part of a state government initiative to deliver 1,500 new homes for social housing over the next three years. Located on a former council car park on Goulburn Street, the housing complex will be home to the elderly […] More

The Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Trust has unveiled a $570 million vision to transform the historic race track in Melbourne’s south east into a more open, community-friendly precinct.
MGS Architects has developed concept plans for the redevelopment, which would aim to create modern facilities for sport, recreation and community events, as well as providing public parks and “beautiful landscapes.” The project would also see the horse racing facilities upgraded.
Sam Almaliki, the trust’s chairperson, said that over the next 15 years the reserve would become an increasingly accessible and activated space, supporting diverse uses and events.
“Access into all Reserve areas will be improved and parts of the Reserve that currently are not accessible to the public will become available to be transformed into exciting new parks, recreations spaces and landscapes,” he said.

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Caulfield Racecourse redevelopment concept by MGS Architects.

A 15-year land management plan calls for the provision of a large indoor sporting and community facility; “extensive” turf and synthetic playing fields for outdoor sports such as cricket, football, soccer and hockey; and a criterium circuit for cycling.
New heathland and wetland areas and large park spaces would also lead to enhanced biodiversity outcomes.
“The reserve of the future will be the centre of community life: a community and events destination of state significance with an enduring reputation as a premier thoroughbred horse racing venue,” said Almaliki. “It will be an accessible, vibrant, flexible and inclusive space within the broader Caulfield precinct.”
The Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Trust was established under the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Act 2017 to manage Caulfield Racecourse Reserve for “racing, recreation and public park purposes.” At the time, the local council urged the trust prioritise public access to the reserve.
“It is Council’s longstanding position that a better balance needs to be achieved at the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve between racing, recreation, and use as a public park,” a Glen Eira City Council statement reads.
The trust will now work with the council and state government to develop a business case, expected to be completed later in 2021. More

Brisbane’s Gabba stadium will be transformed to become the main stadium of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games should the city win the hosting rights, the state’s premier has revealed.
Populus, which designed the last major upgrade to the stadium in 2020, has produced concept deigns for the redeveloped stadium, which would increase its capacity to 50,000 from the current 42,000.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told media the existing stadium would be “essentially demolished” and a new one built, at a cost of around $1 billion.
“The Gabba has been home to our sport since 1895,” she said. “A home for the 2032 Olympic Paralympic Games could be its crowning glory.
Populous director Chris Paterson said the Gabba was extraordinarily well located, being close to the CBD and transport options.
“Brisbane already boasts the world’s best rectangular stadium in Suncorp Stadium,” he said.
“This is an opportunity to complement it with the best round field stadium right in the centre of the city.”

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The premier said the stadium, formally known as the Brisbane Cricket Ground, was an ideal choice for redevelopment as it was already the city’s main stadium for AFL, cricket and other events. It will also have its own Cross River Rail station competed by the time the of the 2032 Olympics.
The redevelopment would also include a new pedestrian plaza linking the stadium to the Cross River Rail station, which is currently under construction.
The Premier said the pedestrian plaza could become central hub for the games in its own right.
“I can see the river lined with people watching big screens all taking part in the fun and excitement of the games,” she said.
“There’s South Bank leading to West End which is connected to Roma Street via the Kurilpa Bridge with a new bridge under construction for the new Queen’s Wharf development.
“There are city cats offering even more options for transport.
“All of this is infrastructure we already have.”
The Gabba, which takes its name from its suburb, Woolloongabba, hosted its first game of cricket in December 1896. Along with cricket, it was home to greyhound racing until 1993, when work began to turn it into a “state-of-the-art” stadium, designed by Daryl Jackson, which has since also hosted AFL team the Bears, which later became Lions.
The premier has also said that the mooted Brisbane Live precinct could become the home of swimming for the games. More

The executive director of Heritage Victoria has recommended that one of Guilford Bell’s most notable houses be included on the Victorian Heritage Register.
Seccull House in Brighton is one of Guilford Bell’s later works, completed in 1972, and is widely regarded as one of his finest.
The 560-square-metre house is F-shaped in plan with a flat roof design behind a high boundary wall.
The house was commissioned by master builder William Ernest Seccull, whose family’s construction company built prominent post-war buildings in Melbourne such as the Royal Children’s Hospital.
Bell, who established his practice in Melbourne in the 1950s, had become known for designing houses for Australia’s wealthy elite, including the Fairfax, Myer and Baillieu families.

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Seccull House by Guilford Bell, 1972. Image:

Abercromby’s Real Estate

Seccull had seen photos of Bell’s Fairfax Pavilion in Bowral, another flat-roofed house, and wanted Bell to design a house in a similar style for him.
“Bell himself felt that his relationship with the clients, the Seccull’s was one of the most satisfying of his career, and the result one of his most pleasurable works,” reads a statement of significance from the National Trust.
The house consists of a series of courtyards, wide, gallery-like corridors and floor-to-ceiling windows and openings.
Bell had developed several characteristics that had become the hallmarks of designs, including extreme privacy, anonymous street frontages and highly ordered plans. He was also influenced by Middle Eastern and classical architecture, and incorporated perimeter walls, ritualized entries and courtyards into the designs of his houses.
Architectural historian Phillip Goad described the house as “one of [Bell’s] favourite commissions, and one of his most accomplished exercises in the rituals of entry and reception, axial denial, concealed courtyards and exquisitely obsessive gap and recess details [and] a tour-de-force of white stucco, black steel and travertine.”
Heritage Victoria’s executive director recommends that the house be listed for its cultural significance. The Heritage Council of Victoria will make the final determination on the listing. More

An ornate government-owned and occupied Sydney building associated with colonial architect James Barnet will be redeveloped into a hotel with a soaring tower cantilevering over it.
The proposal, with concept designs from FJMT, comes from Built and Irongate Group, who submitted an unsolicited proposal to redevelop the historic Former Public Works Department at 50 Phillips Street in 2017.
The developers own the site next door at 52 Phillip Street, and hope to amalgamate the two sites, adaptively re-using the historic building and delivering a 47-storey tower, with 331 hotel beds. A state-significant development application is now before the planning department.
The former Department of Public Works Building is as an extension to James Barnett’s Chief Secretary’s Building, a state-heritage listed building in the Victorian Free Classical style. It has been occupied by a range of government departments since it was built.

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50 and 52 Phillips Street proposal by FJMT.

FJMT describes in planning documents how the design will seek to preserve and celebrate the character of the heritage building.
“The new slender tower will provide a clear separation from the existing heritage building so that the facades, roofscape and building form remain clearly legible,” the architects state.
The proposal consists of three major components: the adaptive reuse of 50 Phillip Street, a new podium infill building at 52 Phillip Street and a new tower at 52 Phillip Street which will partially cantilever over 50 Phillip Street.
“The new infill podium at 52 Phillip Street will reinforce the scale and material quality of the heritage facadesof 121 Macquarie Street, 50 Phillip Street and of the Intercontinental hotel on the north side of Bridge Street,” states FJMT “Itwill also provide a similar scale and material character toPhillip Lane to the South.”
Built CEO Brett Mason, said the development represented a unique opportunity to give the historic buildings new life. “Our plans for a luxury hotel mixed-use development will do this while preserving the important history of 50 Phillip Street that reflect the unique nineteenth century architecture of the former NSW colony,” he said. “This history will be restored, conserved and opened to the people of NSW in our development for the first time.” More

Compared to the grandeur of Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building or the ancient timeline of the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, a 19th-century “portable building” might at first seem unremarkable.
But some high-profile heritage advocates think these early examples of prefabrication should become the next Australian sites to be added to the UNECO World Heritage list.
Shipped to Australia’s shores from around the world from the 1840s onwards, portable buildings, as they were then known, ranged from humble houses, shops, churches and schools formed of simple materials through to elaborate cast iron plate cottages, a lighthouse and even the NSW legislative council chamber.
While such buildings were shipped to many different places in this period, including to California and Latin America, Australia has more surviving examples than anywhere in the world; in fact, “it has, by a considerable margin, more than the rest of the world combined,” the proponents say.

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Wingecarribee, Bowral, c 1854-7. Image:

Miles Lewis

The campaign to have them placed on the World Heritage list was launched by former federal minister Barry Jones, who previously served as the vice president of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. The campaign taskforce, which includes many leading heritage bodies and experts from Australia and further afield, notes that the buildings are significant for their association with “episodes of great moment” in history, including the proliferation of steam navigation, the gold rushes in Australia and the US, and the Crimean War.
One of the campaign organizers is Miles Lewis, a professor at the University of Melbourne’s School of Architecture, Building and Planning and one of Australia’s most notable architecture historians.
“The huge importation of buildings from overseas is a really exciting aspect of Australian history, because there has been nothing comparable in scale elsewhere in the world,” he said.
There are 104 known examples through Australia, though around 20 percent are “very fragmentary” or too altered to be understood visually. The majority, 63, are in Victoria, 16 are in New South Wales, 13 in South Australia, four in Tasmania, three in Queensland, three in Western Australia, and two in the Northern Territory.
Among them are the only Singapore-made wooden portable buildings from the 19th century to survive in the world; more than a dozen iron buildings made in Glasgow in the 1850s (only two survive in Glasgow); buildings made in the United States (only one such building survives in the US, and that in storage); and both wood and iron buildings by twenty-one English makers, “very few of which can be identified in England itself.”

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Corio Villa, Eastern Beach, Geelong, designed by Bell and Miller and manufactured by Robertson and Lister.

The nominations taskforce explains that the gold rushes of the 19th century caused a boom in the demand for portable houses, and saw the emergence of house entrepreneurs in Singapore and Hong Kong. The Hong Kong houses in both San Francisco and Melbourne have all disappeared, but a number of the hundreds of houses from Singapore survive in Victoria.
“The houses were generally built of dedaru (Singapore teak or Singapore oak) and meranti (cedar), and were cultural hybrids,” the taskforce’s report notes. “The dimensions and room sizes were designed to meet the European tastes of the market; the entrepreneurs were ethnically Chinese, and at least some of the labour was Malay.”
One of them is the former 1 Hoddle Street house, which was threatened with demolition in 1983, before being rescued by architect Andrew Muir and re-erected on his property in Collingwood, where he has since collected other examples.
On the grander end of the scale, is Corio Villa in Geelong, which was designed by Bell and Miller and manufactured by Robertson and Lister in Glascow, which arrived in Geelong in August 1853.
“The house is beautifully constructed of heavy cast iron plate with joints run with red lead and virtually invisible externally, a system which was probably copied from Alexander Gordon’s cast iron lighthouses,” the taskforce report reads.
The taskforce noted that many of the buildings are now protected under relevant heritage controls, but they are not recognized collectively for their contribution to world architecture.
“A World Heritage listing is an important thing for the country concerned,” said convenor of the campaign, Tony Isaacson. “It gives a boost to national pride and identity, and it generates tourism. Two-thirds of the buildings in this proposal are in Victoria, and it will be a bonanza for the state and for all states that get on board.”
The taskforce acknowledged that a world heritage nomination was “a major exercise” that would be further complicated by the number of properties involved. It’s asking the federal government and all state governments to support the nomination, and is expecting the process to take “from five to ten years.” More