Architecture

Registration for the 2021 Australian Urban Design Awards remain open, with submission due to close on 20 July. Created in 1996 by then-prime minister Paul Keating’s Urban Design Taskforce, the national program recognizes excellence and innovation in Australia’s urban spaces. Entries are open to both built projects and design concepts and plans that embrace both […] More

City of Melbourne councillors have given the all clear for an 11-storey addition to the Epworth Freemasons Albert Street hospital in East Melbourne.
Designed by Silver Thomas Hanley and John Wardle Architects, the addition is the second stage in the redevelopment of the hospital, following the completion of a nine-storey cancer centre on Grey Street designed by the same architects in 2019.
The new tower will be built in the north-eastern corner of the Epworth Freemasons hospital precinct with a frontage to Albert Street to the north and Gotch Lane to the south-east. Connecting to the cancer centre and the eastern wing of the hospital, it will house 92 inpatient, intensive care and operating recovery beds, 12 operating and birthing rooms, and 30 consulting suites.
John Wardle Architects principal Kah-Fai Lee told the Future Melbourne Committee the tower had been designed to complement the earlier development and the surrounding streetscape.
“Albert Street has a mixed variety of building forms, scale and functions,” he said. “Within this variable context the proposed design completes the northern elevation by way of complementing scale, geometry, materiality and alignment.

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Epworth Freemasons Albert Street hospital redevelopment stage two, designed by Silver Thomas Hanley and John Wardle Architects.

“Expanding the brickwork podium and tower language established at Grey Street to Albert Street enables the design to maintain quality and consistency.”
A four-storey podium constructed of brickwork will accommodate inpatient units, birth suites and interventional suites. The brickwork, dark at ground level and lighter up to level three, will “reflect the solidity and materials of the adjoining properties and heritage streetscape.”
A recess to the eastern elevation at levels one and two will incorporate a landscaped terrace and planting trellis, connecting up to the landscaped podium roof.
Above the podium, the set-back glazed curtain wall is broken up with vertical and horizontal aluminium box sunshades. “The increased setbacks in conjunction with the change in materials contrasts with and emphasises the podium,” notes the planning report.
Some 23 objections were received to the proposal during public consultation, with building height and setbacks among the issues raised. But council planners said the proposal met design objectives and that the tower form was appropriate for the context – it “would not result in any additional overshadowing to the Fitzroy Gardens to the west from where it will form part of the existing backdrop of East Melbourne.”
Councillors were unanimous in approving the development at the Future Melbourne Committee meeting on 6 July. More

The School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Newcastle will create five new full-time Indigenous-only teaching positions.
The positions range from senior lecturer to lecturer and will cover the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, construction management, disaster management and environmental management.
The announcement of the new positions coincides with the 2021 NAIDOC week and follows the introduction of new national competency standards for architects, which prioritize engagement with Indigenous peoples, and sustainability
The University of Newcastle has the largest cohort of Indigenous students of any Australian university, at 4.6 percent of the student body, as well as the highest number of Indigenous academics. However, head of architecture Sam Spurr said participation in the field of architecture had lagged behind other disciplines.
“This demonstrates the commitment of the school to embed and develop Indigenous knowledge into the teaching of architecture and construction,” she said. “It recognizes the prevailing settler colonial assumptions of space and place in our curriculum and the extraordinary and unique opportunities that Indigenous thinking and practice brings to the making our of future built environment.

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Sam Spurr, head of architecture at the School of Architecture and Built Environment. Image:

Daniel Boud.

“We hope with these positions to create a respectful, meaningful and purposeful engagement with Indigenous knowledge – [an engagement] that is Indigenous-led and Indigenous-designed in collaboration with the passion and support of our current staff body.”
The positions are expected to be advertised on 9 July.
In March 2021, on Close the Gap day, the university launched an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education and Research Framework, bringing together a range of plans and policies aimed at making the university a “culturally responsive place of excellence” for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education and research.
Pro Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous Strategy and Leadership Nathan Towney said at the time that the framework placed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, staff and communities at its heart.
“We are determined to be a place where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and knowledge is woven into each aspect of the university – our relationships with communities, the way we teach, learn and research and how we foster reconciliation in our regions,” he said.
The announcement of the new positions has also comes at a time when cut-backs and redundancies are rife at universities around Australia. The University of Newcastle has itself made several rounds of cuts and revealed in July it would cut a further 150 full-time equivalent academic positions from the colleges of Engineering, Science and Environment (which includes the school of architecture); Health, Medicine and Wellbeing; and Human and Social Futures.
However, Spurr said the School of Architecture and Built Environment had suffered from understaffing in recent years and that university management was supportive of bolstering staff levels and encouraging greater Indigenous engagement. The positions are entirely new, with no current roles to be replaced. More

Themed “Reconnect,” this year’s Open House Melbourne program invites us to get back in touch with the city through its more than 150 buildings, tours and events. “The theme of ‘reconnect’ really speaks to our collective desire to re-engage with our city, our suburbs, and a future […] after experiences of pandemic, lockdown and isolation,” […] More

The University of Queensland is taking its second CBD campus to the bank, unveiling plans to adaptively re-use the state heritage-listed National Australia Bank at 308 Queen Street. In a planning proposal before the City of Brisbane, the university is proposing to refurbish both the bank building, and an existing contemporary office building at the […] More

A new 121-room hotel will be a sculptural addition to the south-east fringe of the Sydney CBD. The Surry Hills Hotel, now approved for development, is designed by Fox Johnston Architects. A two-storey former warehouse building straddling Goulburn Lane, Brisbane Street and Commonwealth Street will be adapted with a new seven-storey tower added above. The […] More

Construction is underway for the 27-storey tower at 130 Little Collins, Melbourne designed by Cox Architecture with interiors by Hecker Guthrie and landscape by Jack Merlo. The $190 million tower will house column-free office floorplates from levels two through 27 with a wrap-around garden terrace on level eight and a communal rooftop garden. At ground […] More