Architecture

The “overstretched” Mosman High School in Sydney is set for some major building works, with Woods Bagot preparing designs for a four-storey multi-purpose building that will expand its capacity by 100 students.
Enrolments to the school in the harbourside suburb have already exceed capacity, according to School Infrastructure NSW, and the new building is needed to meet growth demands by 2031.
Woods Bagot’s design incorporates new spaces for performing arts, including a new theatre, along with science teaching spaces, a library, rooftop games court and outdoor learning spaces. Black Beetle is the landscape architect for the project, which will include a newly landscaped courtyard and rooftop.
In total the new building will have capacity for 1,200 students, compared to the 1,116 students currently attending the school.

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The proposed building at Mosman High School designed by Woods Bagot.

“The proposed built form sits within a conservation area and the rich heritage of Military Road, respecting the scale and materials of its context,” writes Woods Bagot in planning documents.
“The form of the scheme aims to provide a new entrance in the safer, more pedestrian environment of Belmont Road, which creates a protective built perimeter to enclose a central courtyard environment. This enhances the civic and heritage forms while providing a secure and noise and pollution-mitigating environment that expands the existing play space within.”
The existing Military Road setback will be retained, meaning most of the existing trees on that edge will also be retained, while the building’s predominant parapet height has been designed to align with the eaves of the school’s historic Arts Building as well as the parapets of the retail buildings on the opposite side of Military Road. The upper levels, which will contain the library, rooftop terraces and games court, will be set back to maintain views of the sky from Military Road.
In terms of pedagogical considerations, the scheme aims at a mix of open plan learning environments and more traditional enclosed classrooms organized into “learning neighbourhoods” focused on specific subject areas. Each learning neighbourhood will form a “wing” of the building.
“Facing the courtyard, the rich mix of uses is revealed, through the hall and its garage style doors, and the theatre acting as a ‘jewel’ being the prominent feature of the courtyard,” writes Woods Bagot. “The courtyard facing facades feature covered open walkways that continue the circulation character of the existing school, while engaging the central courtyard.”
A new “arts courtyard” will be formed between the new hall and the existing Arts Building conceived as a lively events space spilling out from the hall.
The project will see the total demolition of two existing buildings, and the partial demolition of another.
The state-significant development application is on public exhibit until 5 May. More

Cumulus Studio has designed an addition to a winery cellar door on the east coast of Tasmania, six years after completing a series of shipping container buildings for the winery. Set within the wild landscape by Moulting Lagoon and the Apsley Marshes, Devil’s Corner is a popular stop-off along Tasmania’s Great Eastern Drive. The cellar […] More

A public housing block of 12 apartments will be built in Braybrook, western Melbourne, as part of the Victorian government’s Future Homes pilot program.
The apartments will be designed by Melbourne-based architecture firms Lian in association with Kerstin Thompson Architects.
Lian (working with Finding Infinity and Openwork) was one of four winners in the Future Homes competition, which sought exemplary apartment designs that could easily be replicated across Melbourne’s suburbs.
Titled “Freespace,” Lian’s winning design proposes a modular system of volumetric blocks that that can arranged in various ways to suit different houshold types. The design suggests that each dwelling will be made up of a double-height living area, with a 25 square metre outdoor space attached, and bedroom and bathroom blocks to suit.
The modular design was chosen to be built as a demonstration project through a competitive tender process run by Homes Victoria, which included the four competition finalists. A spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning told ArchitectureAU the tenders were assessed against price, value for money and the experience and capability of the firm.
“In the end Lian were selected as on balance they best met all of the assessment criteria.”

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The winning proposal by Lian (with Finding Infinity and Openwork).

A spokesperson for Lian said they had approached Kerstin Thompson Architects to collaborate with on the project because of its focus on the public agenda and research and that KTA been a “role model and inspiration” for Lian’s own work.
The 12 new homes will be a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, with some of the ground-level apartments designed for full wheel-chair accessibility.
The government said the homes will be “light filled, have access to green space and be environmentally sustainable, providing thermal comfort for residents.”
All four winning design teams of the Future Homes competition will work with the planning department and the Office of the Victorian Government Architect to refine their entries into design models to be incorporated into the Victorian planning scheme.
“The Future Homes competition contributed such incredible new design concepts and this is an exciting first opportunity to bring these designs to life,” said housing minister Richard Wynne.
“These new designs will set new benchmarks in sustainability and liveability – helping create a new generation of apartment living that’s better, smarter, safer and healthier for the whole community.” More

The City of Melbourne is preparing the ground for the $40 million redevelopment of the Queen Victoria Market.
Councillors will vote on three separate applications on 13 April, for two new sheds designed by NH Architecture – the “trader shed” and “northern shed” – and the revitalization of the food hall to designs by BSPN Architecture.
While NH Architecture’s designs for the redeveloped sheds were first released in early 2020, the concept designs for the food hall are new.
“Traders have told us that the existing food court, which was built in the mid-1990s, is outdated and limits the potential to grow their businesses,” Melbourne mayor Sally Capp said.
“This upgrade will include an improved dining area including more seating, flexible layout, cooking demonstration area, greenery, new flooring and roof.”
Council management’s report to the Future Melbourne committee, which recommends approval for the food hall transformation, says the project would create “an exciting contemporary hospitality destination within [the] market precinct with an improved connection to Queen Street.”

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The Queen Vic trader shed by NH Architecture.

The trader shed and northern shed, which received heritage permits from Heritage Victoria in December 2020, would include new logistics, storage, waste and recycling facilities, customer toilets and dedicated trader toilets, showers and meeting rooms for the market’s 2000-strong workforce. Sally Capp said they would deliver important safety, efficiency and sustainability improvements.
The advocacy group Friends of Queen Victoria Market, however, says the proposed changes risk developing a “shopping centre” operational model with fewer traders operating in a “boutique market” and entertainment precinct.
The group detailed in a social media post how the planned reduction in delivery points and loading time would create a “logistical nightmare,” noting that centralized delivery, unloading and re-stocking was more appropriate for a supermarket.

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The Queen Vic northern shed by NH Architecture.

Council management is recommending that the redevelopment of the sheds be approved as well.
Capp said the construction of the food hall, trader shed and northern shed was expected to get underway in early 2022, subject to approvals.
“Queen Victoria Market is one of our most iconic destinations and we are committed to its renewal because this project creates hundreds of jobs now and will help to attract more shoppers for decades into the future,” she said.
“Investing in the market is about delivering upgraded facilities for traders and customers to help local businesses thrive again and bringing back the buzz to one of our most important tourist destinations.”
Works are underway for the $30 million heritage shed restoration and the Munro mixed-use tower development next to the market. More

The Australian government has launched a design competition for a National Memorial for Victims and Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, to be built on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra.
Establishing a national memorial was a key recommendation from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. In October 2020, the federal government committed $6.7 million to the project to establish “a place of truth and commemoration” and “to provide a dedicated and enduring place to reflect, pay tribute and remind future generations to be ever vigilant in protecting our children.”
Minister for Families and Social Services Anne Ruston said, “Consultation told us the memorial should be a place of remembrance and a place that honours victims and survivors,” Minister Ruston said.
“Without the strength of victims and survivors Australia may have never been able to come to terms with the awful truth about the abuse perpetrated in institutions entrusted to care for young Australians.
“Their voices have created changes in all levels of society to ensure that children are protected from abuse in all institutions now and forever and this memorial will serve as a permanent tribute to them.”
The competition is open to all Australian design professionals and collaborative teams, which may include architects, landscape architects, artists, sculptors, engineers, as well as those who have lived experience of institutional child sexual abuse.
The competition website states that the design is “is of national significance [and] requires a high degree of design exploration, innovation and skill.”
The government has chosen a site on the Acton Peninsula, close to the National Museum of Australia and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
The site straddles Lawson Crescent and the edge of Lake Burley Griffin, and is described as “a foreshore urban woodland with panoramic views across Lake Burley Griffin to Stirling Park, Lennox Gardens and Parliament House. It enjoys glimpses through to the National Arboretum and the Brindabella Ranges to the west.”
The jury will include an architect and landscape architect, as well as representatives from the National Capital Authority and the National Memorial Advisory Group, which includes people with personal experience of institutional child sexual abuse. It will be chaired by Peter McClellan, who was chief royal commissioner of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Submission to the competition open on 12 April and will close on 21 May. Construction of the memorial will start later in 2021, and it is due to open in 2022.
“A national call for submissions has been deemed the most appropriate way to select a suitable design for the Memorial and we encourage those with the skills and expertise to apply,” said Nola Marino, Assistant Minister for Regional Development and Territories. More

The planned $708 million overhaul of Sydney’s tired Harbourside Shopping Centre will go before NSW’s independent planning umpire after attracting hundreds of objections and raising concerns over the privatization of public space.
Proposed by developer Mirvac, with initial concept designs by FJMT, the project would include a 42-storey apartment tower – the main cause of concern for many – and would see the existing buildings demolished.
The development is supported by the state government’s Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, which notes its potential for “economic growth and job creation” and for the delivery of new and improved public domain areas.
The design has undergone a number of changes since it was first exhibited by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment in 2016–17, receiving more than 134 objections; but it doesn’t appear to be getting more popular, with the latest round of public engagement, in late 2020, attracting 192 unique objections from the public out of 233 submissions.

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The proposed Harbourside Shopping Centre redevelopment, concept design by FJMT.

The City of Sydney, in its latest submission, notes that while changes such as the relocation of the tower have improved the design, the amended concept proposal does not address its primary concern: the “effective privatization of public land.”
“The City reiterates that Darling Harbour is a precinct for all of greater Sydney with a network of open spaces that encourage various leisure activities within the harbour foreshore,” writes director of city planning, Graham Jahn.
“The assertions made for the provision of residential accommodation are not meaningfully substantiated and do not warrant the conversion of public land for private use.”
Other key concerns raised by the council and the public include the height and scale of the tower and podium, overshadowing of the foreshore, view loss and lack of public benefits.
Kevin Sumption, director of the Australian National Maritime Museum, which sits adjacent to the subject site, also raised concerns about the lack of consultation. He writes that despite Mirvac claiming it had “completed over 3.5 years of extensive stakeholder consultation,” the museum had received no communication from the developer.
In its assessment report in support of the proposal, the state planning department notes that while it appreciates the council’s concerns about privatization, “the proposal supports the revitalization of an underperforming shopping centre with a vibrant mixed-use development, which would deliver significant public domain and open space improvements together with increased permeability, accessibility and activation at podium levels.”
As a state-significant development, Mirvac’s proposal is subject to state government consideration, as opposed to council. Any projects that receive at least 50 unique objections go before the Independent Planning Commission for determination. The planning commission is holding an online public meeting on the project on Wednesday 28 April.
FJMT’s concept design has been peer-reviewed by Architectus. Aspect Studios has done the public domain concept design. A competitive design process would decide the design team for the project. More

The Archdiocese of Brisbane has unveiled ambitious plans to build an eight-storey office block next to the historic St Patrick’s Church on Morgan Street, Fortitude Valley.
With architectural design by BVN, the project is one of a number of recent proposals to build commercial buildings in close proximity to churches, including Candalepas Associates’ design for a tower above the mid-century St Peter Julian’s Catholic Church and FJMT’s cantilevered hotel above a Gothic former church building.
A development application submitted to council describes how the design has been configured to respond to the existing church while contributing to the Fortitude Valley urban fabric and public realm.
Located between the church and several two-storey ancillary office buildings, the tower will accommodate 11,550 square metres of office floor space. An activated three-level-high outdoor garden room at the ground plane will feature integrated landscaping and seating and an articulated soffit with a direct connection to the church. Urbis is landscape architect on the project.
“The proposal offers a contemporary, flexible and sustainable building designed for the 21st century, with interwoven community workplace and landscaped realms,” said BVN in a design statement.
“The building has a distinctive appearance provided through its facade types that respond to orientation and draw reference from the existing church.
“Each floor features living greenery and access to the outdoors overlooking the Church to the South-West and the Brisbane CBD beyond.”
Designed by Andrea Giovanni Stombuco and built from 1880 to 1882, St Patrick’s is a Gothic-style church that was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register in 1992.
It is significant for its association with the consolidation of the Catholic church in Queensland in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as well as for its architectural style and the “monumental and finely detailed quality of the exterior.”
BVN’s design aims to preserve views to the church from James and McLachlan streets.
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Brisbane told The Urban Developer the project was about securing the future of the church.
“The driving force behind this application is the need to ensure the parish can financially support its ageing St Patrick’s Church, which has been part of the community for more than 140 years,” he said.
“The parish also maintains the historic St Stephen’s Cathedral, which requires ongoing maintenance.
“Both churches have long-standing roles in their communities and we want them to be places of gathering for another 150-plus years.” More

Architectus and Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects’ redevelopment of the State Library Victoria has won the architecture category of the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards and a medical machine that creates 3D digital images of the human eye has won the top prize.
Announced during Melbourne Design Week, the premier’s awards aim to celebrate professional and student designers working across a variety of fields.
The redevelopment of the state library has been a years-long process, with the new design was fully opened to the public in December 2019. Reviewing the project in Architecture Australia, Conrad Hamann said it was marked by the architects’ willingness to go with the building’s idiosyncrasies and episodes.
“The work recognizes that large institutional buildings such as this carry inside them their own history and culture, and that refurbishment is as much a weaving, a negotiation, as an outright renewal,” he wrote.
The project is one seven category winners.
The overall winner, which also won the product design category, was designed by Cobalt Design and Cylite to help specialists treat vision impairment. It streamlines the diagnostic process by integrating the functions of five existing instruments into a single, automated platform.
“Cobalt Design and Cylite have shown us that great design can have a meaningful impact on people’s lives and not only spark creative thinking but shape our society for the better,” said Creative Industries minister Danny Pearson.
In the fashion category, HoMie won for the sustainability initiative Reborn, which transforms garments destined for landfill into desirable one-off pieces while raising money for charity.
Sebastian White won in communication design for a series of posters promoting the Isol-Aid Live Music Festival during isolation, and Transpire with Vodafone Foundation won in digital design for DreamLab, a mobile app that uses networked smartphones as a distributed supercomputer to process medical research data on cancer and COVID-19.
In the design strategy category, RMIT University, Public Journal and SBS won for Bundyi Girri for Business, a set of frameworks, skills and techniques that helps non-Indigenous people to “cultivate the self-awareness required to be in active relationships with Indigenous peoples and Country.”
The design firm Today won in the service design category for the Working with Children Checks for Indigenous Applicants program, which “expressed the WWCC framework with sensitivity to the needs, rights and culture of Indigenous Australians.”
Best in the student design category went to RMIT students Charlotte McCombe, Tanuj Kalra and Jui Deepak Apte for Aegis, a bio-constructed hospital PPE made from marine weeds, and to VCE student Hanna Gough for a craft kit that serves as an emergency economic tool and transforms recyclable waste.
This year’s winners were selected from a field of 97 finalists. More