Following the collaborative success of a boutique development in Hampton Hill, Lowe and Woods Bagot have teamed up once more to deliver a bolder mixed use development, this time on the CBD fringe, on the corner of Clarendon and York.

South Melbourne is Victoria’s oldest suburb outside the City of Melbourne, so it is fitting that the proposal takes its cues from the rich local history of Victorian architecture. More than other capital cities, Melbourne adopted two tone brickwork with a fever in the late 1800s. In South Melbourne, Victorian Schools, train stations, churches and terraces used polychromatic brickwork as a device to accentuate thresholds and corners. Drawing on these motifs, the stepped solid brick piers to the lower podium of the proposal reference the refinement and materiality of local heritage buildings. The two tone brickwork is further referenced by banding commercial and residential levels.

At the peak of the gold rush there were 98 hotels and pubs in South Melbourne, often on corners and often with multiple entries, drawings folk in from the surrounding streets. Our proposal celebrates the corner by adopting similar pub tactics. Corner balconies, dedicated entries on Clarendon for residents, and York for commercial and a play on pub tiling all subtly acknowledge the value of location and context.

Landscape architects, Acre studio, tap into the canopy trees of Clarendon street and create a verdant botanic setting in both the soaring void and vertical landscapes.