Can a very large building engage meaningfully with a sensitive urban context?

Smith Street Redux is an alternative scheme for the controversial Banco development proposed for Smith Street in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Collingwood in 2004. The council denied the project a permit after receiving a record 1500 objections from local residents due to scale, noise, traffic, programmatic and design concerns.

Rather than shy away from the scale of this proposal, Smith Street Redux uses this original brief as a starting point while taking into consideration these residents objections, recommendations, and the character of the area.

Strategies for engaging with this sensitive context include drawing upon local iconic architecture, most notably the black and white stripes of the nearby Victoria Park stadium, in an attempt to invest the new scheme with some of the cultural pride of the area, and by retaining the ‘neighbourhood characters‘, or the traders that currently occupy the strip of tenancies on the site.

All of the existing program plus a large amount of community program and public open space is accomodated within a built envelope smaller than that originally proposed by Banco, achieved by replacing the inefficient single bedroom apartments with a number of 3 bedroom share-house style apartments.

The architectural response is not polite and does not try to please everyone, but instead favours a ‘tough contextualism‘ that is more interesting and appropriate to the distinct and individual character of Smith Street.

Major project for the completion of Bachelor of Architecture at RMIT University, 2005.
Awards: Anne Butler Medal for Excellence in Design and the RAIA / SJB Practice Prize.
Supervisors: Stuart Harrison, Graham Crist and Conrad Hamann.