Melbourne: The Latest Architecture and News

Videos

The City of Port Phillip near Melbourne is taking bold measures to enhance the vibrant atmosphere and livability of their city through a variety of urban renewal projects. Promoting a four part community plan of working together to take action, neighborhood development, community leadership, and monitoring progress, and fifteen priorities for action, the city's commitment to environmentally and socially conscious design and policy alongside a strong support for the arts has resulted in a number of noteworthy projects, attracting designers such as Simon Oxenham of Convic, Gregory Burgess Architects, and Paul Morgan Architects to take part.

Read on after the break to see three videos featuring the award winning projects, created by our friends at Traces Films.

Mirroring the Serpentine Galleries of London, the Naomi Milgrom Foundation has announced its own yearly pavilion commission for the city of Melbourne. Sited in the Queen Victoria Memorial Gardens, the premier "MPavilion" will be designed by Sean Godsell, opening October 6th of this year. The pavilion will host a variety of community events, including art installations and performances, over a four month period. It remains to be seen whether the MPavilion will have a lasting impact on the architectural culture of the city, as some critics have pointed out. To learn more about this now annual commission, visit this article from infolink.

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Melbourne newspapers are reporting on an argument breaking out over the preservation of the city's postwar modernist buildings, centering (as ever) on the dispute between their value as cultural heritage vs their 'ugliness' (you can see all the contested buildings in a neat graphic at The Age). While many are in favor of preservation, Alan Davies, in anarticle for Crikey, warns that the cultural benefit in protecting these buildings should always be weighed against the cost of preventing the developments that would have taken their place. Read the full article here.

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Australian developer CBUS Property has invited four pairs of Australian and internationally-renowned architectural practices to compete to design an office complex at a 6,000 square meter site in downtown Melbourne, Australia where the National Mutual Plaza currently stands.

See the full shortlist after the break.

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Melbourne Now celebrates the latest art, architecture, design, performance and cultural practice to reflect the complex creative landscape of Melbourne.

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