Shen Li

This is an architectural intervention project base on a site on Bourke street. The site sits in the center of the block of Bourke, Little Collins, Swanston, and Elizabeth streets. Within the site are 9 buildings whose history could be traced back to 1910s.

Each of the buildings has its own background with the city and the streets, the form of them varies as well. However, since a certain date between 2000 and 2010, most of the buildings were vacant. The purpose of this project is to come up with a design that confronts such vacancy.

In this project, the background of the city and its streets are studied. The concept is extending the street network into the building, not only horizontally but also vertically. With the urban pedestrian circulation integrated into the building, the design is expected to bring people back to the abandoned buildings and activate the spaces.

To achieve such goal, a mega-structure is inserted. The structure composes a large rooftop area above the buildings. The rooftop area and the in-between spaces are programmed with recreations and public spaces. In this way, an up-side-down circulation is formed to attract users back to the vacancy.