Nankun Cheng

My final project is about a communal making and commercial complex with residential units located in the site of the existing Festival Hall in West Melbourne. My proposal concept is connectivity and co-experience, and I design several interlocking glass boxes and courtyards with physical or virtual connections to link the collaborative making and public commercial and learning spaces.

For the functions of this design, I divide them into four parts. I reorganise part spaces of the existing Festival Hall as a multi-purpose theatre and some making and working spaces and design several glass boxes as sharing displaying and leisure spaces connecting some public clusters such as gallery and commercial spaces for the right part of the site. Each cluster is configured with a single function; people can co-experience in the interlocking areas.

For the circulations, there are two main site entrance on the Rosslyn street and Adderley Street and two individual entries of theatre. People can reach to the rooftop garden, which is a leisure plaza on top of the three levels of public spaces through the first level of living parts. There are vertical circulations inside lower public levels connecting underground car park and upper levels of residential areas.

For the materiality, I keep the original Festival Hall materials and choose glass curtain wall as the primary material of courtyards and glass box display areas for my design. Also, I want to express a unique and comfort conditions for creatives that is different from the existing building. I choose timber as the interior wall material for the theatres and making spaces, and concrete as the main wall-filling material.