South Lawn Carpark Masterplan

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The vision for Melbourne University’s South Lawn Car Park Master Plan is to evolve a unique underutilised space on campus into a vibrant multi-discipline living laboratory. The South Lawn Underground Car Park is a site of rich historical significance surrounded by a complex built fabric. The South Lawn and Underground Car Park is centred as a social and cultural heart of the University Campus. The Car Park is one of the University most unique and valuable assets both from a historic and cultural standpoint. No longer required to house vehicles, the Car Park shifts from ‘concealed to revealed’, adapted to become an open and accessible collaborative space. The focus deviates to prioritising pedestrian circulation and connection through a rich and diverse working environment. The proposal capitalises on the Car Park’s opportunity to become the University’s meeting place. A ‘front-of-house’ which inverts the South Lawn thorough fare from ‘up-and over’ to ‘down-and-through’. The opening of the southern elevation creates a new dynamic entry sequence from Grattan Street. The series of exposed cut edges express the Car Park’s structure as a dynamic brutalist roof, promoting spaces for cross-disciplinary collaboration, as well as circulation and connections across-campus. Responding to an increasing need for robust working and collaborative spaces on campus, the Car Park is transformed into a ‘mixing chamber’, creating engaging and collaborative student environments and fostering on-campus community in the bones of an existing building. Applied technologies could thrive allowing for student driven agency and initiatives. Creative research outputs are fostered in a diverse, lively and adaptive re-use of spaces, utilising ‘mobile’ insertions and structures. The architecture is itself industrial, utilitarian and lightweight.

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WOWOWA Architecture
Monique Woodward, Scott Woodward, Andre Bonnice, Jean-Marie Spencer, Zoe Diacolabrianos, Nikita Bhopti, Fiona Plaisted, Morgan Carse, Isobel Moy, Issy Jooste, Julie Rovis, Sarah Exner

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