Melbourne City Council to overhaul urban design process by rating buildings

MELBOURNE City Council wants to “rate” buildings in a bid to avoid lifeless and barren developments taking over the city. Here’s the towers council wouldn’t be happy with.

MELBOURNE City Council has outed bad building designs as it contemplates a system that rates the quality of new applications in the inner city.

The council will investigate a UK scheme in which building proposals are rated gold, silver, bronze or mediocre.

Designs that fail to integrate towers properly with life at street level, or buildings that don’t fit certain locations will be heavily scrutinised under the biggest review of urban ­design policies since the 1990s.

Developers would need to provide detailed drawings covering the first 20m of a building from ground level, at a close-up scale of 1:20.

COUNCIL NOT IMPRESSED WITH SOUTHBANK TOWER

NORTH BANK PROJECT GETS COUNCIL GREEN LIGHT

$480M TWIN TOWER COMPLEX SET FOR CBD

Melbourne City Council planning portfolio chairman Nicholas Reece

City of Melbourne planning portfolio chairman Nicholas Reece said council’s investment in public spaces was often compromised by poorly designed developments with lifeless and barren frontages.

“There is no place in modern Melbourne for buildings that detract from the streetscape and drag down the city’s best qualities,” he said.

“Now, through more rigorous planning controls, designs for new buildings in the city will be required to have a focus on the city at eye level.”

A new central Melbourne design guide, approved by a council meeting this week, lists acceptable design features and what to avoid.

Upper West Side at 220 Spencer St. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

The Upper West Side retail and apartment complex at 220 Spencer St gets a cross as being an example of multiple buildings on a large site adopting “the same form, typology and architectural language”.

Prima Pearl Tower in Southbank.

Southbank tower Prima Pearl is criticised for highly reflective materials which cause unacceptable levels of glare or lead to reduced visibility between the interior and outside.

And Casselden Place, at 2 Lonsdale St, is described as an example of visually prominent towers that don’t have proper regard to vistas through to the CBD and Southbank.

Casselden Place. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Peter Maddison, a prominent architect and the host of TV architecture show Grand Designs Australia, has highlighted “banal” towers near City Rd on Southbank which lack amenity at street level.

“Any initiatives that support a better interface of big buildings with the street have to be supported,” he said.

Under the proposed changes, which will be formally exhibited later this year, the amount of ground-floor space that can be used for utilities such as substations would be limited to help create laneways and other “unique Melbourne places”.

New developments would also need to consider weather protection for pedestrians and the inclusion of ground-floor uses that activate the street.

“There’s no value in having a pedestrian-friendly city if you get soaked walking along the street every time it rains or find the heat build-up in summer is stifling,” Cr Reece said.

Within the central city, all carparks would have to be built underground. Across Southbank, where geology restricts underground works, they would need to be hidden using a variety of active spaces and smart design features.

[e-mail]

@JMasanauskas