It’s 6 years old now, and still looks crazy/amazing – and a bit more on display with the demolition on the site next door – where there will be a new tower obscuring it somewhat unfortunately. #IconStKilda, @jcbarchitects, 2015
Last time I posted this, there was a lot of #dislike !
The marketing that came with it talked about it as variously: the boxes representing the various communities of St Kilda, the topography, the seasons, or the surrounding colours – only the last one makes any sense, the trees are green, the sky is blue, the beach is yellow etc. (though the red I’m not sure, while the red/black I spose is dirt).
So this is what’s proposed to go next to #TheIcon in #stkildajunction – this design by @kpdo_studio, was announced in 2018, and the recently demolished the buildings in the site, but #urbanmelbourne website says basically on hold. It was going to be fewer more spacious apartments. It looks shiny, a bit bland. The developer said in an interview “St Kilda Junction is a prominent site that’s very visible in the skyline so we spent a lot of time thinking about how we build it externally. (!) We wanted to create a building that would have a conversation with its neighbour, The ICON, rather than compete with it. Putting a brightly coloured building would have been too loud, so we wanted to put something that was also colourful, but in a more subtle way.” Makes the Icon look so much more interesting.
So my last post has been superseded – there is now a fourth design for this site in #StKildaJunction; the new one just submitted is by #WarrenAndMahoney, and old NZ firm. It’s the same envelope as the @kpdo_studio one, with a few more curves. The ones before were by @plusarchitecture, the first one a silly ski slope idea, which just makes it more of a lump. They all have a long #digitalbillboard at levels 3-4, which is a nice idea for the junction. The home office floor (a new thing?) and day spa are behind the sign, which is apparently translucent. Some ok studio flats lower floors, and typical ok sized 1,2,3 bed flats above. The thing that bugs me is that the developers have got in way ahead of any organised planning for the junction – Council passed an urban design framework in 2015 and 2018, this site supposed to be 16 levels max, with a 3 storey street wall and 5m setback (like the CBD) but somehow the first tower got a permit, completely ignoring all that, so this one is right on street line on the rather narrow Wellington street, and so are the lower floors of the icon, so there’s flats looking straight at each other. And this tower wraps around the one #heritagelisted building left over on the corner, which wouldn’t stop some tall thin tower on the back half, blocking the sign etc. Hopeless !
Storey of Melbourne 