Repost 2017: From this angle the new 35 Spring Street (in a variation on #BatesSmart patterned #glass curtain wall house style) is just a tad #dominating. Partly because the pattern, which I quite like, is in blocks that are often two or three storeys high, so it makes everything else look small, but the most annoying thing is that it doesn’t have a lower section with the tower part setback, it just goes straight up from the footpath. That was something that started in the 50s/60s with new towers, which by the 80s was understood as creating dominating canyons and a windy street level to boot, so more or less outlawed in 1982. Then suddenly in the mid 2000s that was just ignored completely, along with density rules, so we got all those skinny towers; that was all wound back a bit in 2016, with a 5m set back above 40m (or lower). Now we have to live with the ones that got through, for ever. Update 2024: a new tower just down a bit next to the Shell Building follows the new rules, not a huge difference but it’s better (pics 5,6). Also just realised no 35 has windows all along the north side boundary (plan, views), so presumably they bought the airspace from next door – unbeatable views as well as no setback and very tall, must have been very profitable.
New pics from the internet 2024:
Storey of Melbourne 