Original post 8 January 2021:
One of the more stylish and more structurally interesting #latemodern CBD office buildings – Australia Pacific House on #ExhibitionStreet was built in 1975-8, and designed by the #McIntyrePartnership (#PeterMcIntyreArchitect). He went for the structurally innovative prestressed and #posttensioned (didn’t know they could be both) beams spanning the whole width creating column free space, with the lift core on the blank south wall, and more windows and expressed columns on the north (even though there’s only a very narrow setback). When everyone else was doing Brutalist or brown brick. The structure here was originally further expressed by shrinking the ground floor and exposing most of the basement, so there was a double height space complete with gardens and a restaurant down there – which I vaguely recall as Gibbeys Coffee Lounge ? Possibly not very successful, and now gone, but interesting idea. Now proposed for listing as part of the #HoddleGridHeritageReview. 1st are my photos from 2013 when I first tried documenting interesting post war office blocks, and I had been told ages before that it was significant in some way. 2nd two from streetview. You can see the back is just like the front. 2nd last image ground level 1984 Graeme Butler City of Melbourne libraries vs recent streetview.
Storey of Melbourne 