1 April 2024

‘Melbourne Connect’, cnr Grattan and Swanston Street, Carlton, an extension of Melbourne University by @woodsbagot, completed 2021. I’d seen photos, thought it looked a bit odd, and it is. It’s designed around an oval courtyard, which was larger than I expected, by @aspectstudios, and has some nice planting, and on Easter Sunday people were there on their laptops. There was a bit of sun, and it was quite pleasant, but in the winter months, it’ll be cold and dark(er). It has 4 ways in, not exactly open laneways, but it’s not hidden either. I do wonder what would stop people sleeping there though. Some of the paving is bricks reused from the demolished 1960s Royal Womens Hospital, which sat empty for ages, and they also used fawn bricks as on the main campus.

But from outside it’s quite a lump – it’s five separate buildings, but all the same height (the 30m height limit), similar expression, so reads as one big one, with some bits sliced off, and through it. The facade is all big panels, so the scale is rather dominant. It has the Faculty of Engineering, and Information Technology, and some of it is residential, and some is spaces for ‘research partners’. And it’s apparently very sustainable, with appropriate shading and grey water recycling etc. But in summary, I didn’t like it much.

On Grattan Street theres a rather nice bricky entrance to a ‘Science Gallery’, and some are glass bricks with little moving images ! ‘Digital bricks’. I havnt looked up what’s it’s about, I’m just enjoying the fish. (Can’t upload videos here, so there’s just a still).

• Uncategorized