Strategies, guidelines and retail podium architecture for the mixed-use Melbourne Quarter precinct on Collins Street bridge.

Melbourne Quarter will integrally connect the CBD to the Docklands beyond, while generating its own precinct identity. This distinctive character of place starts with retail and public realm. Foolscap Studio + Relative have developed design guidelines for the retail ground plane interfaces of the tower podiums. Comprising 800 square metres of retail, cultural and active food spaces, the project connects to a public plaza, all set beneath a skypark 10 metres above Collins Street.

For such expansive, uniquely positioned spaces, the facade design is necessarily driven by materiality, human scale and places for interaction – through fine and complex spatial criteria. The design outcome will serve the broader development with everyday vitality, for both commercial and residential tenants.