Open House Melbourne Weekend announced
The 11th annual Open House Melbourne Weekend will be the largest program ever presented. A total of 224 buildings will open their doors to the public this year on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 July. There are 87 new buildings in the program, as well as 23 residential properties, and 84 buildings in the City of Melbourne. There will also be a full month of special events in July including film screenings at ACMI, public talks, the annual Heritage Address, the Living Cities Forum and a major exhibition titled The Australian Ugliness. The full program will be revealed in late June.
Some of the new pre-booked tours in this year’s program include:
Australia 108, located on Melbourne’s Southbank, will become the ‘tallest building to roof’ in the Southern Hemisphere at 319 metres tall. Designed by one of Melbourne’s most renowned architects, Fender Katsalidis, Australia 108 is a highly sculptural residential tower which will be unlike any other in Australia. Its slender form will be highlighted by a golden starburst expression which then morphs into a curvaceous profile against the sky. The weekend will offer a chance for the public to explore behind the scenes of this unique project. Guided tours of the part-construction site will be conducted by Fender Katsalidis – including common areas, basement facilities, and typical apartment types.
Bunjil Place is the City of Casey’s new $125 million cultural and entertainment precinct for Melbourne’s South East. Designed by multi-award winning architectural studio Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp (FJMT), the overarching vision for the precinct is ‘to create an inviting central heart for the comm-unity that celebrates participation, belonging and pride’. The centre includes a major library, gallery, multipurpose studio space, 800-seat theatre, civic offices and outdoor plaza. The entire precinct will come to life for the weekend – including a children’s trail, films in the plaza and design talks. VIP access to back-of-house areas will be available to the public who book in a guided tour.
In addition to recently completed, and very popular, residential properties in this year’s program, exclusive hard-hat tours of residential projects under construction will be open to the public as part of the Emerging Architects & Graduates EmAGN This. The program aims to develop public understanding of the process of ‘good design’ by offering tours lead by the architects themselves, in conjunction with the builders at each construction site. Projects in EmAGN This feature Melbourne’s best emerging practices like WOWOWA Architecture, Matt Gibson Architecture and Sibling Architecture.
One of the many tours that does not require pre-booking this year is The Learning and Teaching Building at Monash Clayton by John Wardle Architects. It’s a multi-faculty gateway learning facility with more than 60 innovative learning and teaching spaces that deliver a variety of study settings to meet 21st century student demands. The building demonstrates a shift away from the modernist stand-alone tower, instead incorporating a horizontal field of spaces within a broad, low-rise building.
More green updates
