Urban Icon

Urban  Icon   Melbourne  Australia  1976

The program presented to the competitors had literally to be found in the two words
of the competition title “ Urban Form“ if referred to the skyline of Melbourne, Australia.

A large indoor museum with galleries. Out door pools and paved surfaces for
pedestrian circulation, docile ramps and the idea for an unusual bridging structure. A
public artificial ground or urban park supported by an horizontal structural plate above
the abandoned railroad tracks of the Melbourne Down town Central train station.
This idea-competition derives directly from our observing the unique geological mound
of the Hayers Rock in Central Australia considered by many a national monument.
We have literarily imposed such an image over the non physical site of the spatial
envelope above the railroad tracks.
The visual impact is powerful . We are proposing in fact the use of the same red
tinted sand stone rock found in the geological platform of the Ayers Rock natural
mound.
Equally powerful is the associated metaphor of the relocated image from its natural
setting into an urban context.
The scale and the striking color and texture of the image acquire the architectural
presence of an urban unforgettable icon.
Ramps, platforms , wide stairs bring the visitors to the top of the building in a sort of
urban pilgrimage and to a bridge across the site to the other side of the railroad.
Water is pumped up from the near river to the top of the proposed structure and than
released back to the same through a system of adjoining pools. The interior of the
mound possibly a museum or cultural center to be further conceived.

Location
Melbourne  Australia
Competition
1976
Scope of Services
Chief Designer
Construction Cost
N/A
Gross Floor Area
800,000 SF