BUILDING THE UNFINISHED
2017 - 2021
The Victorian Pride Centre will bring together Victoria’s LGBTQI community by accommodating a number of resident community organization groups. The building will be a place for work, collaboration and exchange for the LGBTQI specifically, and the Australian community in general. From a field of 18 entries, Grant Amon Architects (GAA) and Brearley Architects and Urbanists (BAU) won the design competition for the Victorian Pride Centre in Fitzroy Street St. Kilda, Melbourne.
GAA and BAU conceived the building as a series of conceptual tubes that create a robust armature – a 3D infrastructure. Extracted from this armature is a series of urban design initiatives and flexible interior planning requirements. These initiatives generate a surprising and accommodating series of spaces and forms, responsive to the programs of the various organizations within the building. The conceptual tubes fully integrate landscape, urban design, architecture and interior design, into one clear, strong, iconic building.
The building accommodates urban design setbacks and character requirements in Fitzroy Street; addresses solar access, perceived scale issues for residences at the rear in Jackson Street, manipulates the development envelope to save the existing trees in the residential area of Jackson Street and is shaped to ensure light and outlook from floors overlooking any future development on the adjacent corner site.
The edges of Fitzroy Street and the commercial part of Jackson Street contain commercial active edges, encouraging pedestrian activity whilst providing eyes onto the street. The spaces between the programs are considered just as important as the programmed spaces of the building. Circulation from the entry to the central VPC ellipsoid atrium is an exhibition-gallery. The VPC ellipsoid atrium grand stair ensures the atrium is a great place to be, not just a space to pass through.
We have sought an architecture of inclusion – an architecture of and, and, and. …and meaningful form and space full of potential and order informed from the top down and the bottom up and a robust aesthetic and rationally pragmatic and symbolically informed and poetic and rigorously articulated and flexible and ….
Project Team:
GAA Project Team Competition : Grant Amon; Stephen Herbst; Estelle Peters; Karen McMull
GAA Project Team Documentation : Grant Amon; Stephen Herbst; Tony Trajikoski; Yiyang Xu; Bruno Rabl; Junbo Qu; Roberta Caione; Millicent Baddeley
BAU Project Team Competition: James Brearley, Steve Whitford, Jens Eberhardt (Partner in Charge), Fonarri Chen, Charles Hu
BAU Project Team Documentation: James Brearley, Steve Whitford, Jens Eberhardt (Partner in Charge), Fonarri Chen, Prague Unger, Adrain Coleiro, Manny Houdek, Tammy Li
Project Status: Completion
Location: Fitzroy St, St Kilda, Melbourne
Client: Victorian Pride Centre
Program: Shared work spaces, theatre, library, medical clinics, office, meeting rooms, commercial tenancies, roof top terrace, garden
Town Planner: SJB Planning
Project Management: Case Meallin / Bates & Co
Quantity Surveyor: Slattery
Concept Structural Engineer: Felicetti
Structural Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Hydraulic Engineer, Electrical Engineer, Facade Engineer, Traffic Engineer, Fire Services, Fire Engineer: WSP ( Irwin )
Acoustic Engineer: Resonate
Atrium Shell: Shapeshift
ESD: Hip v. Hype
Building Surveyor: Checkpoint Building Surveyors
Landscape Architect: BAU; Thompson Berrill Landscape Design
Contractor: Hansen Yuncken
Lighting: Schuler Shook
Media Video: Toby Reed
Photographer: John Gollings; Grant Amon(3); Anna Papadakis(1)
Awards:
Australian Institute of Architects: National Architecture Awards 2022, National Award for Public Architecture
Australian Institute of Architects Victorian Architecture Awards 2022: William Wardell Award for Public Architecture
Australian Institute of Architects Victorian Architecture Awards 2022: Finalist: Melbourne Prize
Australian Institute of Architects Victorian Architecture Awards 2022: Finalist: Interior Architecture
World Architecture Festival (WAF): Inside Awards 2022: Finalist: Public Building Interior
World Architecture Festival (WAF): Architecture Awards 2022: Finalist: Civic and community
Australian Interior Design Awards (IDEA) 2022: Finalist: Interiors
City of Port Phillip: Design and Development Awards 2022: Award for Excellence: Public and Institutional
City of Port Phillip: Design and Development Awards 2022: Commendation: Sustainability
City of Port Phillip: Design and Development Awards 2022: Finalist: Interior
Architeam Awards 2021: Architeam Medal
Architeam Awards 2021: Winner: Commercial Community and Public
Melbourne Design Award 2021: Driven x Design: Gold Winner, Public and Institutional
