Melbourne Quarter Place Book
Client: Lendlease
Location: Melbourne, VIC
Year: 2015-2016
Regenerating a forgotten quarter of Melbourne
Brief
Melbourne Quarter is a city block on the western edge of Melbourne’s CBD, bridging the gap between the CBD and Docklands. Integral to the history of Melbourne and its development as an industrial powerhouse, the site has been hollowed out over time as the city has been built up around it. Lendlease set out to transform the block into a mixed-use precinct, with commercial, residential and retail offering, and a unique green environment in the heart of the inner city. The scale and importance of this site called for a strategic place approach to guide the project to completion.
Approach
Left Bank Co. were engaged to work with the development team to pull together the key features and details of the precinct to develop a Place Book, a strategic document to set out the objective of the place and describe the desired experience at completion and into the future. Left Bank Co. facilitated workshops and consultation with the Melbourne Quarter team to understand and craft the messages around the vision and place pillars for the precinct, project managed the development of the document, pulling together information on all facets of the project, and then wrote and edited content to complete the full story of Melbourne Quarter. The published edition was released in late 2016.
Impact
The Place Book set out the vision and aspirations to be delivered at Melbourne Quarter and has been a critical tool for all members of the project team by keeping the place vision front and centre throughout the development process. The first building at Melbourne Quarter was completed and opened in 2018 in line with this vision.