Transforming Southbank Boulevard

The City of Melbourne developed a concept design in 2017 which outlined the design intent for the staged project. Through competitive tender, Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL) were engaged to undertake detailed design and documentation for 4 of the 5 connected spaces, with City Design providing design review. The final space was collaboratively designed by City Design (site planning, landscape architecture, industrial design) and artist Mike Hewson.

A 3-stage engagement process was undertaken with community and stakeholders, which ensured that the resulting design was heavily informed by public input.

The concept design developed 5 themes:

*Shift in transport modes
*Ecological and urban forest connections
*Design legibility and identity
*Cultural links
*Public art

These themes extend throughout the project and are applied to enhance the specific qualities of each space. They have been applied through explorations of: pre-colonial ecologies of the site, the boulevard as a biodiversity corridor, and connecting people to nature.

Transforming Southbank Boulevard explores creative and sustainable solutions to reinvent, repurpose, and adapt a road to promote improved community living through delivering:

*22,000m2 of new open public space, comprising two neighbourhood parks, a civic space, a playspace and arts gateway
*1.1km of new separated bike lanes
*Showcase pre-colonial ecologies to create moments of respite and enclosure, consistent with environments in pre-colonial settlement
*Destination spaces that support local businesses
*400 new trees
*Innovative risk-, nature- and adventure- play
The project has long-term impact for the industry, noting:
*Southbank Boulevard is one of the first arterial roadways to be converted into a local road, which enabled 2 lanes to be returned to public open space
*Southbank Playspace has generated discussion in the industry and community about testing the boundaries of play and what risk play can look like within a civic landscape. The playspace incorporates graduated challenge noting that this is an essential component of childhood development in public open space. The Playspace builds on the leading work by City of Melbourne in Nature Play at Royal Park (2015).

These new community spaces are enhancing livability, supporting health and wellbeing, and providing new opportunities for social connections in this densely developed city neighbourhood. The project supports the shift to sustainable transport modes and connections to nature through implementation of City of Melbourne’s Urban Forest Strategy and Nature in the City Strategy objectives.

A pivotal success of the project was the reduction and realignment of the road, to provide quality public space. Landscape Architects led negotiations with various state Authorities to achieve this precedent-setting outcome. Through an evidence-based approach, City of Melbourne successfully demonstrated redundant capacity in the original 4-lane road, convincing stakeholders that it should be reduced to 2-lanes and converted from an arterial road to a local road.

A key element of the design process was courageous innovation:

*The City of Melbourne partnered with Yarra Trams to trial a ‘green’ tram track, along with trialing new tree species in response to the changing climate. The learnings from this trial have proved useful in further explorations of greening opportunities of tram tracks across the municipality.
*Integrating public art into the playspace assisted in breaking out of the typical remit of ’playground’, into a civic space that is not confined by a singular typology of ’artwork’/’plaza’/’playground’.

The transformation of Southbank Boulevard seized an opportunity to prioritise space for pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport. Through working with multiple state authorities and more than 50 stakeholder institutions the design team worked to imagine how 22,000 m’ of space liberated from vehicles could offer more to the community. Five new civic spaces have been created that offer a variety of outdoor space types and uses. Site-wide strategies explore ecological objectives including soil, indigenous vegetation, and water-sensitive urban design. A new urban forest canopy has increased urban resilience and is supported by understorey planting to create biodiversity corridors linking parkland to river. The design process was guided by the focus on ’courageous innovation!

Southbank Boulevard has delivered a pilot green tram track, in conjunction with Yarra Trams, and a much-loved artist play space that tests the boundaries of existing regulatory limits. As Australian cities are asked to accommodate increasing densities, the transformation of Southbank Boulevard demonstrates that streets become the setting for vibrant and sustainable community life when they are appropriately valued and well designed.

The project has achieved a number of significant changes to this urban landscape that greatly contribute to the sustainability of the city.

The planting of over 400 trees has a significant effect on air quality given the proximity of the project to high volumes of traffic of city road and the proximity of high density housing. The tree plantings also contribute to reduced heat effect in summer and overall urban cooling of the precinct.

The tree species selected are diverse, increasing the bio diversity of the area and improving the overall urban ecology of the area. The tree species have also been selected with climate change in mind to ensure they are resilient to potential increase in temperature and heat waves along with reduced rainfall.

The overall planting and materials of the project have been selected to be low maintenance in order to reduce labour and carbon footprint of maintenance processes.

Pavement material and feature stonework was locally sourced to reduce carbon footprint during construction.