Melbourne Prize

Queen & Collins • KTA + BVN • Photographer: Derek Swalwell

The Melbourne Prize recognises projects that have made a significant contribution to the city of Melbourne. All projects located within the urban growth boundary are eligible for consideration. Projects may be of a built form, an urban design solution or an innovation that has influenced and improved the fabric of the city.

Michael Roper RAIA Jury chair Nicholas Braun RAIA Juror

Rhonda Mitchell RAIA Juror

Jury chair report

Each year the Melbourne Prize is awarded to an architectural project which is judged to have made a significant and unique contribution to our city. Naturally this prize attracts a broad spectrum of entrants showcasing a diversity of riches, presenting a challenge to arrive at a single winner. This year’s submissions stand as testament to the vitality of Melbourne’s cultural life, providing world-class venues for sport, the arts, education, community, faith and commerce. Notwithstanding the undeniable quality of the field, it is hugely buoying to survey these new additions to our city. The Victorian Pride Centre and the reconstruction of the La Mamma theatre are just two examples of projects that will serve their communities for generations to come. Such projects are innately valuable, irrespective of architecture. In each case, they have been handled with admirable care. Similarly at Collingwood Yards, Fieldwork’s nuanced approach to renovating the old Collingwood TAFE demonstrates great intelligence and thrift, lending new life to old charms and reinvigorating the precinct as a thriving creative hub. As an architecture award, it was our task to determine where innovation and expertise had elevated a project beyond the demands of the client brief. From 33 entrants, 13 were longlisted, six shortlisted, three were in hot contention, with two causing significant debate. And yet there was just one that we kept returning to, Queen & Collins, a richly layered urban space carved from a cluster of neo-gothic icons. What could ordinarily have been just another corporate lobby is now something else entirely. Light, space, colour and texture have been masterfully orchestrated to create a surprising new space for Melbourne. Congratulations KTA + BVN.

Category sponsor

Melbourne Prize Queen & Collins by KTA + BVN

Wurundjeri Country

This remarkable project breathes life into a cluster of gothic revival icons, offering Melbourne a new benchmark in commercial architecture. KTA and BVN have skillfully opened-up and unlocked a series of wonderfully interconnected and terraced campiello, gifting them back to the city, inviting a sense of discovery and an element of surprise not often encountered in this typology. Spaces are interwoven in a distinctly urban way, creating open air space and revealing hidden moments like the heritage Cathedral Room and Safe Deposit Building, otherwise lost within deep commercial footprints. The heritage of the site is masterfully interpreted as a love letter to the mercantile buildings and urban character of Venice. The spaces are multilayered, textural, rich, and unfussy, encouraging respite and refuge within this busy city precinct. A delightful and moody play with light and verticality is applied throughout and the use of coloured lanterns and three-dimensional interventions orient the public and draw them in with great effect. This exceptional and generous project offers the city and the commercial world a unique model that blurs the lines between public and private, connecting us in new ways at a time when connection could not be more needed.

Practice team: Kerstin Thompson (Design Architect), Kelley Mackay (Director of Projects), Michael Blancato (Associate, Project Lead), Claire Humphreys (Associate, Design Lead), Lloyd McCathie (Associate, Project Architect), Martin Allen (Associate, Senior Architect), Grant Dixon (Senior Architect), Patrick Phelan (Architect), Henry Russell (Architect), Caroline Chong (Graduate of Architecture), Darcy Dunn (Graduate of Architecture), Marwin Sim (Graduate of Architecture), Tamsin O’Reilly (Visualisation Specialist), Ninotschka Titchkosky (BVN, Co-CEO), Rob Vider (BVN, Senior Practice Director), Sean Regan (BVN, Architect), Alan Monckton-Milnes (BVN, Architect), Sally Campbell (BVN, Senior Practice Director), Marc Hine (BVN, Associate), Renae Tapley (BVN, Interior Architecture Project Leader) Consultant / Construction team: Armitage Jones (Project Manager), Tract (Town Planner), Aurecon (Structural / Civil Engineers), Aurecon (Facade Engineer), Arup (Mechanical / Electrical Engineers), Arup (Hydraulics / Fire Services), Arup (ESD Consultant), Arup (Fire Engineering), Acoustic Logic (AV Consultant), Irwin Consult (WSP) (Traffic Engineer), Slattery (Quantity Surveyor), Millar Merrigan (Landscape Architect), Bryce Raworth (Heritage Advisors), Lovell Chen (Heritage and Preservation Architects), DJ Coalition (Lighting Consultant), McKenzie Group (Building Surveyor), Studio Semaphore (Wayfinding + Signage), Morris Goding Access Consultants (Accessibility) Builder: Probuild Constructions

Photographer: Derek Swalwell

Queen & Collins • KTA + BVN • Photographer: Derek Swalwell