500 Bourke Street
This comprehensive tower podium redevelopment choreographs a significant public space.
Our design and careful refiguring of the existing conditions, works to stitch the site back into the rhythm of laneways and streets that define the site and characterise Melbourne city life. It activates and rejuvenates the site across multiple levels and street frontages. From Bourke Street the journey begins with a steel and glass canopy recalling the traditional street verandah of Bourke Street whilst framing a place to meet.
The refurbished foyer, now open and extended, has a dramatic folded and textured ceiling above. It leads up and out onto a northern courtyard with retail and restaurant tenancies on Little Bourke Street. This activated ground plane shifts and folds to accommodate level changes and to connect to an elevated public terrace and the adjacent laneway.
- Traditional Custodians Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung People
- Client ISPT Super Property
- Location Melbourne, Victoria
- Procurement Design Competition
- Project Duration 2006 – 2010
- Floor Levels 3
- Footprint 2,620m2
- Floor Area 4,500m2
- Sustainability NABERS 4 star rating
- Selected Awards
- Award for Commercial Architecture, AIA Vic 2011
- Joseph Reed Award for Urban Design, AIA Vic 2011
- Lighting Design Winner, Melbourne Design Awards 2011
The challenge of architecturally reinvigorating corporate environments is often fraught, coming up against weak design and a denial of civic space. Yet with 500 Bourke Street, Wardle has reset the paradigm, forcing a scale that is profoundly human and dynamic, linked to everyday life.
Emily Potter – Renewing the Urban Fabric, AR summer 2011/12
With the Movida restaurant just above and enclosing two edges of this sun filled public courtyard, select views are framed across to the Supreme Court Dome and surrounding buildings.
The transformation includes new external landscaped plaza spaces with custom designed seating and sculptural skylights for public interaction.
Refurbishment to the existing tower foyer included custom designed plasterglass ceiling panels with integrated lighting and new joinery elements.
