After a six-month global search, Beulah International has announced that ‘Green Spine’ by Dutch architecture firm UNStudio and Cox Architecture has been selected as the winning design for the $2 billion-plus Southbank site.
Melbourne’s Green Spine is set to become Australia’s tallest building to date and will form a cantilevered structure composed of two towers, both with a twisting geometric glass façade and terracing. According to Cox and UNStudio, the tower was conceived as a conceptual extension of the Southbank Boulevard and will house a vertical city of green spaces.
The innovative new building will provide a pedestrian connection at street level through a series of stairs and stepped terraces, which will lead visitors up along the retail and entertainment precinct to its one of a kind garden area. The spine twists into a series of outdoor spaces and green devices along the façades of the two towers, culminating at the top of the residential tower is the picturesque publicly accessible Future Botanic Garden, a garden in the sky.
In their design brief, Cox Architecture stated that the design is the product of the two firms’ collaborative, conceptual thinking of future living which considers nature, culture and well-being all within the urban framework. The ambition of the project was to create a building that is ‘a city in itself’, one that features a multitude of programs and intricacies, as well as being fully integrated into the existing city network of cultural, entertainment, leisure and commercial offerings.
The residential tower is set to reach 356.20m high, and the hotel and office tower will reach close to 252.20m high. The plans for Green Spine include a hotel, an entertainment facility, a BMW Experience Centre, in addition to a childcare facility, a school and an extensive Retail and Food Precinct which will hold a food hall, a cinema, a library and room for interactive spaces.
Belulah extended their sincerest thanks to all other firms who took part in the competition, comment that selecting a winner was ‘by no means an easy task’.
More updates on this project are still to come, for now, more information can be found here.