The place

Public Office is a new centre for creative work sited in two redeveloped buildings in Melbourne’s Collingwood district. It will be a place of work and congregation with a variety of different uses including atelier workspaces, affordable artists’ studios, retail and other social and cultural tenancies. The building design embraces and connects with the street, where a new lane runs through at ground level, extending street life into the site.

The brief

We were asked to work with long-time collaborators Steph Macdonald and Tom Emerson of 6a architects on the concept of a ‘walk-up village’, where planting and architecture intertwine from street to roof level to provide access to outdoor space and planting at all levels and so encourage chance encounters that occur more commonly on the street.

The design

Inspired by the idea of a Mediterranean hilltop village, two 13 storey buildings are linked by a network of open-air, densely planted staircases and air bridges leading to planted balconies, garden terraces and a public rooftop garden, where a central glasshouse pavilion provides seating and refreshments. Over 3,000 predominantly indigenous plants will inhabit the architecture.