Melbourne Airport Rail Link

**Policy Development - Merit**
Melbourne Airport Rail Link
Client: Landscape Architect:	City of Moreland Aspect Melbourne Pty Ltd
The Melbourne to Airport Rail Link is a large scale government project that sits at the nexus between what’s possible in the tradition of great urbanism and what’s possible in the world of politics and the economics of BOOT schemes. It was Aspect’s endeavour to bring to this project an innovative methodology and a set of objectives that sought a productive relationship between policy and the final aesthetic, environmental and cultural form of the proposed rail link. The greatest challenge confronting this type of project is the relationship between strong environmental and urban planning, and the mechanisms that can be used to secure and guarantee high quality urban design at the construction stage.
The project contributes to the policy realm of infrastructure planning and construction through three distinct forms: Landscape and Visual Assessment Study Environmental Management Plan Community Benefits Summary The scope of the project took in the northern and north-western suburbs from central Melbourne to Tullamarine Airport. Aspect incorporated design within the process at both the metropolitan and local scales, to resolve the complexity of the project and realise its potential in the final recommendations. The potential for this methodology is for the infrastructure to be a catalyst for the establishment of strong local public landscapes and significant regional urbanity.

J U R Y ' S C O M M E N T S The Melbourne Airport Rail link proposal involves the identification of three optional routes from the airport to the city. Aspect developed the brief and undertook a comparative landscape and visual assessment for each of the routes as part of a larger EIA and EMP. Preparation of the brief has enabled the group to extend the scope of works beyond a more generic analysis of ‘visual impact’ based on viewpoints, viewsheds and other aesthetic considerations. They employed a ‘whole of landscape’ approach, which examines the effects of the routing options in respect to the triple bottom line: ecology, economy and equity. The project is notable for its in-depth analysis of potential impacts and the exploration of options of migration. More importantly, the team explored how the values and visions of the affected communities might be furthered by the project through the funding and implementation of existing community strategies for public improvements along the length of the optional routes. The analysis and proposed strategy provides an important basis for deciding on a preferred route and for setting criteria on a preferred route and for setting criteria for future assessment and auditing of the eventual implemented alignment. Important to the assessment of performance criteria was the section of a number of precedent projects from elsewhere in Australia and overseas they could provide inspiration for final outcomes. Aspect is to be congratulated for its thorugh work, its expansive response to the problem and for the way in which its approach goes beyond the boundaries of current landscape and visual analysis.
Images