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Award for Design in Landscape Architecture
ST KILDA PROMENADE
Landscape Architect: Site Office Landscape Architecture and Jackson
Clements Burrows
Client: City of Port Phillip
 There
could be few public spaces in Melbourne more highly charged than the
iconic St Kilda foreshore.
Site office has handled this highly
scrutinised opportunity with both subtlety and confidence. The primary
design objective has been to widen the promenade to provide a multi-use
zone of 'controlled chaos' where dedicated pathways for specific
activities are abandoned in favour of a shared space that encourages
interaction, awareness and respect for the diversity of users.
This is a sophisticated aim, often lost in
the pursuit of unimaginative, public liability driven design solutions.
The promenade and its companion beachfront edge swell and shrink along
their length, creating an urban beachside playground of loosely programmed
activity, equally at ease when crowded in summer or deserted in winter.
From an environmental design perspective, the
project is carried out with an acceptance of the 'artificial' nature of
the foreshore edge whilst the cultural and historical ecology of the site
have been cleverly maintained and interpreted. On a more pragmatic level,
recycled water from beachfront showers is used for irrigation of the
planting component of the project.
Site office, the multi-discipline design team
and the City of Port Phillip are congratulated on a very fine outcome.
Images
Photographs: John Gollings, Ben Wrigley, Graham Burrows
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