Image Credit : John Gollings (images 1,2,3, 4) Peter Bennett(Image 5)
Project Overview
Lonsdale Street is the first key infrastructure project delivered as part of the State Government’s Revitalising Central Dandenong (RCD) Initiative. The RCD Initiative seeks to restore central Dandenong as the capital of Melbourne’s south east bringing new energy and amenity to the heart of this richly diverse urban centre.
Central Dandenong has a unique cultural richness, a dynamic produce market, performing arts precinct and distinctive retail sector, yet the economic decline of the city over many years, took its toll on the overall civic character and public realm experience.
Lonsdale Street was historically a prosperous retail spine but in recent years had developed into a major arterial route dissecting the retail heart and creating a significant physical and psychological barrier to the city. Lonsdale Street was redesigned as a grand boulevard with a pedestrian focus. Through traffic was concentrated into a central band defined by four rows of trees. Adjacent to the retail frontages, a broad tree lined plaza, shared traffic zones and linear gardens provide a pedestrian realm of generosity and distinction. The design is an example of an interdisciplinary approach to the construction of the city involving expertise across a wide range of disciplines.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
DESIGN FLOW - Water Sensitive Urban Design
ELECTROLIGHT - Lighting design
HYDER CONSULTING - Traffic engineering
ARUP - Civil and Services engineers
RSA - Road safety auditors
MURRAY MOUNTAIN - DDA consultant
PAUL THOMPSON AND KATE CULLITY - Horticulture
CANTERI BROTHERS - Lead contractors
SEMKEN - Landscaping
FULTON HOGAN - Asphalt works
IMAGE PAVING - Paving works
Project Brief
Lonsdale Street was informed by an extensive consultation period undertaken by Places Victoria (formally Vic Urban) and the City of Greater Dandenong which identified valued physical and cultural characteristics of the city and provided the aspirational components of our brief.
This study was supplemented by our own exhaustive mappings and masterplanning for the City to ensure the urban design for Lonsdale Street was transformational yet built upon the distinctive qualities of the setting.
Project Need
Our approach to Urban Design projects of this magnitude is curatorial, recognising that successful urban design should not be concerned with a fixed plan but instead offer key ideas that are fundamental catalysts for change.
The vision was built on the following:
Connections; Lonsdale Street became a key connecting catalyst, fostering clear and legible street connections to each of the City’s key public assets.
Street Life: Creating a memorable boulevard, animated along its length and connected to a range of finer grain experiences from active retail edges, linear park space and a civic plaza.
Knitting into the Urban Morphology; Ensuring Lonsdale Street was structured to build upon the distinctive urban structure of the City , reinforcing existing fine grain patterns.
Protecting Valued Urban Places: Identifying Lonsdale Street and its adjacent precincts as a significant opportunity to curate the ongoing retention of cultural destinations and creating new opportunities for urban places and activity to develop.
Investment and Design Excellence; Creating opportunities for investment and further development via the creation of a rich and enduring public realm experience.
Design Challenge
The first challenge was to have all the major stakeholders; Places Vic, VicRoads, City of Greater Dandenong, Department of Transport, Department of Public Transport, Bicycle Victoria and number of services provides along with the trades of Lonsdale street to all agree on a typical cross section for new street and a concept plan. This took over 12 months of stakeholder negotiations and many variations of the concept to final obtain an agreed scheme.
The second challenge was trying to get an agreed typical cross section to work along the entire length of the street to create a new boulevard with 6 rows of trees. With a host of issues to deal with such as existing service assets, major flooding issues requiring new infrastructure and in some areas considerable level changes whist maintaining access to existing building levels. Two major stormwater barrel drains the run the full length of the site, a major Telstra underground interchange and a few underground services that were discovered during construction.
The third challenge was working through all the traffic engineering issues associated with such a major road and having the end result look and feel like a pedestrian focused space which complies with all the road authority requirements.
Sustainability
The first sustainable initiative was to change the order of priority for the street, from the existing condition where cars and trucks were prioritised over the pedestrian, to the proposed; pedestrian, public transport and cyclist friendly street. In doing so the street encourages walking, cycling and public transport as modes of circulation saving in transport energy costs.
By creating a more pedestrian focused space, this has helped to rejuvenate the street retail to create a more sustainable economy and social condition in the street.
The second shift was to capture and treat majority of the sites stormwater for storage and reuse onsite. This was achieved by creating a series of ‘rain gardens’ that capture and treat the roads run off , this is then diverted to a series of storage tanks located under the roadway. This water is then used to irrigate the linear park space on each side of the road and ensure that the 260 trees in the new boulevard have adequate water in times of drought.
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Urban Design
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