丨加拿大维多利亚丨searle x waldron architecture

NORTHERN MEMORIAL PARK DEPOT

AWARDED 2025 VICTORIAN ARCHITECTURE MEDAL

THE DIMITY REED MELBOURNE PRIZE

AIA VIC COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE AWARD

AIA VIC SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE COMMENDATION

WINNER 2025 DULUX COLOUR AWARD - COMMERCIAL EXTERIOR

SHORTLISTED 2025 SOCIAL IMPACT AWARD

NEW CEMETERY DEPOT & OFFICE WORKPLACE FOR OPERATIONS TEAM

Northern Memorial Park (NMP) Depot is a significant infrastructure project for the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT). This contemporary facility challenges the conventional typology of a Depot by providing a beautiful workplace for people who work in emotionally challenging roles, dealing daily with grief and loss.

The two-storey mass-timber operations hub rethinks the traditional industrial truss, featuring 20 uniquely shaped glulam timber (GLT) trusses. Timber was chosen to reflect the clients core values to design infrastructure for longevity and sustainability. Its natural warmth and connection to nature contribute to a biophilic design, enhancing overall well-being.

Engineered timber trusses span up to 35 meters across ground floor garage, workshops, and storage rooms. Truss chords lift incrementally to 6 meters high intersecting with first-floor offices, lunchroom and meeting spaces. Open air CLT walkways navigate through the truss chords, connecting these enclosed rooms with interstitial collaboration zones, and creating visual connections between levels.

Spatial connections between levels are centred around the amphitheatre stair to the north, which links kitchen, amenities and key circulation routes. Providing spaces for morning toolbox training, lunchbreaks and watercooler chats between GMCT’s horticulture, burial, and operations teams.

Contextually the NMP Depot is located at the end of an industrial street facing Gowrie train station, opposite a future cemetery, and adjacent to existing wetlands and retained tree canopies. Wrapped in a perforated façade the project responds in scale and materiality to these diverse civic, industrial, natural and memorial site edges.

Materiality of the building takes cues from the industrial vernacular; metal façades shift in colour reflecting the muted green hues of the native Australian landscapes throughout the cemetery. The perforated screen is pleated and folded across three scales amplifying shadows and depth, compressing at double height public entry points.

Pushing out to the eastern street edge, the public-facing façade curves behind and around existing mature gum trees. Lifting to reveal large glulam timber columns, a shared veranda space overlooks new woody meadow landscapes.

The north façade is defined by punctured openings intersected by timber trusses, offering light-filled framed views that connect the interior to the native wetlands beyond.

The industrial silhouette to the west is functional and holds the straight edge of the creek, tilt-up doors, louvre fins and indented shaded entrances are animated by the afternoon sun, forming a backdrop to future memorial spaces.

A towering pile of bricks looming over the site, presented an opportunity during design development to source sustainable materials from the hyper-local. Over 100,000 recycled red bricks form a robust base and paved perimeter, extending into the building to demarcate key entry points. Some painted, some stained and chipped - all with character - stacked to create seats, stairs, and plinths.

By making the often-overlooked aspects of cemetery operations visible, engaging and beautiful, the NMP Depot sets a new standard for operational facilities and memorial infrastructure. It plays a crucial role in shaping the future of GMCT’s services while respecting the solemnity and purpose of its surrounding landscape.

STATUS

- Complete 2024

TYPE

- Commercial, Infrastructure, Memorial, Civic

LOCATION

- Northern Memorial Park, Glenroy, Victoria

CLIENT

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The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust