Architect：Carr;Grimshaw Architects

Location：477 Collins Street, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; | ;

Project Year：2021

Category：Offices

Gracing Melbourne's skyline, 40-storey Mirvac development, Olderfleet, was recognised by Australian Institute of Architects' Victorian Chapter by winning the interior architecture award.

Set back from three heritage-listed buildings at 477 Collins Street, Olderfleet is a 58,000 sq m PCA Premium Grade office tower located in the centre of Melbourne's CBD which draws consistent reference to its significant heritage context, bringing an attention to detail and spatial experience across all scales of the project.

Working on the project since 2012 as Lead Architect, Grimshaw's design intent was the promotion between the old and the new, driving a narrative anchored on binary oppositions and the passage of time.

Grimshaw Melbourne Managing Partner, Neil Stonell, notes "Our architectural vision for the project is complemented by a comprehensive interior architecture approach that places the building's occupants front and centre by providing comfort and convenience akin to a fine hotel".

Carr was appointed in 2017 to work with Grimshaw on the building interior, embracing the architectural vision of place making and bringing the legibility of the architecture to the ground through the interior experience.

“Extensive research into user experience and context informed our planning, material selections and overall approach” says senior interior designer An Bui, Carr.

"Driving the interiors was an exploration of opposing forces - of old and new, dark and light, compression and expansion, and night and day - contributing to the project's qualities of transition and contrast," says Rebecca Trenorden, Associate Director, Carr.

Immediately setting expectations, the main entrance on Collins Street brings people through a heritage vestibule, made intentionally dark to instigate a sense of anticipation before opening out into a light-filled, voluminous lobby space with an atrium.

The dark entry portal incites a reverence and acknowledgement of the heritage buildings, while unconsciously making people slow down as they transition from the frenetic street into the new and quieter environment that is the lobby.