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Key points
- Melbourne’s high rise car parks could be adapted into urban farms and communal spaces in the future.
- The architects of Melbourne’s tallest building, Australia 108, have created designs envisioning the transformation of the building’s 10 levels of car parking into space for a vertical farm, bee hives, water collection and storage, pet care, podcast studios, co-working and education.
- The City of Melbourne is reviewing and updating a suite of planning reforms announced in March which, if passed, require all high-rise developments to be more sustainable and include the potential to retro-fit car parking.
Urban farms and communal spaces are among the ideas for repurposing car park floors in Melbourne’s skyscrapers in the future, when it is predicted that residents will rely more on driverless and shared electric cars.
The architects of Melbourne’s tallest building, Australia 108, have created designs envisioning the transformation of the building’s 10 levels of car parking into space for a vertical farm, bee hives, water collection and storage, pet care, podcast studios, co-working and education.
Architects Jim Stewart (left) and Shem Kelder at Melbourne Skyfarm on the rooftop of the Siddeley Street car park. Credit: Joe Armao
The aspirational redesign of the 100-storey building’s car parks was inspired by City of Melbourne planning reforms announced in March. If passed, the reforms would require all high-rise developments to be more sustainable and include the potential to retrofit parking areas.
Fender Katsalidis architect Shem Kelder helped design Australia 108 in 2008 and said at the time that the building’s open-air car parking, built on a podium on the lower levels of the building rather than in a basement, was controversial but proved a good model for adaptation.
“There is so much potential to be unlocked in the adaptive reuse of parking spaces and this extends beyond more conventional solutions, like office space or apartments,” he said. “We think that with the right location, scale and use there are solutions that are sustainable, and maybe even commercially viable.”
Car parking levels at Australia 108 reimagined as an urban farm and communal spaces. Credit: Fender Katsalidis
The building has 568 parking spaces, but Kelder said people were less likely to need them in a future of self-driving cars.
“I’d love to see it happen in the next decade,” he said. “That’s what this whole thing was about, trying to crystal ball into the future and see what is the potential for these kind of spaces within our CBD environments in particular.”
Kelder pointed to the Melbourne rooftop farm Skyfarm, which is on top of a car park, and commercial indoor farm Urban Green, in Sydney, which uses a basement car park to grow microgreens and sprouts that are delivered by bicycle to nearby restaurants.
But he said there had so far been little interest from developers in reusing parking spaces or reducing the number being built.
There were also difficulties with buildings such as Australia 108, where each car park was on a separate title, he said.
“If I think about some above-ground car-park structures in the CBD, when we get to a point where it’s actually more profitable to convert that into a farm, for example, instead of generating revenue from car parking, that’s when you’ll start to see that kind of change happening,” he said.
Acting Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece said the City of Melbourne was still reviewing and updating its proposed planning changes after industry and residential consultation.
“Our new sustainable building amendment will require new off-street car parks to be designed with the future in mind,” he said. “New off-street parking spaces will need to be able to be retrofitted into alternative uses, including apartments, offices, bars, restaurants and even urban green space.”
Reece said developers and architects were “leaning in” to the proposed changes, and he was already seeing plans with fewer parking spaces and designed so they could have other future uses.
The Australia 108 building in Southbank has 10 levels of car parking, which are covered in greenery.Credit: Justin McManus
“Our modelling shows that fewer cars will be travelling around the city in decades to come, and no matter how Melbourne’s transport system evolves into the future, I think it’s critical that new buildings are able to adapt,” he said.
“Melbourne is now a fast-growing city, and we do need to keep thinking about modal shift, because if 5.5 million people all decide to drive their car into the centre of the city, it is just not going to work.
“Designing our city in a way which allows people to move around efficiently will mean we are increasingly looking to non-private vehicles as the best way to get people around.”
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