QV is an urban village occupying an entire block in the heart of the city of Melbourne. The urban strategy of the project was to create a precinct responsive to Melbourne’s nineteenth-century history, while celebrating the life of the city through contemporary architecture and design.
The challenge for this project was to simulate the richness and diversity of the city, created over more than one hundred years of accumulated history, in a single, purpose built complex. The design was informed by the model of Melbourne’s laneways as the generator of the urban form.
The site was divided into a number of discrete pedestrian precincts: a city within a city. Fronting Swanston Street and adjoining the State Library, the project also negotiates a course between the demands of shop front, retail architecture and the civic responsibilities of public architecture.
