Melbourne’s rich legacy of heritage buildings and precincts make it a distinctive place to live, work and visit.
The central area of Melbourne, the Hoddle Grid, was laid out by surveyor Robert Hoddle in 1837 and remains the civic heart of the city. Melbourne is renowned as one of the world’s great Victorian gold rush cities.
Melbourne’s Planning Framework identifies heritage as a defining characteristic of the municipality. Heritage places encompass both individual heritage places and heritage precincts. These places are variously of heritage value for their historic, aesthetic, social, spiritual and scientific significance. They include residential and non-residential places, public parks and gardens, trees and infrastructure.
The value of heritage
Heritage places distinguish cities by adding authenticity and distinction to urban experiences. Distinct character and city identity is vitally important to attracting visitors and investment. In the year ending June 2019, 43% of international overnight visitors to the City of Melbourne visited a heritage building, site or monument.
Heritage places help make cities more people-centred, more sustainable and more resilient to changing economies, ensuring the amenity, human scale and tactility of the city. Retention of heritage buildings helps to ensure a greater diversity of tenancies, businesses and household types, providing the city with different land uses and communities.
Design in a heritage context
When good contemporary design respects but does not imitate the heritage context, it can be compatible with heritage places. City of Melbourne supports design excellence and is currently promoting this through the Draft Design Excellence Program 2019-2029.
The adaptation of heritage buildings presents a design opportunity for architects and designers to find innovative solutions that respect the heritage fabric in a contemporary context. As development pressure increases in Melbourne, more heritage buildings are being reused, producing some excellent examples of developments combining high quality contemporary design with heritage significance.
“Good design should complement existing heritage buildings or conservation areas by respecting historic character, by adapting or contrasting it without overwhelming heritage values. Infill buildings should complement the existing built form and leave a valuable legacy for the future. The careful consideration of scale, massing, setbacks and fine-grain streetscapes is critical when designing within a heritage context. An informed design response relies on understanding heritage values and addressing opportunities and constraints that arise from these.”
Good Design and Heritage – OVGA
Further information
When contemporary design respects but does not imitate the heritage context, it can be compatible with heritage places.
161 Collins Street, Melbourne
Design team: Bates Smart
Photo credit: Peter Clarke
Heritage places and change
Heritage places can teach us about our past, such as historical movements and how they influenced design (e.g. Arts and Crafts and Modernism), the ethics and standards of the past in building typologies (e.g.. Churches, schools and institutions) and construction methods (e.g. building heights and the curtain wall). Although Melbourne has retained many Victorian era buildings, more recent waves of development have created a layered urban environment where time can be “read” in the materials, styles and ages.
“Contemporary architecture and innovative design is an important part of the contextual approach to heritage fabric because it adds to the existing diversity and layering of architectural styles over time. This layering, which can retain heritage from successive periods, is a defining feature in Victoria’s heritage.”
Good Design and Heritage – OVGA
Heritage places and sustainability
The retention of heritage buildings can help minimise a site’s carbon footprint by limiting the loss of embodied energy associated with demolition and new construction. Heritage builds can often be upgraded to a higher environmental performance without change to heritage fabric. With clever design heritage characteristics will enhance ESD outcomes. For example double brick construction can maintain more stable internal temperatures and smaller floor-plates can help optimise the amount of natural daylight internally.
Heritage places can be adapted to incorporate new environmental features to significantly improve their performance, such as solar panels, insulation, draught-proofing, energy efficient heating and hot water systems, water tanks, installation of high performance glazing (depending on the significance of existing glazing).
Building characteristics
Some characteristics of a heritage building are depicted in the diagrams below. Other building characteristics include height, massing and form, style and architectural expression, detailing, materials, front and side setbacks and orientation.
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