A lively, mixed-use, vertical city that was more than a tower, a new city form for urban life, work, and leisure. It created an exciting mix of workspaces, hotel accommodation, restaurants, bars, and shopping in a unique tower crowned with apartment living.

Located in the heart of Melbourne’s primary arts and entertainment district, Beulah Propeller City was designed as a recognizable architectural landmark that redefined the residential, commercial, retail, and public open-space environments of Melbourne.

The proposed building, with its dramatic silhouette, reflected the vitality and creativity of the city and was designed as a destination for local, national, and international visitors. The vision for Beluah Propeller City was the creation of a vertical city composed of multiple functions intertwined in a fluid gesture of vertically linked public spaces. The ​“Gestalt” of the structural, material, and functional components of the design was designed to create a memorable and unmistakable icon in the cityscape.

The design of the building form was approached as an artist would a sculpture. The maximum possible building envelope was the starting block; the client’s brief, planning regulations, the existing urban form, climate, and views to and from the site were considerations that prompted the specific carves and manipulations to reveal the dynamic urban figure within.

Within the interstices of the main building elements free spaces are created: atria, terraces, community facilities, and amenity spaces such as recreational and public areas for leisure, pleasure, and circulation.

These spaces provide orientation and navigation for people living there, at the same time enabling personal interaction resulting in community formation. The result of this approach is a unified composition of identifiable building elements comprising low, mid, and high-rise volumes created by dividing the program of the building into its four main functional parts as public podium, office, hotel, and apartment tower.

Through the design of the external primary structure, the internal construction elements are optimized and reduced thereby enabling maximum flexibility for current uses as well as future adaptability, which is a primary expression of architectural design. Formal decomposition articulating the various programmatic components defined the new high-rise typology and ultimately served to make each functional element feel more intimate.