Wesley Place - 130 Lonsdale Street

130 Lonsdale is the first new building of the broader Wesley Place precinct, located on the historically and contextually significant 1.1-hectare site in Melbourne’s CBD, comprising 60,000m2 of premium commercial space across 35 levels of campus-style floorplates, plus 1,820m2 of retail and public spaces that sit amongst the precinct’s existing heritage fabric. The ground-level experience of 130 Lonsdale is anchored by the sky lobby, a sculptural canopy that references the parabolic geometries of the existing gothic revival buildings, bringing an intimacy to the foyer and tempering the threshold between internal and external spaces. The building’s identity is expressed via a highly sculptural, curvaceous architectural form responding thoughtfully to existing heritage fabric and skyline. The design has been conceived through a singular urban gesture that flexes around the Church, preserving the contemplative nature of worship and opening up key sightlines through the lower levels of the building, welcoming people to the urban realm below, and reinforcing new pedestrian connections between Lonsdale and Little Lonsdale Streets. The Podium has been designed as a recessive backdrop to the existing building fabric on the site. A series of undulating folded metal fins create a delicate veil over the façade, a subtle gesture that gives further prominence to the Church, Manse and Schoolhouse, while allowing access to light and views for the building inhabitants. The tower has been envisaged as a vertical campus, comprising flexible office floorplates ranging from 1700m2 to 2000m2 NLA via a side core. An efficient structural system optimising spans provide largely column-free floorplates, allowing for flexibility for interconnectivity through voids and stairs that are expressed primarily through the western façade. The curved form allows the building to recede into the skyline, with the concave western façade aiming to reflect and sample the historical fabric below as the sun moves across the facade, providing a strong sense of identity to the precinct. Overshadowing constraints resulted in a series of cascading sky terraces at the top of the building, oriented to the south-west to provide tenant amenity, with integrated landscaping echoing the green space below, capturing the afternoon sun and some of the best views across the Melbourne skyline.