Ballarat Gateway
CLIENT | Nigro Group
TYPE | Architecture, Interior Design, documentation
SECTOR | Mixed Use, hotel, hospitality, retail, childcare, leisure, workspace
STATUS | Design Development
LOCATION | BALLARAT, VIC
HEIGHT | Hotel: 30m, 10 Storeys, Office: 26m, 7 storeys
SCALE | GFA: 22,000 sqm, Site 3,662 sqm, 104 keys
Renders | Plus Architecture
A landmark progressive regeneration within the Ballarat Station Southside Precinct, set to deliver an accessible community destination for Ballarat encompassing hotel, hospitality, retail, childcare, leisure and workspace tenancies.
Our Ballarat gateway regeneration design acts a biography of its site, creating a visual tapestry of its diverse history, from the Victorian design heritage and industrial mining era, to the indigenous history of the traditional landowners.
By weaving together past chapters, it encourages an inclusive and connected future. The contemporary design sees the previously isolated train station woven into the CBD’s fabric, while also providing inspiring destinations in which to congregate, dine and stay —a reinvigorated ‘welcome’ to Ballarat - or "balla arat " in local language, meaning "resting place".
Encompassing 116-122 Lydiard Street and 8-10 Mair street, the site rests at a crossroads of streetscapes. Lydiard Street hosts heritage facades, while Mair Street exudes a contemporary industrial aesthetic. We elevated connectivity between them by utilizing Coffee Palace Lane to link the station to the new precinct, and incorporated a bridge that runs from Station South Plaza over Coffee Palace Lane.
The mixed-use design incorporates a 100-bed hotel, retail, hospitality, office space, childcare, wellness facilities, and a rooftop terrace with a bar and swimming pool. By scrutinising the potential of every nook of space, our activated design allows the site to become not only an uplifting welcome from the train station, but also a destination in its own right.
Conceptually we aspired to physically bridge this arm of the city to the CBD, and to visually link the nuances of Ballarat’s historic chapters in a considerate way, that would provoke thought to its potential future.
Having engaged with the Wadawurrung People, who emphasised that visitors should be subtly immersed and educated on the traditional ownership of the land, we incorporated QR codes within core congregation areas of the precinct to provide learnings. Additionally, the bridge will be named in recognition of the Wadawurrung People and aesthetic elements, such as paving patterns, will respectfully echo traditional design.
The artistic sloping form is inspired by the surrounding Victorian silhouettes, reviving the essence of the renaissance-style bluestone builds, while the scale of the project nods to local industrial history. Ocular windows are featured, the circular form referencing the train station and its function revolving around time.
Although a streamlined and refined outcome, dispersing earthy reflections that shimmer with daylight transitions, the panelled façade is deceivingly complex. Fabricated from locally sourced metals and high-performance glazing, with photovoltaic and solar panels integrated, the façade embraces advanced technology and incorporates sustainability as a core architectural feature. Alongside Carbon Neutral Certification, the design achieved a NABERS rating of 5 for the Hotel and 5.5 for the work space, and a 4-star Green Star building rating.
At ground-level, curved archways are repeated throughout, representing physical gateways, these visual invitations open the site to visitors. Passing under the hotel-entry archway, as though through a portal, guests are steered past dining and gathering zones to reception. Above, voids throughout the upper floors usher natural light into the 6000sqm office space.
Site challenges, such as its 6m slope, motivated design features. Although various site levels could have hindered accessibility, we decided to work with the tiered structures by incorporating carparks onto multiple levels that reduced ramp requirements, and installing lifts for upper-floor access. The tiered public spaces feature edible native gardens, produce from which can be used in the hospitality venues.
A highly-involved project, the design deftly moulds a connective tissue between both physical spaces and passages of time, balancing them elegantly and in such a way that project negotiates beyond its original intention of providing connection, rather it conceives an unimposing though unique identity for the site — one that we hope will become part of Ballarat’s ‘future’ heritage.
