Federation Square
Encyclopedia
Federation Square is a civic centre and cultural precinct in the city of Melbourne
, Victoria, Australia
.
It is a mixed-use development
covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred around two major public space
s, open squares (St. Paul's Court and The Square) and one covered (The Atrium,) built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines. It was opened in 2002.
Controversial since the demolition of the industrial buildings that preceded it, Federation Square is also globally famous for its alleged ugliness. In 2009, the Melbourne newspaper The Herald Sun reported that Federation Square is fifth on its list of eyesores, alongside a library in Kosovo, a television tower in Prague and New Zealand's 1970s-era parliament building. A poll conducted by the newspaper also found that 64.13% of the random 2000 Melburnians surveyed responded "Yes, it's an eyesore" to "Should Fed Square rank among the world's ugliest buildings?" The 124 comments on this news article range from the most favourable which suggest that while Federation Square is not picturesque, Melburnians should "get over" the concrete ugliness of it to those who strongly advocate the demolition of an unsightly building that is a "pimple" in a heritage-landscape - with St Pauls Cathedral and Flinders Street Station in its immediate vicinity.
It is Victoria’s second most popular tourist attraction, attracting 8.99 million visitors in 2011.
Unlike many Australian landmarks, it was not opened by the Queen, nor was she invited to its unveiling. The Queen visited Federation Square in October 2011.
which dates back to 1968 was considered by many to be a planning failure. Its redevelopment in the 1990s failed to address serious flaws in its design as a public space and it was during this decade that the first plans for a new square were hatched by the Victorian state government.
and included the twin towers of the former Gas and Fuel Corporation, Jolimont Yard
and the Princes Bridge railway station
(which was itself the former site of a 19th century morgue
). The government sought to remove what were considered to be two of Melbourne's great eyesores, demolishing the 1960s Gas and Fuel Corporation buildings which obstructed a vista of heritage buildings along Flinders Street including St Paul's Cathedral.
was announced by premier Jeff Kennett
in 1997 that received 177 entries from around the world. The design brief was to better connect Flinders Street to the Yarra River and to enhance and complement the neighbouring heritage buildings including St Paul's Cathedral and Flinders Street Station. Several shortlisted designs, which included entries from high profile architects Denton Corker Marshall
and Ashton Raggatt McDougall
, were displayed to the public. The winner, however, announced in 1997 was a consortium of Lab Architecture Studio
directed by Donald Bates and Peter Davidson from London and local architects Bates Smart
. The original design which was costed at between A$110 and $128 million included several five-storey "shards", two of which were free-standing on the north-western edge of the precinct. These two structures were intended to provide a framed view of St Paul's Cathedral from the St Paul's Court part of the new plaza, accentuating its size in a similar perspective inspired by the piazza of St. Peter's Basilica
. A series of interconnected laneways and stairways would connect Flinders Street to the Yarra River with the open square featuring a large viewing screen for public events. These elements were widely supported by the design community and promoted as fulfilling the design criteria whilst also embracing the growing popularity of Melbourne's laneways. However Lab's design was also source of great controversy causing outrage among heritage advocates, primarily due to the positioning of one of the shards.
SBS were announced as an anchor tenant of the office space component of Federation Square. While office space was always intended as a way to fund some of the construction of the square, it was intended that tenants be public or cultural organisations in line with the philosophy of the public space. ACMI and the National Gallery were announced as other major tenants.
administration ordered a significant design revision to appease conservative critics. A later report drawn up by the University of Melbourne's Professor Evan Walker postulated that the westernmost shard would interfere with a so-called "heritage vista", a view of the cathedral from the middle of the tram tracks on Princes Bridge to the south.
Budgets on the project blew out significantly and with long delays, mainly due to the cost of covering the railyard and modifications to the design and among the cost cutting measures was the replacing areas originally designed for paving with concrete.
The final cost of construction was approximately A$467 million (over four times the original estimate) and funding came primarily from the state government with small contributions from the City of Melbourne, federal government
, private operators and sponsors.
Several proposals have been prepared for the area now known as Federation Square East, including covering the remaining area of railyards to the east of the main square. This has included proposals for office towers and, more recently, a combination of open space and a hotel.
Federation Square occupies roughly a whole urban block bounded by Swanston
, Flinders
, and Russell Street
s and the Yarra River
. The open public square is directly opposite Flinders Street Station
and St Paul's Cathedral
. The layout of the precinct to connect the historical central district of the city with the Yarra River and a new park Birrarung Marr.
The complex of buildings forms a rough U-shape around the main open-air square, oriented to the west. The eastern end of the square is formed by the glazed walls of The Atrium. While bluestone
is used for the majority of the paving in the Atrium and St. Paul's Court, matching footpaths elsewhere in central Melbourne, the main square is paved in 470,000 ochre
-coloured sandstone blocks from Western Australia
and invokes images of the Outback
. The paving is designed as a huge urban artwork, called Nearamnew, by Paul Carter
and gently rises above street level, containing a number of textual pieces inlaid in its undulating surface.
There are a small number of landscaped
sections in the square and plaza which are planted with eucalpyt trees.
A key part of the plaza design is its large and fixed public screen, which has been used to broadcast major sporting events such as the AFL Grand Final
and still continues to do so. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup
, thousands of football fans assembled to watch matches on the screen. The original screen was later enlarged.
The interiors and exteriors can be described as being of a deconstructivist style, with modern minimalist shapes interspersed with geometry and angular slots.
While there are slight variations, the main bulk of its buildings follow a similar theme with a complex geometrical design featuring a mix of zinc, perforated zinc, glass and sandstone tiles over a metal exoskeletal frame in a complex geometrical pattern composed entirely of scalene triangles. The aperiodic tiling
pattern is based on the pinwheel tiling
developed by John Conway
and Charles Radin. The triangle is formed with dimensions 1,2,
. This "fractal facade" is contrasted with sections featuring use of metal like surfaces including randomly slotted metallic screens and transparent glass walls tinted with a slightly green tinge.
, while the western shard is clad in glass. Adjoined to the southern shard is a hotel which features the wrap around metallic screen and glass louver
s.
pattern used elsewhere in the precinct's building facades.
system sandwiched above the railway lines and below the middle of the square. The concrete
structure consists of 1.2 km of interlocking, honeycombed walls. It covers 160 m2. The walls have a zig-zag profile to maximize their surface area
, and are spaced 60 cm apart.
During summer
nights, cold air is pumped in the combed space, cooling down the concrete, while heat absorbed during the day is pumped out. The following day, cold air is pumped from the labyrinth out into the atrium through floor vents. This process can keep the atrium up to 12 °C cooler than outside. This is comparable to conventional air conditioning
, but using one-tenth the energy and producing one-tenth the carbon dioxide
.
During winter
, the process is reversed, whereby warm daytime air stored in the Labyrinth overnight, to be pumped back into the atrium during the day.
The system can also partly cool the ACMI building when the power is not required by the atrium.
s, café
s and restaurant
s, Federation Square's cultural facilities include:
Inside the same shell as the atrium is the BMW Edge theatre, a 450 seat space designed to have views of the Yarra River and across to the spire of The Arts Centre
. The theatre is lined in wood veneer in similar geometrical patterns to other interiors in the complex.
(NGV), and is located at Federation Square (international works are displayed at the NGV International on St Kilda Rd). There are over 20,000 Australian artworks, including paintings, sculpture, photography, fashion and textiles, and the collection is the oldest and most well-known in the country.
Well-known works at the Ian Potter Centre include Frederick McCubbin
's Pioneers (1904) and Tom Roberts
' Shearing the Rams
(1890). Also featured are works from Sidney Nolan
, John Perceval
, Margaret Preston
and Fred Williams
. Indigenous art includes works by William Barak
and Emily Kngwarreye
.
The National Gallery at Federation Square also features NGV Kids Corner which is an interactive education section aimed at small children and families and the "NGV Studio".
The Australian Centre for the Moving Image has two cinemas that are equipped to play every film, video and digital video format, with attention to high quality acoustics. The screen gallery, built along the entire length of what was previously a train station platform, is a subterranean gallery for experimentation with the moving image. Video art, installations, interactives, sound art and net art are all regularly exhibited in this space. Additional venues within ACMI allow computer-based public education, and other interactive presentations.
In 2003, ACMI commissioned SelectParks to produce an interactive game-based, site specific installation called AcmiPark. AcmiPark replicates and abstracts the real world architecture of Federation Square. It also houses highly innovative mechanisms for interactive, multi-player sound and musical composition.
It has a ground floor public bar, restaurant and cocktail lounge on the rooftop.
.jpg)
The Melbourne television
and radio
headquarters of the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), one of Australia's two publicly-funded national broadcasters is in one of the office buildings along Flinders Street.
For a while after its opening on 26 October 2002, Federation Square remained controversial among Melburnians due to its unpopular architecture
, but also because of its successive cost blow outs and construction delays (as its name suggests, it was to have opened in time for the centenary of Australian Federation on 1 January 2001). The construction manager was Multiplex
.
However, the negativity was short-lived, with approximately 90% of people surveyed reported liking at least some part of Federation Square. Despite fears that the plaza would remain empty because of its location on the edge of Melbourne's centre, the open space has proved to be a remarkably popular place for protests, performances, cultural gatherings, celebrations and just 'hanging out'.
Federation Square won five awards in 2003 at the Victorian Architecture Awards
, including the Victorian Architecture Medal.
The Australian Financial Review later reported that Melburnians have learned to love the building, citing the record number of people using and visiting it.
The designers of Federation square did not get any work for 6 months after the completion of the A$450 million public space. Instead they received hate-mail.
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Victoria, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
It is a mixed-use development
Mixed-use development
Mixed-use development is the use of a building, set of buildings, or neighborhood for more than one purpose. Since the 1920s, zoning in some countries has required uses to be separated. However, when jobs, housing, and commercial activities are located close together, a community's transportation...
covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred around two major public space
Public space
A public space is a social space such as a town square that is open and accessible to all, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. One of the earliest examples of public spaces are commons. For example, no fees or paid tickets are required for entry, nor are the entrants...
s, open squares (St. Paul's Court and The Square) and one covered (The Atrium,) built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines. It was opened in 2002.
Controversial since the demolition of the industrial buildings that preceded it, Federation Square is also globally famous for its alleged ugliness. In 2009, the Melbourne newspaper The Herald Sun reported that Federation Square is fifth on its list of eyesores, alongside a library in Kosovo, a television tower in Prague and New Zealand's 1970s-era parliament building. A poll conducted by the newspaper also found that 64.13% of the random 2000 Melburnians surveyed responded "Yes, it's an eyesore" to "Should Fed Square rank among the world's ugliest buildings?" The 124 comments on this news article range from the most favourable which suggest that while Federation Square is not picturesque, Melburnians should "get over" the concrete ugliness of it to those who strongly advocate the demolition of an unsightly building that is a "pimple" in a heritage-landscape - with St Pauls Cathedral and Flinders Street Station in its immediate vicinity.
It is Victoria’s second most popular tourist attraction, attracting 8.99 million visitors in 2011.
Unlike many Australian landmarks, it was not opened by the Queen, nor was she invited to its unveiling. The Queen visited Federation Square in October 2011.
Background
Melbourne's first public square, an initiative of the Melbourne City Council was the City SquareCity Square, Melbourne
The City Square is a pedestrian plaza and former civic centre located in the Central Business District of Melbourne, Australia. The square is currently bounded by Swanston Street, Collins Street, Flinders Lane and the Westin Hotel. Melbourne Town Hall and St Paul’s Cathedral are prominent...
which dates back to 1968 was considered by many to be a planning failure. Its redevelopment in the 1990s failed to address serious flaws in its design as a public space and it was during this decade that the first plans for a new square were hatched by the Victorian state government.
First plans
The site selected was immediately south of the Hoddle GridHoddle Grid
The Hoddle Grid is the layout of the streets in the centre of the central business district of Melbourne. Named after its designer, Robert Hoddle, the Grid was laid out in 1837, and later extended...
and included the twin towers of the former Gas and Fuel Corporation, Jolimont Yard
Jolimont Yard
Jolimont Yard was an array of railway lines and carriage sidings on the edge of the central business district of Melbourne, Australia. Located between Flinders Street Station, Richmond Junction, the Yarra River and Flinders Street they were often criticised for cutting off the city from the river,...
and the Princes Bridge railway station
Princes Bridge railway station, Melbourne
Princes Bridge was a Melbourne railway station built in 1859 and was the terminus for all Epping line and Hurstbridge line trains. The station was named after the adjacent Princes Bridge, which crosses the Yarra River. Originally Princes Bridge station was isolated from Flinders Street Station,...
(which was itself the former site of a 19th century morgue
Morgue
A morgue or mortuary is used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification, or removal for autopsy or disposal by burial, cremation or otherwise...
). The government sought to remove what were considered to be two of Melbourne's great eyesores, demolishing the 1960s Gas and Fuel Corporation buildings which obstructed a vista of heritage buildings along Flinders Street including St Paul's Cathedral.
Design competition and controversy
An architectural design competitionArchitectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a special type of competition in which an organization or government body that plans to build a new building asks for architects to submit a proposed design for a building. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel of design professionals...
was announced by premier Jeff Kennett
Jeff Kennett
Jeffrey Gibb Kennett AC , a former Australian politician, was the Premier of Victoria between 1992 and 1999. He is currently the President of Hawthorn Football Club. He is the founding Chairman of beyondblue, a national depression initiative.- Early life :Kennett was born in Melbourne on 2 March...
in 1997 that received 177 entries from around the world. The design brief was to better connect Flinders Street to the Yarra River and to enhance and complement the neighbouring heritage buildings including St Paul's Cathedral and Flinders Street Station. Several shortlisted designs, which included entries from high profile architects Denton Corker Marshall
Denton Corker Marshall
Denton Corker Marshall is a major award-winning Australian architecture practice established in Melbourne in 1972. It was founded by architects John Denton, Bill Corker, and Barrie Marshall...
and Ashton Raggatt McDougall
Ashton Raggatt McDougall
Ashton Raggatt McDougall or ARM is a firm of architects based in Melbourne, Australia known for "architectural outspokenness". Founded in 1988, the firm has completed internationally renowned design work and the principals are Stephen Ashton, Howard Raggatt and Ian McDougall...
, were displayed to the public. The winner, however, announced in 1997 was a consortium of Lab Architecture Studio
Lab Architecture Studio
LAB Architecture Studio is a firm of architects and urban designers based in Melbourne, Australia with international offices in London and Beijing. LAB architecture studio is a practice pursuing the formulation of original, challenging contemporary building projects...
directed by Donald Bates and Peter Davidson from London and local architects Bates Smart
Bates Smart
Bates Smart is Australia's second oldest architectural firm, established in 1853 by Joseph Reed as the practice Reed and Barnes. JPE Design Studio in Adelaide founded in 1851 by Daniel Garlick is the oldest continuing architectural practice in Australia....
. The original design which was costed at between A$110 and $128 million included several five-storey "shards", two of which were free-standing on the north-western edge of the precinct. These two structures were intended to provide a framed view of St Paul's Cathedral from the St Paul's Court part of the new plaza, accentuating its size in a similar perspective inspired by the piazza of St. Peter's Basilica
St. Peter's Basilica
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian as ' and commonly known as Saint Peter's Basilica, is a Late Renaissance church located within the Vatican City. Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world...
. A series of interconnected laneways and stairways would connect Flinders Street to the Yarra River with the open square featuring a large viewing screen for public events. These elements were widely supported by the design community and promoted as fulfilling the design criteria whilst also embracing the growing popularity of Melbourne's laneways. However Lab's design was also source of great controversy causing outrage among heritage advocates, primarily due to the positioning of one of the shards.
SBS were announced as an anchor tenant of the office space component of Federation Square. While office space was always intended as a way to fund some of the construction of the square, it was intended that tenants be public or cultural organisations in line with the philosophy of the public space. ACMI and the National Gallery were announced as other major tenants.
Construction
After a change of government during its construction, and the incoming LaborAustralian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
administration ordered a significant design revision to appease conservative critics. A later report drawn up by the University of Melbourne's Professor Evan Walker postulated that the westernmost shard would interfere with a so-called "heritage vista", a view of the cathedral from the middle of the tram tracks on Princes Bridge to the south.
Budgets on the project blew out significantly and with long delays, mainly due to the cost of covering the railyard and modifications to the design and among the cost cutting measures was the replacing areas originally designed for paving with concrete.
The final cost of construction was approximately A$467 million (over four times the original estimate) and funding came primarily from the state government with small contributions from the City of Melbourne, federal government
Government of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states...
, private operators and sponsors.
Further expansion
In 2006 was Federation Wharf, which extended Federation Square to the Yarra by redeveloping the vaults under the Princes Bridge into cafes and ferry terminals with elevator access to Federation Square.Several proposals have been prepared for the area now known as Federation Square East, including covering the remaining area of railyards to the east of the main square. This has included proposals for office towers and, more recently, a combination of open space and a hotel.
Location and layout
Swanston Street, Melbourne
Swanston Street is a major thoroughfare in the centre of Melbourne, Australia. It is historically one of the main streets of central Melbourne, laid out in 1837 as part of the Hoddle Grid, the layout of major streets that makes up the central business district...
, Flinders
Flinders Street, Melbourne
Flinders Street is a notable street in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Running roughly parallel to the Yarra River, Flinders Street forms the southern edge of the Hoddle Grid. It is exactly one mile in length and one and half chains in width...
, and Russell Street
Russell Street, Melbourne
Russell Street is a north-south street in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia, part of the Hoddle Grid laid out in 1837. At its southern end it intersects with Flinders Street and Federation Square, while at its northern end it becomes Lygon Street, a street famous for its...
s and the Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
. The open public square is directly opposite Flinders Street Station
Flinders Street Station
Flinders Street Station is the central railway station of the suburban railway network of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets next to the Yarra River in the heart of the city, stretching from Swanston Street to Queen Street and covering two city...
and St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne
St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, is the metropolitical and cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. It is the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne and Metropolitan of the Province of Victoria...
. The layout of the precinct to connect the historical central district of the city with the Yarra River and a new park Birrarung Marr.
Square
Bluestone
Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including:*a feldspathic sandstone in the U.S. and Canada;*limestone in the Shenandoah Valley in the U.S...
is used for the majority of the paving in the Atrium and St. Paul's Court, matching footpaths elsewhere in central Melbourne, the main square is paved in 470,000 ochre
Ochre
Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...
-coloured sandstone blocks from Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
and invokes images of the Outback
Outback
The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia, term colloquially can refer to any lands outside the main urban areas. The term "the outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named "the bush".-Overview:The outback is home to a...
. The paving is designed as a huge urban artwork, called Nearamnew, by Paul Carter
Paul Carter (academic)
Professor Paul Carter is an historian, writer, philosopher and artist who is currently Chair in Creative Place Research at Deakin University, Director of Deakin Creative and Deputy Director of the Centre for Memory, Imagination and Invention.He has authored a number of books mainly concerned with...
and gently rises above street level, containing a number of textual pieces inlaid in its undulating surface.
There are a small number of landscaped
Landscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:# living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly referred to as gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating a beautiful environment within the landscape.#...
sections in the square and plaza which are planted with eucalpyt trees.
Plaza and giant screen
AFL Grand Final
The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League premiership champions for that year...
and still continues to do so. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...
, thousands of football fans assembled to watch matches on the screen. The original screen was later enlarged.
Buildings
While there are slight variations, the main bulk of its buildings follow a similar theme with a complex geometrical design featuring a mix of zinc, perforated zinc, glass and sandstone tiles over a metal exoskeletal frame in a complex geometrical pattern composed entirely of scalene triangles. The aperiodic tiling
Aperiodic tiling
An aperiodic tiling is a tiling obtained from an aperiodic set of tiles. Properly speaking, aperiodicity is a property of particular sets of tiles; any given finite tiling is either periodic or non-periodic...
pattern is based on the pinwheel tiling
Pinwheel tiling
Pinwheel tilings are non-periodic tilings defined by Charles Radin and based on a construction due to John Conway.They are the first known non-periodic tilings to each have the property that their tiles appear in infinitely many orientations....
developed by John Conway
John Conway
John Conway may refer to:* John Horton Conway, mathematician at Princeton University. Popularly known for Conway's Game of Life* John B. Conway, mathematician, functional analyst, George Washington University...
and Charles Radin. The triangle is formed with dimensions 1,2,
. This "fractal facade" is contrasted with sections featuring use of metal like surfaces including randomly slotted metallic screens and transparent glass walls tinted with a slightly green tinge.Shards
Three shards frame the square space. The eastern and southern shards are completely clad in metallic surfaces with angular slots, very similar in design to the Jewish Museum BerlinJewish Museum Berlin
The Jewish Museum Berlin , in Berlin, Germany, covers two millennia of German Jewish history. It consists of two buildings. One is the old Kollegienhaus, a former courthouse, built in the 18th century. The other, a new addition specifically built for the museum, designed by world-renowned architect...
, while the western shard is clad in glass. Adjoined to the southern shard is a hotel which features the wrap around metallic screen and glass louver
Louver
A louver or louvre , from the French l'ouvert; "the open one") is a window, blind or shutter with horizontal slats that are angled to admit light and air, but to keep out rain, direct sunshine, and noise...
s.
Laneways
There are a number of unnamed laneways in the Federation Square complex which connect it to both Flinders Street and the Yarra River via stairways. The stairways between the Western Shard and nearby buildings are also paved in larger flat rectangle sandstone blocks.Riverfront
The riverfront areas extend south to an elevated pedestrian promenade which was once part of Batman Avenue and is lined with tall established trees of both deciduous exotic species and Australian eucalpyts. More recently, the vaults adjacent to the Princes Bridge have been converted into Federation Wharf, a series of cafes and boat berths. Some of the areas between the stairs and lanes leading to the river are landscaped with shady tree ferns.Atrium
The "atrium" is one of the major public spaces in the precinct. It is a laneway-like space, five-stories high with glazed walls and roof. The exposed metal structure and glazing patterns follow the pinwheel tilingPinwheel tiling
Pinwheel tilings are non-periodic tilings defined by Charles Radin and based on a construction due to John Conway.They are the first known non-periodic tilings to each have the property that their tiles appear in infinitely many orientations....
pattern used elsewhere in the precinct's building facades.
Labyrinth
The "labyrinth" is a passive coolingPassive cooling
Passive cooling refers to technologies or design features used to cool buildings without power consumption, such as those technologies discussed in the Passive house project.-Passive cooling:...
system sandwiched above the railway lines and below the middle of the square. The concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
structure consists of 1.2 km of interlocking, honeycombed walls. It covers 160 m2. The walls have a zig-zag profile to maximize their surface area
Area
Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...
, and are spaced 60 cm apart.
During summer
Summer
Summer is the warmest of the four temperate seasons, between spring and autumn. At the summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights are shortest, with day-length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice...
nights, cold air is pumped in the combed space, cooling down the concrete, while heat absorbed during the day is pumped out. The following day, cold air is pumped from the labyrinth out into the atrium through floor vents. This process can keep the atrium up to 12 °C cooler than outside. This is comparable to conventional air conditioning
Air conditioning
An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...
, but using one-tenth the energy and producing one-tenth the carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
.
During winter
Winter
Winter is the coldest season of the year in temperate climates, between autumn and spring. At the winter solstice, the days are shortest and the nights are longest, with days lengthening as the season progresses after the solstice.-Meteorology:...
, the process is reversed, whereby warm daytime air stored in the Labyrinth overnight, to be pumped back into the atrium during the day.
The system can also partly cool the ACMI building when the power is not required by the atrium.
Facilities and Tenants
In addition to a number of shops, barBar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
s, café
Café
A café , also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee, like an American coffeehouse. In the United States, it may refer to an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches...
s and restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
s, Federation Square's cultural facilities include:
Melbourne Visitor Centre
The Melbourne Visitor Centre is located underground with its entrance at the main corner shard directly opposite Flinders Street Station and St Pauls Cathedral and its exit at the opposite shard. The entrance and exit shards feature interactive news tickers in colour LEDs and small screens promoting current activities. The Visitor Centre was intended to replace a facility which was previously located at the turn of the 19th Century town hall administration buildings on Swanston Street.BMW Edge Amphitheatre
The Arts Centre (Melbourne)
The Victorian Arts Centre is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the inner Melbourne suburb of Southbank in Victoria, Australia....
. The theatre is lined in wood veneer in similar geometrical patterns to other interiors in the complex.
Zinc - Function and Event Centre
Zinc is a premiere event and function center located next to the BMW Edge theatre. It is primarily popular with corporate events, weddings and ceremonies.National Gallery of Victoria
The Ian Potter Centre houses the Australian part of the art collection of the National Gallery of VictoriaNational Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
(NGV), and is located at Federation Square (international works are displayed at the NGV International on St Kilda Rd). There are over 20,000 Australian artworks, including paintings, sculpture, photography, fashion and textiles, and the collection is the oldest and most well-known in the country.
Well-known works at the Ian Potter Centre include Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
's Pioneers (1904) and Tom Roberts
Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts , usually known simply as Tom, was a prominent Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School.-Life:...
' Shearing the Rams
Shearing the Rams
Shearing the Rams is an 1890 painting by the Australian artist Tom Roberts. The painting depicts sheep shearers plying their trade in a timber shearing shed...
(1890). Also featured are works from Sidney Nolan
Sidney Nolan
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan OM, AC was one of Australia's best-known painters and printmakers.-Early life:Nolan was born in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, on 22 April 1917. He was the eldest of four children. His family later moved to St Kilda. Nolan attended the Brighton Road State School and...
, John Perceval
John Perceval
John de Burgh Perceval AO was a well-known Australian artist. Perceval was the last surviving member of a group known as the Angry Penguins who redefined Australian art in the 1940s...
, Margaret Preston
Margaret Preston
Margaret Preston was a well-known Australian artist. She was highly influential during the 1920s to 1940s for her modernist works as a painter and printmaker and for introducing Aboriginal motifs into contemporary art.-Early life:...
and Fred Williams
Fred Williams
Frederick Ronald Williams OBE was an Australian painter and printmaker. He was one of Australia’s most important artists, and one of the twentieth century’s major painters of the landscape...
. Indigenous art includes works by William Barak
William Barak
William Barak , was the last traditional ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, based around the area of present-day Melbourne, Australia...
and Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Life:Born in 1910, Kngwarreye did not take up painting seriously until...
.
The National Gallery at Federation Square also features NGV Kids Corner which is an interactive education section aimed at small children and families and the "NGV Studio".
ACMI – Australian Centre for the Moving Image
In 2003, ACMI commissioned SelectParks to produce an interactive game-based, site specific installation called AcmiPark. AcmiPark replicates and abstracts the real world architecture of Federation Square. It also houses highly innovative mechanisms for interactive, multi-player sound and musical composition.
Transport Hotel Bar
Transport hotel and bar is a three level hotel complex adjacent to the southern shard on the south western corner of the square.It has a ground floor public bar, restaurant and cocktail lounge on the rooftop.
SBS Television and Radio Headquarters
The Melbourne television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
headquarters of the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), one of Australia's two publicly-funded national broadcasters is in one of the office buildings along Flinders Street.
Beer Awards
Federation Square has recently become home to several beer award shows, and tastings, including the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA) trade and public shows as well as other similar events such as showcases of local and other Australian breweries. These events have been held in the square's indoor outdoor area the Atrium and usually require an entry fee in exchange for a set number of tastings.Past Tentants
Past tenants have included:- "Champions" – The Australian Racing Museum & Hall of Fame
- National Design Centre
Reception and Recognition
In 2009, Virtual Tourist awarded Federation Square with the title of the 'World's Fifth Ugliest Building.' Criticisms of it ranged from its damage to the heritage vista to its similarity to a bombed-out war-time bunker due to its "army camouflage" colours. A judge from Virtual Tourist justified Federation Square's ranking on the ugly list claiming that: "Frenzied and overly complicated, the chaotic feel of the complex is made worse by a web of unsightly wires from which overhead lights dangle." It continues to be a "pet hate" of Melburnians and was recently discussed on ABC's Art NationFor a while after its opening on 26 October 2002, Federation Square remained controversial among Melburnians due to its unpopular architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, but also because of its successive cost blow outs and construction delays (as its name suggests, it was to have opened in time for the centenary of Australian Federation on 1 January 2001). The construction manager was Multiplex
Multiplex (company)
Brookfield Multiplex is a global contracting and development company that designs, builds and maintains property and infrastructure assets.- History :Brookfield Multiplex was founded as Multiplex in 1962 in Perth, Western Australia by John Roberts...
.
However, the negativity was short-lived, with approximately 90% of people surveyed reported liking at least some part of Federation Square. Despite fears that the plaza would remain empty because of its location on the edge of Melbourne's centre, the open space has proved to be a remarkably popular place for protests, performances, cultural gatherings, celebrations and just 'hanging out'.
Federation Square won five awards in 2003 at the Victorian Architecture Awards
Victorian Architecture Awards
The Victorian Architecture Awards are architecture awards that are annually awarded to buildings in the state Victoria, Australia. These awards have been awarded since 1929 by the Australian Institute of Architects....
, including the Victorian Architecture Medal.
The Australian Financial Review later reported that Melburnians have learned to love the building, citing the record number of people using and visiting it.
The designers of Federation square did not get any work for 6 months after the completion of the A$450 million public space. Instead they received hate-mail.