Settlers Square and Halpin Way
Public Realm / Urban Revitalisation
Year - 2013
Client -City of Greater Dandenong / VicUrban
Scope - Sketch design through to contract admin
Location - Dandenong, Victoria
Budget -
Team - CAStudios / SAALA in collaboration with Aspect Studios, Williams Boag Architects, Electrolight, & Arup.
Halpin Way, Settlers Square is part of a large urban regeneration, development and infrastructure project undertaken in a partnership between VicUrban and the City of Greater Dandenong. The ultimate goal of this project is to revitalise the economy and so re-create the city as the state’s second capital. As such it was a project of regional and national importance – particularly in as an exemplar of urban renewal for regional cities in Australia. This project is also a bench mark demonstration of successful collaborative design process delivering design excellence from an interrelationship between several leading design and engineering companies, a number of state government and development bodies, and various community organisations.
Halpin Way, Settlers Square form an extended civic link over three full city blocks to the revitalised town centre of Dandenong. Halpin Way is a new fully shared and kerbless street with consistent pavement for pedestrians, bicycles and cars. The street has been considered as a stretched urban room, with its width opened up and then tightened to offer a range of spatial experiences. As such it becomes an important exemplar of pedestrianisation in urban centres in an Australian context.
The project’s delivery is designed to take place over a number of years with the associated challenge of designing the street and the square to work in their own right without the immediate benefit of buildings with known uses along a number of their edges. This has led to the innovative thinking regarding the temporal design of urban form and spatial engagement.
Settlers Square provides an important link between the railway station and Halpin Way while astutely resolving complex level changes and providing a new public square – an event space and destination point in its own right. Of especial note in the development of the design of the square was the use of advanced digital modelling and optimisation techniques. Overall, the project makes a substantial contribution to Dandenong, providing a well-detailed, high quality civic environment.
+ AILA Victoria 2013 Urban Design Award, for Halpin Way, Settlers Square, Dandenong. In collaboration with Aspect Melbourne, Williams Boag Architects, Electrolight, ARUP.
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