Uni students have designs on Walkerville

Image by Jack Reynolds.
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Image by Vouch Lim.
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Image by Lydia Paton.
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Thursday, 11 December 2008

The former Transport SA site in suburban Walkerville has provided the inspiration for the University of Adelaide's best architectural students in 2008.

For the past 12 months, final year Masters students from the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design have worked on designs to reinvent this tall office building as an environmentally friendly precinct which incorporates a mix of uses.

This Friday, 12 December they will reveal their ideas in an exhibition which opens at the Queen's Theatre in Currie Street at 6pm.

Urban Design Professor Ian McDougall says the students have produced a range of designs that explore issues of reuse and new ways of city life, which still meet commercial and real estate imperatives.

"The Walkerville site is a location waiting for a vision," he says. "While some of the site is already being developed, sections are unresolved."

Many of the student designs include a new village centre plan, combining community uses with medium density housing, apartments, and retail and office space. Examples include:

• a precinct by Lydia Paton, which includes a library, apartments and a gallery on the corner of Walkerville and Victoria Terrace, with lanes and pathways from neighbouring streets to the Torrens.
  
• Kevin Leek's mixed design of commercial/residential and shopping uses. His scheme melds the grid of the old building with emblems of street art and the natural environment of the river's edge.
  
• Vouch Lim has proposed a reworking of the existing building as the Adelaide Climate Change Research Centre. Her scheme includes elevated gardens and courtyards.
  
• Kimberley Hubber explores the potential of the precinct as a film hub for Adelaide, a research centre or corporate headquarters.
  
• Paul Hendy looks at the use of the site for a new type of school with shared community facilities.
  
• Jack Reynolds' scheme explores a green makeover of the building.

The exhibition also features projects from landscape architecture Masters students, who will reveal their designs to regenerate sites in regional South Australia that are suffering environmental stress, including Lake Alexandrina, Wallaroo and Dry Creek.

"The students demonstrate how high-quality design can invigorate a community and its environment," Professor McDougall says. "With sections of our city becoming denser and being rejuvenated, these young designers show how it is possible to create a remarkable urban life."

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