Sustainability highlights
Design solutions for level crossings are tailored to each local area’s specific issues and urban design opportunities.
Mt Derrimut Rd (Deer Park Station), for example — awarded the 2024 Australasian Rail Industry Sustainability Excellence Award — features the state of Victoria’s first green roof, improving amenity, ecology, stormwater treatment and the thermal performance of the building.
Some of the other sustainable achievements that have successfully been implemented on Mt Derrimut Rd are:
- 44% of the project is covered by vegetation — including two rooftop gardens — to combat the increasing urban heat island effect in Melbourne’s west, offering some resilience to future rising temperatures.
- Social value: integration of Traditional Owners, Wurundjeri-Woi Wurrung heritage and values into the design narratives and built environment, aiming to reconnect people with this landscape and its cultural meaning. The result demonstrably contributes to the social and cultural wellbeing of the community. Some of the ways this was achieved include:
- Strategically positioning three giant granite boulders to represent the once prominent mountain landmarks of You Yang’s, Mt. Disappointment, and the Macedon Ranges. These landmarks — now barely visible behind new houses — are significant as creation stories and were once used for navigation on the flat grassland plains. They are now subtly referenced in the design.
- Elevating the ecological and cultural significance of the local grassland and the region’s Golden Sun Moth through incorporation in the design and interpretive signage.
- Subtly expressing the story of invasion, environmental degradation of the Western Volcanic Plains grassland, and the resulting dispossession of the First Peoples through exaggerated sheep-hoof imprints engraved in the pavements.
- Creating a sinuous bluestone paving design to evoke the ancient volcanic flows beneath the ground.
Station design and architecture
Our designs for the new stations and precincts carefully balance functionality, performance and identity. We aimed to create great places that serve as an avenue to catch a train or bus while also being accessible and connected civic spaces that improve the economic, environmental and social aspects for each community.
Union Station, for example, responds to the history and character of the local area, while maximising open space and establishing high-quality amenities and easier connections for commuters, pedestrians and cyclists in a tight, well-established and sensitive suburban environment.
Ginifer Station is another example that stands as a testament to the power of design to transform not just a space but its entire identity. With a bold, coloured back-lit façade, the station shed its old image, embracing a vibrant, modern aesthetic. But this was more than a visual upgrade. The design balanced beauty with purpose — delivering durable materials and enhanced safety for a growing community. The open-plan layout fosters a welcoming atmosphere, transforming the forecourt into an inviting public space designed to meet the evolving needs of commuters.
Urban design and landscape architecture
By tailoring our urban design and landscape architecture to the issues and opportunities inherent to each local area, we ensured the infrastructure was sensitively integrated into its environment, enhancing the site’s ecology, fostering a sense of community and elevating its overall character and purpose.
The removal of a level crossing in Werribee in Melbourne’s south-west suburbs, and the creation of a new precinct below the rail bridge is just one of our standout projects.
Undertaken in partnership with WPA, the Werribee Street level crossing removal improves travel for the 20,000 vehicles that use this crossing daily. Raising the rail line has created 30,000 sqm of new public space, extending the local park, and providing new landscaping and a custom-built skate park below the rail structure.
Shared-use paths provide new connections through the parkland and now link Werribee town centre and the train station. Over 120,000 native trees and shrubs were planted, contributing to the greening and biodiversity of the western suburbs of Melbourne.
We engaged with Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Cooperation throughout the project to embed Connection to Country and the strong Wadawarrung cultural and spiritual association with the Werribee River into the design. The centrepiece of which is a public art piece by Vicki Couzens and Jeph Neale of oversized emu feet, ‘Kaweerr’, the ancestral emu spirit that walks Country.
Awards
- 2023 Australian Institute of Landscape Architects National Landscape Architecture Award (Infrastructure) — North Williamstown Station Level Crossing Removal Project
- 2024 Australasian Rail Industry Awards – Winner of the Sustainability Excellence Award — Mt Derrimut Road Level Crossing Removal Project, Western Program Alliance (WPA)
