The Metro Tunnel Creative Program has been awarded gold at the Melbourne Design Awards 2022 for the pop-up park at Albert Road Reserve, opposite the new Anzac Station on St Kilda Road. This award celebrates creativity and innovation in the process of designing and shaping cities, and is about making connections between people and places, movement and urban form, nature and the built fabric.
Informed by community consultation undertaken in 2020, the temporary pop-up park was designed to provide a gathering space for people in the local area. The park features timber decking, generous seating and new plantings to improve the aesthetic and green amenity in the Anzac Precinct. It is frequently used as a meeting place, eating spot, shelter, as seating respite and event space. With additional lighting and CCTV, people feel that it is safer, and use it more often.
One local resident shared, ‘It's a better use of the space...It completes the feel of community and allows a greater number of people the opportunity to sit and enjoy the gardens precinct.’
The Metro Tunnel Creative Program, with the support of The Place Agency, have activated the park throughout its life, engaging the local community with free dog grooming activities, Anzac Day commemorations, chamber music, fundraisers for the Cancer Council, seedling giveaways and more.
The Metro Tunnel Creative Program has also been awarded a silver award for ‘As Camp as Christmas’ at the Melbourne Design Awards 2022 in the Pop-Ups, Display, Exhibit and Set Design category.
Learn more about the Metro Tunnel Creative Program.
The Metro Tunnel Creative Program worked with delivery partners The Place Agency, landscape architects Enlocus and Gardenridge Living Architecture to design, build and install a temporary pop-up park in Albert Road Reserve.