As part of the ongoing investment into Melbourne Central, GPT is developing a new rooftop retail, entertainment and dining precinct along with a ten-storey timber commercial office tower that will sit atop the existing centre. The development will collectively bring new elevated public spaces, including a central gathering place, curated best-in-class food offerings, a rich program of events and activities, as well as a range of amenity for the users of the new office tower and visitors to Melbourne Central.

Village Well has a long history of working collaboratively with GPT on Melbourne Central, having worked on the original masterplan in the early 2000s and having provided ongoing strategic advice since. For the Rooftop redevelopment project, GPT sought a strong placed-based approach that tapped into Melbourne Central’s unique stories and spirit of place, as well as explored the various types of exchanges that could occur on the Rooftop, including spiritual, cultural and social ones.

Village Well’s generated a compelling Place Vision for the Rooftop, drawing on the outcomes of our multidisciplinary place analysis, and combined with frequent engagement with the project and design team. Village Well also developed focussed placemaking recommendations for the Rooftop’s distinct precincts, to guide future activation planning for and design and operations of the Rooftop, and partnered with leading regenerative development researcher Dominique Hes to embed a regenerative narrative and lens to this work,, as well as Chip Kaufman, an architect specialising in ecologically sustainable design.

The process and project overall were successful in building positive relationships and galvanising the project team around a vision and unique identity for the Rooftop that will inform the ongoing design, leasing and operations planning in the creation of this new, unique destination for Melbourne’s CBD.