UPD: the winner of the competition was the team Herzog & de Meuron and HASSELL.
The massive neo-Baroque Flinders Street Station (1910) is located in Melbourne's Central Business District, on the banks of the Yarra River. In addition to the strategic location and status of the monument, it also has the love of the townspeople: under the dials at the main entrance, which show the time remaining before the departure of trains, Melbourne people have been making appointments for more than a hundred years.
But now the transport terminal needs a "moral" and physical renovation, so the contestants must make it more convenient and safe for passengers (it is used by 150,000 people a day, this is the busiest station in Victoria), strengthen the connections of the station with the surrounding neighborhoods, create there quality public space and add new features.
118 applications were submitted for the competition, and 6 teams reached the final, with foreign architects paired with local ones: the workshop of Nicholas Grimshaw with John Wardle Architects, Herzog & de Meuron with HASSELL, Zaha Hadid with BVN Architecture, the Australian bureaus ARM (Ashton Raggatt McDougall and NH Architecture singly, with Colombian graduates from the University of Melbourne Eduardo Velasquez, Manuel Pineda and Santiago Medina in sixth place.
Velazquez chose the Flinders Street renovation as the theme of his thesis and was unlikely to count on its implementation. Now it has attracted the favorable attention of not only the jury, but also the public: the project envisages the creation of a city park over the station, a city beach and a pier for a ferry on the banks of the Yarra are also provided.
Zaha Hadid promises to provide convenient and quick access for citizens through the station building to the river, where bicycle and walking paths and a floating stage with stands are planned.
It is planned to improve the circulation inside the building, complement it with a boutique hotel, shops, cafes and a new “piazza”.
As conceived by Nicholas Grimshaw, numerous overground and underground passages will be built to connect the different zones in and around the station. Brick "vaults" are planned along the river (shops and cafes will be located there) and a park raised above the ground.
The Herzog & de Meuron project includes the construction of a large art gallery, an amphitheater, a market, and a headquarters for cultural organizations near the train station.
These new features will link Flinders Street to its flanking clusters of museums and theaters.
The ARM bureau proposes to open a secondary school in the station building, limiting itself, however, to the senior classes.
It is also planned to create a roof-park and a promenade along the river.
NH Architecture wants to cover new station spaces with a glass lattice roof, throw a pedestrian bridge over Yarrah that will link Flinders Street to the museum and parks area on the other side, and set up a "Melbourne Room" in the middle of the station for exhibitions, performances and concerts.
Although the organizers of the competition spent 1.6 million Australian dollars on its holding, the newspaper The Guardian, referring to the Prime Minister of Victoria, Denis Naptein, reports that no specific funds have been allocated for the project, and therefore the implementation is unlikely to begin in the next 10 years. Another trick is the ability to vote for the project you like on the competition website. Although the public is encouraged to choose the best option, its opinion will not be taken into account: the winner will be chosen by the jury.
