Docklands build-to-rent scheme on public exhibition

Designs for a residential tower in Melbourne's Docklands are currently on exhibition with the Victorian ministerial permits register. Authored by architecture practice FK, the 38-storey tower proposal from Salta Properties is located just north of the city's Marvel Stadium and comprises 560 built-to-rent apartments.

Located at 696-699 La Trobe Street, on the corner of Harbour Esplanade, the project site is home to a previously approved mixed-use development, also by Fender Katsalidis (FK). The previous scheme included three towers - the tallest with an overall height of 128 metres.

According to a report from Urbis, the project's planning consultant, "The site has an important connection to the CBD as it marks the termination of La Trobe Street. It is one of the remaining harbour front infill blocks in a locale that has been masterplanned at a larger scale."

"The development is anticipated to become synonymous with the Docklands as a recognisable urban marker in the context of the area that frames Docklands Stadium as forming part of the city when view from the waterfront," Urbis notes.

The massing of the proposed design, which reaches just over 130 metres in height, is separated into a seven-storey podium - host to a residents' lounge, bike workshop, cafe, sitting areas, lounges and services - and residential tower above.

Of the apartment offering, 10 percent of the component of the building over 75 metres in height are designated as affordable.

In addition to the proposed residents' uses, the scheme includes a 483-square-metre co-working area on ground floor, a fitness centre on level seven, and dining areas, lounges and external amenity on the top floor.

The proposed tower takes an interlocking form. According to Urbis's report, the masonry and concrete podium, which is designed to have "a sense of monumentality," is contrasted with a lighter, aluminium and glazed tower articulation. The report describes the architectural language as one "that seeks to provide a sense of solidity and human scale in a precinct that has many modern glass edifices and anonymous glazed shopfronts."

A landscape design from Oculus includes a protected urban forecourt with a large civic gesture "intended as an artistic landmark," Urbis's statement notes. The podium rooftop and rooftop terraces at level 27 also involve "substantial landscaped areas."

The proposal is on public exhibition.