Victoria
Powerhouse Place is the most recent project to connect Mildura’s CBD and community to the Mighty Murray River. This important post settlement industrial site had fallen into disrepair. It has now been reimagined as a place for community, creativity and connection.
The project includes adaptive reuse of the historic powerhouse for events, exhibitions and retail. New buildings contain a commercial kitchen, public toilets (including changing places) and a café. These small buildings nestle around a central green space for performance and relaxation.
Powerhouse Place celebrates the scale, history and materials of the powerhouse building but reflects the need to create new community spaces that are ecologically restorative, inclusive and activated.
The new buildings are the first carbon positive, hemp masonry public buildings in Australia and are arranged to create human scaled, intimate and tactile spaces.
National Award for Sustainable Architecture
Powerhouse Place by Public Realm Lab combines social and environmental sustainability in a conceptually sophisticated and highly skilled series of design moves, contributing to the regeneration of both site and community in Mildura.
While reusing and adapting the existing Powerhouse, the project looked to actively recast the settler-colonial extractivist history that this building embodies – employing strategies of addition, subtraction and reuse. The resulting building is a fine composition of hard-working public spaces, but also a model of strategic advocacy.
As Powerhouse Place includes the first use of hempcrete in a public building in Australia, the jury was particularly impressed with the project’s attempts to support the regional development of the hemp industry, and the uptake of this sustainable material through building the supply chain. Even as these ambitions may not yet be fully realised, they underscore the role that architects can play in moving “upstream” – helping develop products and markets for sustainable materials in the built environment more broadly.
By reimagining Mildura’s relationship with the Murray River, Powerhouse Place is not only a space for tourists, but one that also invites locals to come together in new ways – in processes of community gathering, celebration and truth-telling that have already been, by all accounts, transformative.
National Award for Urban Design
A sensitive and calculated response proving the power of “less is more”. Reapproaching the original masterplan with a series of deft moves, Powerhouse Place tactfully considers the individual elements required to foster community and gathering within the absence of built form, while providing for celebration, function and ablutions.
The expressions of the buildings are subservient to their use and the greater whole; community is put first, with their needs the catalyst for the reimagining of a gathering place alongside the Murray River.
Powerhouse Place has an immediate sense of belonging – a curated assemblage of structures old and new, material palettes blending to make ambiguous the passage of time. The project fosters deeper connections to Country – teachings of Mildura’s past, the importance of its place and its relationship to the river – through the careful shaping of landscape and program placement.
Powerhouse Place offers forth a meaningful and inclusive place for the community to enjoy, providing unique civic spaces able to accommodate events previously impossible to house within the city. It steps lightly and defines an exemplary approach to the sensitive transformation of our country’s colonial and industrial past.
The Allan and Beth Coldicutt Award for Sustainable Architecture
Powerhouse Place by Public Realm Lab reconnects the Mildura CBD and community to the Murray River. The project revitalises a neglected post-industrial site, transforming it into a hub for community and connection. The project demonstrates exemplary sustainable design principles through adaptive reuse, materiality, and community engagement.
The approach is underpinned by asking the right questions of how best to reuse, and where required to build new with material choices that have a positive impact on the environment by sequestering carbon. The first of their kind in Australia.
The existing Powerhouse structure was retained and repurposed, minimising demolition and waste. Salvaged materials, like the roof sheeting, were incorporated into the new design, providing deep shade to the hot climate. Native vegetation and mature tree preservation is prioritised, increasing the site’s canopy cover.
Sustainable transportation is encouraged through dedicated pedestrian and cycling paths, promoting active lifestyles and reducing reliance on cars. The design’s flexibility anticipates future development within the masterplan.
The jury was impressed by the extensive community consultation leading to a deep understanding of community needs, promotion of local business and inclusion of social enterprise. By prioritising both community and environmental responsibility, Powerhouse Place sets a model for future development in Mildura and provides an example for how to build less to give more.
The Joseph Reed Award for Urban Design
Powerhouse Place is a benchmark for our time; an exemplar of doing more with less and putting the human experience at the core of every design decision. It balances Country against the industrial heritage of its place, ensuring the mighty Murray River remains the hero of the precinct while a new level of amenity offers a myriad of possible experiences in a generous and welcoming way.
The flexibility inherent in every design move is impressive, each element has been carefully crafted to be multi-functional for both public and private uses, day and night, and in all seasons. Three new buildings are assembled around the historic Powerhouse, one is the framed footprint of the former boiler house, the amenities block slides in as a green lozenge constructed from hemp concrete, and the cafe gathering space is crowned with a translucent sawtooth that glows at night.
Powerhouse Place is knitted into its context, a collection of shapes, typologies and eras of buildings which work because of the spaces in between them. Nothing is wasteful or elaborate, it honestly expresses itself and inspires us to imagine how we could be within it – gathering, learning, socialising, celebrating, truth telling, relaxing, and enjoying.
The Victorian Architecture Medal
Powerhouse Place stands as an outstanding exemplar for contemporary placemaking and adaptive reuse, redefining how we approach public spaces. The project transforms a neglected riverfront site into a vibrant community hub, prioritising social wellbeing and environmental responsibility. Extensive consultations ensured community needs were met, fostering a strong sense of custodianship and belonging.
Sustainability is integral throughout, from the considered restoration of the existing powerhouse to minimise waste, salvaged and reused materials, and native vegetation which all ground the project in place.
Four new pavilions, arranged as a collection to complement the historical powerhouse, are consciously knitted into the landscape, where the spaces in-between are as crucial as the buildings themselves. The design is honest and humble, offering a multitude of experiences through flexible spaces that cater to day-and-night use, across all seasons. Unnecessary embellishments are removed, allowing users to inhabit the space freely for gathering, learning, celebrating.
The jury was impressed by how the new precinct celebrates community, and renews a relationship with the river and Country, setting a joyful precedent for public space. A testament to the power of deep listening and collaboration, Powerhouse Place exemplifies a commitment of building less to give more, a crucial consideration in this age.
Regional Prize
Nestled on the banks of the Dhungala (Murray River) in Mildura, Powerhouse Place is a compelling example of an architect acting as place-maker. By reimagining a former industrial site, the project is instrumental in restoring the town’s relationship with the river.
In response to a strong push from locals to create a project that benefited them, not just tourists, Public Realm Lab have resisted the pressures to immediately begin architectural production and instead adopted an approach of deep listening and advocacy on behalf of the community.
The result is an assemblage of modest, yet finely calibrated civic spaces. It is an architecture of possibility rather than prescription. And while the colonial history of the powerhouse building is undeniable, the adaption of this structure allows for re-occupation by all members of the community, including First Nations groups who are reclaiming their connection to Country.
In a time of limited resources, Powerhouse Place serves as an exemplar of a different way of working, one where success is defined by the degree of ownership and occupation of a site by a community. It is restrained, yet generous and demonstrates how minimal architectural intervention is necessary to create a sense of place.
Powerhouse Place has been a resounding success since it was completed late last year, delivering everything it promised in terms of creating an attractive space offering opportunities for increased activation and new experiences along our iconic riverfront.
The design manages to create a fresh new look along our riverfront while still respecting the history of the precinct.
Anna Maskiell, Design Architect
Mitch Gow, Project Architect
Philip Ward, Director
Stacey Ng, Documentation Support
Bridge 42, Project Manager
Tract, Landscape Consultant
BSE, Engineer
Tonkin, Structural Engineer
Resonate, Acoustic Consultant
Lightwell, AV Consultant
Ark Resources, ESD Consultant
The Australian Institute of Architects acknowledges First Nations peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, and skies of the continent now called Australia.
We express our gratitude to their Elders and Knowledge Holders whose wisdom, actions and knowledge have kept culture alive.
We recognise First Nations peoples as the first architects and builders. We appreciate their continuing work on Country from pre-invasion times to contemporary First Nations architects, and respect their rights to continue to care for Country.
