<span class="" id="parent-fieldname-description"> A consortium of Hassell, Herzog & de Meuron and Purcell has won the design competition for the planned makeover of Melbourneâs Flinders Street Station. </span> <p>The $1m design competition was awarded unanimously to the group, known collectively as Hassell + Herzog & de Meuron.</p><p>The project is intended to transform Flinders Street into a modern 21st century transport hub, the consortium says, while retaining its best known heritage features and buildings.</p><p>Hassel + Herzog & de Meuron says it will turn the station into a civic precinct including a major public art gallery, a public plaza, an amphitheatre, a marketplace, and a permanent home for arts and cultural festival organisations.</p><p>“Flinders Street Station is the hub of Melbourne’s fixed rail network with connections to other transport modes,” the consortium said when it announced its success late last week.</p><p>“[The station sits] on the banks of Melbourne’s Yarra River, adjacent to the city’s Federation Square and important arts and cultural institutions. The Hassell + Herzog & de Meuron proposal pulls all these elements together.”</p><p>The Victorian and Federal Governments announced the design competition in 2011.</p><p>Hassell + Herzog & de Meuron’s submission was chosen from a shortlist of six submissions, by a jury chaired by the Victorian government architect, Professor Geoffrey London.</p><p>“The winning proposal improves all aspects of the station transport hub and adjacent transport nodes with each of the project boundaries responding specifically to its own distinct context, affording both public function and connection across the site,” Hassell’s Mark Loughnan said.</p><p>Hassell is an Australian-based design practice, with studios in Australia, five in China, two in South East Asia and two in the UK.</p><p>Herzog & de Meuron is a design partnership based in Switzerland.</p><p>Herzog & de Meruon partner Ascan Mergenthaler said: “Our proposal for the Flinders Street Station underscores the civic nature of a train station by complementing it with cultural and public functions rather than purely commercial activities.”</p><p>Purcell, a UK based heritage architecture firm, acted as heritage consultants on the consortium’s design.</p><p>“It was critical that the proposal preserved Flinders Street as a working station, not a transport museum,” Purcell’s Michael Morrison said.</p><p>“The most familiar built fabric, the Flinders Street building and the corner entrance pavilion, will be unaltered, but carefully restored and brought back into public use.”</p>
