The team centred their design around the notion of connection. The design revolves around placing a largely busy intersection entirely underground and rebuilding the community around this new space. The new masterplan offers new cultural and recreational spaces, job opportunities and living densities to create a town centre that is more accessible and promotes walkability. Additionally, Tarralla Creek is re-established generating greater awareness of the native fauna and flora in the area

Key components

• The newly designed underground intersection is a way to reclaim space from the original road area. This improves pedestrian and cyclist access above the busy junction, encouraging active transportation methods and reducing carbon emissions from private vehicles. 

• Land Bridge design: New extensive planting program will create stronger ecological conditions, with new habitat opportunities for local fauna, while assisting in the sequestration of air pollution. 

• Tarralla Creek Restoration is divided into phases from Creek Evaluation to concrete Removal and Revegetation.

Learn more about the project in the project presentation.

Presentation of the site

The Eastfield Shopping Centre is located in Croydon South, a ‘middle ring’ suburb of Melbourne, approximately 29km east of Melbourne CBD. Croydon South is bisected by Tarralla Creek and has an abundance of public open space nearby. The neighbourhood is serviced by bus route 664 and Tarralla Creek Trail (Strategic Cycling Corridor). Croydon South is mainly low-density residential and houses middle-income young families with some areas of relative disadvantage.
 
The Eastfield Shopping Centre is a Neighbourhood Activity Centre (local) and a primary destination. It offers a variety of small retail services that support the local community’s needs. It is located at the intersection of Bayswater and Eastfield roads. Both are major arterial roads. Predominately car-based with single use low-scale commercial development, its public space is dominated by impermeable surfaces including a large car park and an inaccessible stormwater drain along Tarralla Creek.

In a nutshell, the Croydon South masterplan will consist of a Land Bridge at Current Grade Level, the North Eastfield Plaza design, the South Eastfield Plaza, the Tarralla Creek Restoration, the Bayswater Road & Lucille Avenue Intersection and lastly, the Yvonne Avenue Residential Precinct design. The shopping centre was chosen as a site for this competition, as it provides an opportunity to build on the preliminary work undertaken in 2018 when it was selected as a pilot site for testing of the 20-minute neighbourhood principle(s). The pilot project focused on small-scale and easy to implement improvements within the site and this project provides an opportunity to build on this work by delivering more transformative and radical opportunities.

Approx. site area
20 hectares

Demographics
In 2019 Croydon South had a population density of 18.80 persons per hectare/ 17 dwellings per hectare. The area is popular with young middle-income families with little cultural diversity.

Special Mention(s)

Team: Endless Horizon

Team members: Haobang Pang, Yihua Wang, Mengni Huan, Xinyang Chen, Jinhang Wang, Jin He - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Team: Students for Environmentally Conscious Planning

Team members: Courtney Muir, Tom Appleford, Romy Fanarof, Arkan Daou, Xinyu Zhao - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

TEDxCountdown talk of the winning team!