GREVILLE ST, PRAHRAN

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme

FEDERATION SQUARE

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme

FED SQUARE

Federation Square in Melbourne's CBD, is a mixed-use development in the inner city, covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred on two major public spaces: Open squares (St. Paul's Court and The Square) and one covered (The Atrium), built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines.

It is located at the intersection between Flinders Street and Swanston Street/St Kilda Road in Melbourne's Central Business District, adjacent to Melbourne's busiest railway station. The geometric shapes that make up the buildings of Fed Sq are not only an external decorative feature, but they figure prominently in the architectural construction of the buildings and covered spaces within.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

FEDERATION SQUARE

Federation Square in the centre of Melbourne, lit up at night makes for a great place to visit (once the "stay home" restrictions have been relaxed!).

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

FED SQUARE

Federation Square is a venue for arts, culture and public events on the edge of the Melbourne central business district. It covers an area of 3.2 ha (7.9 acres) at the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets built above busy railway lines and across the road from Flinders Street station. It incorporates major cultural institutions such as the Ian Potter Centre and ACMI and Koorie Heritage Trust as well as cafes and bars in a series of buildings centred around a large paved square, and a glass walled atrium. The corner is occupied by a glass walled pavilion that provides access to the underground Melbourne Visitor Centre. 

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

FEDERATION SQUARE

Federation Square in Melbourne's CBD, is a mixed-use development in the inner city, covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred on two major public spaces: Open squares (St. Paul's Court and The Square) and one covered (The Atrium), built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines. It is located at the intersection between Flinders Street and Swanston Street/St Kilda Road in Melbourne's Central Business District, adjacent to Melbourne's busiest railway station.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

FEDERATION SQUARE BY NIGHT

Federation Square, in Melbourne, is a mixed-use development covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred around two major public spaces: Open squares (St. Paul's Court and The Square) and one covered (The Atrium), built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines. It is located at intersection between Flinders Street and Swanston Street/St Kilda Road in Melbourne's Central Business District, adjacent to Melbourne's busiest railway station. The modern buildings of the Square offset the heritage building adjacent to it, viz, St Paul's Cathedral and Flinders St Station.

This post is part of the Weekly TopShot meme,
and also part of the Scenic Weekends meme,

and also part of the Spiritual Sundays meme,

and also part of the inSPIREd Sunday meme.

FEDERATION SQUARE GEOMETRY

Federation Square, in Melbourne, is a mixed-use development covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred around two major public spaces: open squares (St. Paul's Court and The Square) and one covered (The Atrium), built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines. It is located at intersection between Flinders Street and Swanston Street/St Kilda Road in Melbourne's Central Business District, adjacent to Melbourne's busiest railway station.

The interiors and exteriors can be described as being of a deconstructivist style, with modern minimalist shapes interspersed with geometry and angular slots. While there are slight variations, the main bulk of its buildings follow a similar theme with a complex geometrical design featuring a mix of zinc, perforated zinc, glass and sandstone tiles over a metal exoskeletal frame in a complex geometrical pattern composed entirely of scalene triangles.

The aperiodic tiling pattern is based on the pinwheel tiling developed by John Conway and Charles Radin. The triangle is formed with dimensions 1,2, √5. This "fractal facade" is contrasted with sections featuring use of metal like surfaces including randomly slotted metallic screens and transparent glass walls tinted with a slightly green tinge.

This post is part of the Geometric Friday meme.

DAFFODIL DAY 2013

Friday August 23 is Daffodil Day in Australia. This corresponds with the flowering time of these beautiful Spring bulbs in southern Australia, and just as they are a symbol of hope of the Spring to follow Winter, they have been adopted as a powerful symbol of hope for cancer patients. Daffodil Day is one of Australia’s best-known and most popular charity events devoted to fundraising for research into cancer.

Each day more than 100 Australians will die of cancer. Daffodil Day raises funds for the Cancer Council to continue its work in cancer research, providing patient support programs and cancer prevention programs available to all Australians. Daffodil Day helps grow hope for better treatments, hope for more survivors, hope for a cure for all cancers.

To the Cancer Council, the daffodil represents hope for a cancer-free future. Everyone can help in the fight against cancer by participating in Daffodil Day. Daffodil Day merchandise is on sale throughout August, and people can donate to Daffodil Day at any time.

In Federation Square in Melbourne, the Cancer Council has constructed a daffodil garden of hope. People can write their messages of hope for cancer sufferers, be they friends, family members or even themselves, while the blooming daffodils provide a ray of sunshine in even the dullest of gray Winter days. I hope that I see a day where cancer is no longer a death sentence for many people, where treatments are effective and relatively free of side-effects, where people can take an active role in effectively preventing cancer…

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
And also part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

MELBOURNE'S HELIX TREE

The "Light in Winter" is Federation Square’s annual, month-long program of free events, exhibitions, film screenings, forums, the much-loved Solstice Celebration and a world premiere of a new work, the "Helix Tree". This year the program brings over 20 of Victoria’s diverse communities, along with artists and designers, to explore the power of the human voice  The centerpiece of this program and the glowing stage for nightly performances is the new sculptural work by Australian light artist Bruce Ramus, the "Helix Tree".

Bruce Ramus’ Helix Tree of curved steel beams spirals 13 metres into the sky with 1.5 kms of LED lights entwined throughout the branches. The Helix Tree is equipped with advanced sound-responsive technology designed to respond to both volume and pitch of the voice with a colourful light display.  At dusk every evening in June, some of Melbourne’s best choirs will perform in free, choral displays, lighting up the Helix Tree.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
as well as part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.

MELBOURNE CITY SQUARE

The Melbourne City Square is a pedestrian plaza and former civic centre located in the Central Business District of Melbourne, Australia. The square is currently bounded by Swanston Street, Collins Street, Flinders Lane and the Westin Hotel. Melbourne Town Hall (1870) and St Paul’s Cathedral (1891) are prominent landmarks to the north and south respectively. The square has been redeveloped several times and associated with a number of controversies over the years. A prominent feature of the square is the Burke and Wills Statue (1864) by Charles Summers (left).

In 1860–61, Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led an expedition of 19 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres (approximately 2,000 miles). At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-indigenous people and was completely unknown to the European settlers. The south-north leg was successfully completed (except that they were stopped by swampland 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the northern coastline), but owing to poor leadership and bad luck, both of the expedition's leaders died on the return journey. Altogether, seven men lost their lives, and only one man, John King, crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne.

The rather ghastly Westin Hotel and private apartments behind the square (see above) were part of a Faustian deal by the City Council and developers: In order to restore the decaying Regent Theatre and upgrade the City Square, Council sold public land (eastern half of the square) to a developer for $12.5 million and a hotel and apartments were built on it. The council put that $12.5 million towards the restoration of the Regent along with $12.5 million offered by the state government. This allowed the restoration of the theatre and the construction of a hotel with apartments on the eastern half of the City Square. The redevelopment of the Regent took 3 years from September 1993, to its final reopening gala on August 17 1996.


The interior of the City Square apartments is much more appealing (which is necessary given their multimillion dollar price tag...). The two photographs below are not taken by me but published by the Herald Sun, one of our local newspapers, a few months ago when one of these apartments was put on the market.

This post is part of the Signs, Signs meme.