Devonport City Council is advancing the next phase of its long-term renewal strategy by opening up two prime development sites in the heart of the CBD. This vision features a dual-purpose urban upgrade: a modern commercial building housing dedicated office and retail spaces, alongside a high-end, multi-storey residential apartment complex constructed directly over a public multi-level car park.
The published early 3D visualisations and massing models (see here) raise concerns that the location could be dominated by two uninspiring structures of generic, mass-produced design with only arbitrary, if any, connection or contribution to the city’s genius loci.
To avoid this, I put forward a few simple ideas:
- Build on and enhance Devonport’s authentic maritime and industrial character — avoid sterile, cookie-cutter global architecture.
- Preserve human scale and resolution through well-proportioned and detailed elevations — avoid blanket glass-and-panel facades.
- Establish shared-zone traffic corridors through the site, lined with al fresco dining and small businesses — avoid single-use service laneway dead zones.
- Activate all street interfaces — avoid blank ground-level walls; conceal any ground-level parking and services behind shopfronts.
- Activate rooftops with dining and recreation spaces.
Notably, the attached illustrations depart from other new buildings nearby, such as Paranaple, the adjacent hotel and lookout platform. This is intentional. These recent structures could just as easily exist in Melbourne, Sydney, or anywhere else in the world. While those buildings could be functional and well-built, they tell us nothing about the city of Devonport other than that it wanted a new building and got one.
It is similar to modern public art: unless you read an explicit explanatory statement, it makes no sense.
Why do people prefer to spend holidays in Italy or Greece over Newcastle or Geelong? It is because of the culture, the landscapes, and the uniquely local, traditional architecture—both old and new. While Australia has the first two in abundance, it very much lacks the third.
Just because there are some recent (and less recent), plain, expedient, non-specific buildings that could be plonked just about anywhere in the world, it does not mean one cannot take a step back and and correct the trajectory by leaning into what makes Devonport Devonport, Tasmania Tasmania, and Australia Australia.
In this particular case, I took inspiration from the city’s warehouses, schools, and other larger buildings, built with craftsmanship from local materials, however there are plenty of other appropriate local styles that can be drawn from—these images are mere illustrations, not a design proposal.
View the Formby Road Urban Renewal preliminary concept ideation in PDF.
