The Canopy on Normanby Rd
Construction is well underway on The Canopy, the development on the triangular shaped site on the corner of Normanby Rd and Johnson St in Fishermans Bend.
The developer is Gamuda Land and it is being built by Crema Constructions.
I always hoped for an exceptional response to this unique site (highlighted in the photograph below) after seeing this photograph by Graeme Butler taken for the South Bank Conservation study in 1982. The site was part of the former Dunlops manufacturing complex which spanned both sides of Normanby Rd.
Progress is also being made towards the delivery of a linear park in Johnson St between Normanby Rd and Munro Sts, contributing open space consistent with the Fishermans Bend Framework (2018). The landscaping will flow from park to building and back again. It will be delivered as part of Gamuda’s development contribution. The park will be fully public.
The linear park is designed be respected landscape architecture firm Oculus who also created Port’s popular Maritime Cove playground.
Approval for the park was given by the City of Port Phillip late last year.
Gamuda has made its intention clear to create a development informed by biophilic principles. Biophilia is humans longing to connect with natur1.
Ngan Chee Meng, Chief Executive Officer, Gamuda Land said “We believe it’s no longer acceptable to merely adopt green building design, but essential to ensure every building or public space is making a positive green contribution to the place and its people. For us to do this, we have to work with nature and not against it.” (Business Today, 30 September 2022)
Gamuda engaged MURRI : YUL at the inception of the project to understand and tell ‘the many histories of the site‘. In the words of heritage adviser Melinda Kennedy, ‘The unbalanced Built Environment can no longer continue without embedding Aboriginal frameworks, Knowledge and design.’2
A pedestrian crossing of Normanby Rd between R Iconic (where Coles on Normanby Rd is) and The Canopy will also be installed.
Further thought needs to be given to how the new park on Johnson St will seamlessly link to Boundary St (between Normanby and Evans St) and the shared pathways and parkland of the Railway Reserves.
Readers may be sceptical about this new park, As an antidote to wariness, I recommend visiting the Dodds St linear park behind the Melbourne Recital Centre and Conservatorium. Generous shared paths flank both sides of a mounded central landscape where grasses and wildflowers bloom in late summer abundance. This is not to say, of course, that Johnson St will be anything like Dodds St, but to show that the transformation of a road into a living landscape for people and plants and insects can be very successfully achieved. The Johnson St landscape will be sensitive to the context and the future users.
Biodiversity Councillor Professor Sarah Bekessy reports that twenty years ago it was an uphill battle persuading developers of the benefits of incorporating nature into their developments. Now there is a much greater interest and willingness to incorporate biodiversity at the inception of a project, recognising the many benefits that nature brings to the health and happiness of future residents.
1 More about biophilia from the Living Future Institute
2 Melinda Kennedy Heritage Adviser MURRI : YUL Linkedin
The recent site history of 272 – 280 Normanby Rd
Fishermans Bend is re-zoned in 2012
February 2015: the site, occupied by Tradelink Showroom, was sold for $14m
October 2017: a proposal for a 40 level tower was lodged
October 2018: the site was sold for $12.7m
March 2021: a development of 24 storeys was approved by the Minister for Planning
July 2022: Gamuda Land bought the site for $24m
July 2023: a development of 20 levels and 200 apartments is under construction
2 Comments
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Stephen Pennells
The cost of living/site doubling in four years... Tony worked at Dunlop Olympic Tyres. Collected horse manure from those Police stables with Matt from St Kilda Community Housing inc. to make Biodynamic compost. From 2015(is speed important!) a nature included video/fly-through https://ggarrardresearch.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/sustainable-biodiverse-mid-rise-development-for-fishermans-bend/
Heather Wheat
Very thought provoking post. As you know I am all for greening the ‘city’ and believe that any greening in the short term at least, is good in our urban space. I know that there are many objections to Pliny’s plane trees but I’m not sure they create entire biodiversity deserts (better them than nothing). How about planting Pittosporum and Lilly Pilly? They are at least native Australia albeit not our location perhaps. As to shade, I have been surprised and horrified that so many of the old buildings/shops are having their verandas ripped down. That might e part of redevelopment but I haven’t seen that. Australia has traditionally been a place of verandas for one reason alone - shade and cool. Keep us up to the line Janet .