Society 1056

Our services have joined forces to support YourLand’s vision for sustainability at this new residential estate in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Services

Civil Engineering Construction Consultancy Landscape Architecture Surveying and Spatial Town Planning Urban Design Water Engineering

Client

YourLand Developments

Location

Fraser Rise, VIC

Exterior of the Society 1056 sales office.

Entry signage at the Society 1056 development.

Food growing crates outside the Society 1056 sales office.

Spiire was engaged to provide Civil Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Construction Consultancy, Surveying and Spatial, Town Planning, Urban Design and Water Engineering services for the development of a new residential community at 1056 Taylors Road.

The site is surrounded by existing developments in Melbourne’s western growth corridor. Once complete, it stands to add more than 1300 lots to the region, along with significant community facilities including a future school, active open space, park, shops and community centre.

Our cross-discipline team has been involved with the project since its inception, supporting YourLand Developments through due diligence and site acquisition, into delivery.

Working together as one team

From the outset, we’ve partnered with our client, YourLand Developments, to help realise their ambitions for integrating sustainable initiatives within the development. By leveraging multidisciplinary knowledge, we were able to identify opportunities and influence decision-making to improve outcomes for the future community.

Our Urban Design team’s work prioritised north-south roads for solar orientation, walkability to reduce reliance on cars within the estate, increasing the tree coverage, and creating a well-connected community surrounding a village centre.

One example is a shadeway that will provide a pedestrian and cycling corridor connecting the estate’s open spaces. From the initial concept proposed by our urban designers, our civil engineers, landscape architects and water engineers helped demonstrate how this could be achieved. Armed with this knowledge, our town planners then successfully advocated for the local authority to endorse this pioneering approach.

The green spine will lead to a community precinct at the heart of the estate. Our team worked with YourLand, ClarkeHopkinsClarke architects and Council to shape this hub into a more cohesive cluster of amenities for future residents, by recognising the value in reorienting sites designated within the Precinct Structure Plan (PSP).

Shifting the sites of the future school and active open space from east-west to north-south unlocked better connections with other features, including neighbourhood shops, a community centre and a proposed residents’ facility.

To achieve approval for these changes to the PSP, the project team coordinated inputs from multiple in-house disciplines to demonstrate its viability. This included rear-loading the lots facing the new school site, to remove driveways on the proposed access road to prioritise pedestrian movement and safe access for increased foot traffic associated with school, particularly during drop-off and pick-up times.

Recognising the project’s potential to challenge the status quo, our Town Planning team established a regular forum to communicate with Melton Council from the start, and continued to build this relationship throughout the application process.

Our town planners also engaged with the Department of Education to explore the implications of reorienting the future school site, and its capacity to fit a building with a long northern edge for preferred solar orientation. Through this considered approach, informed by our cross-discipline expertise, we successfully persuaded multiple stakeholders of the alternative layout’s advantages.

Navigating site complexities

Given the development’s location adjoining numerous existing estates and a gas transmission line on its eastern border, our urban designers, together with our Civil and Water Engineering teams, carefully considered these multiple interfaces and the connections above and below the ground.

Our engineers navigated the servicing strategies to support the development, while tying in with existing infrastructure from the established neighbouring estates, with our water team delivering the Stormwater Management Strategy and Integrated Water Management Strategy.

Commencing with the first permit area of more than 140 lots, our civil engineers provided the detailed designs for Stages 1-3 of the estate. Our Construction Consultancy team is working with head contractor Winslow in the delivery of this initial package of works. Our landscape architects designed the streetscapes within these stages, enhancing street tree planting wherever possible to maximise canopy coverage and reduce the impacts of urban heating.

Our Surveying and Spatial team is also supporting the first package of civil construction, as part of the full suite of subdivision services, from feature and level survey through to asset recording and construction verification. Through the specialist subdivision knowledge of our highly experienced team, our surveyors have developed a staged subdivision strategy for the estate.

Vision for green spaces

In addition to solutions identified during the planning phase, supporting our client’s vision for sustainability has also been a key driver of our Landscape Architecture work.

Within our landscape masterplans, the design principles focus on providing benefits to residents and the environment, through prioritising community, universal design, canopy coverage, WSUD, climate resilience and the ecosystem.

In the second permit area, which will contain the estate’s future park, this includes investigating initiatives such as pollination corridors on key streets and alternative methods for passive irrigation. As part of our integrated project team since inception, our landscape architects have had the opportunity to consider how features such as the shadeway will connect to a strategy of connected canopy, and discuss changes with other disciplines that can improve landscape outcomes.

Our landscape architects also developed a series of front garden designs for purchasers, with options that align with some of the sustainability principles found throughout the estate’s open spaces, such as food growing or extensions of the pollination corridors.

These elements were also incorporated into the landscape design surrounding the site’s sales office, which features a food garden and play area.