North East Link

Warren and Mahoney BKK Architects and Taylor Cullity Lethlean Greenaway Architects and Greenshoot Consulting

WAF Future Project: Infrastructure

North East Link

Architect
Warren and Mahoney BKK Architects and Taylor Cullity Lethlean Greenaway Architects and Greenshoot Consulting 
Lead Architect Name
 
Architect Country
Australia 
Client
State Government of Victoria, Australia 
Project Completion Date
01/01/2027  
Status
Category Winner, Day One Winners, Entrant, Shortlist  
Project City
Melbourne 
Project Country
Australia 
Category
WAF Future Project: Infrastructure  
Category Sponsor
 
WAF Prize
WAFX Award 
WAF Prize Sponsor
 
WAF Year
2022 
Location
Google map  
Image Credits
Warren and Mahoney, BKK Architects and Taylor Cullity Lethlean 

Australia is a vast place occupied for 60,000 years by First Nations people. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, languages and territories are many and varied. But all First Nations people feel deep connections to Country – to the land where they and their ancestors grew up. Looking after Country is everything. Among other things, this means living in harmony with nature on Country, not conquering it. It means using resources sustainably: taking only what you need and helping the rest to regenerate. This is the story of how a major infrastructure project could heal a city’s nature and biodiversity. It may also help heal Australia’s relationship with our First Nations people. North East Link (NEL) is on Country of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people. Fundamental aspects of its design grow from their living knowledge and history. It’s the world’s first road project to use the award-winning International Indigenous Design Charter principles. The 25km transport corridor in suburban Melbourne is not all engineering. For our team of urban designers, architects and landscape architects (UDALA), the project is the places surrounding the road – the social and ecological restoration of the neighbourhoods it traverses. We adopted three Wurundjeri pillars to guide the design: Connection to Country, Caring for Country and Connecting People. Inherent in them is the principle of touching the earth lightly. For example, NEL has nine footbridges. Their infrastructure was inspired by traditional Wurundjeri bark canoes made from a single piece of bark removed without damaging the tree. Caring for Country, the UDALA team and project engineers have minimised the bridges’ impact, using smarter engineering to achieve structural integrity without masses of steel. The Yarra Bridge rests on slim forked columns extending from the landscape below. It literally and spiritually elevates people (Connecting People), leaving bikes and pedestrians to move freely over traffic. The Southern Landbridge is another special site. It has new planting (NEL has over 30,000 new trees) and rehabilitates Koonung Creek, which was desperately polluted from being redirected into underground pipes in the 1970s. UDALA’s scheme daylights Koonung (returns it to the surface), and hopefully it will support rare platypus and the aquatic insects they eat. There are also wetlands sized to process stormwater and lawns replaced with native plants to attract wildlife. Nearby is the landmark Southern Vent Outlet, clad in photovoltaic cells. Caring for Country demands sustainable energy, and NEL generates 25% of its power needs (17 GWh generated annually) through solar harvesting at various sites including photovoltaic-panelled noise walls. The Vent Outlet shares a landbridge with pedestrian trails and parklands alive with native plants that repair the local ecology. For the Wurundjeri, the landbridge reconnects a fractured gathering place where clans came together at eel harvesting season. The Victorian Government is currently working with First Nations people towards a treaty – a constitutionally enshrined recognition of their status, rights, cultures and histories. NEL has coincided with this work. For UDALA, it’s been a privileged opportunity to offer a step towards what Australia calls Reconciliation.