A new landmark development for Journal Student Living in an area undergoing an exciting transformation in Melbourne’s CBD is nearing completion. Nestled within the Queen Victoria Market precinct, the site is located on Market Way at 100 Franklin Street.
The 38-level tower, designed by COX, creates an active vertical purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) community atop a new southern gateway to the market precinct. As part of COX’s masterplan, there is a proposed green boulevard and network of urban laneways.
Journal Student Living’s project is due for completion in 2025.
“A series of crafted masonry buildings along an expanded Blender laneway offer active retail edges, with wellness and entertainment spaces located above for resident use.
“The tower’s articulated facade and laneway buildings draw inspiration from the market’s heritage fabric through materiality, structure and texture.”
Johannes Lupolo-Chan, Senior Associate, COX
COX has retained the four-storey heritage Burbank House. The site has a rich history dating back to the 1800s. James Harrison, engineer and inventor of the refrigeration process, operated a brick ice factory there until the 1880s.
The retained section has now been adapted to house all the building’s unique common spaces, connected through a central atrium and vertical circulation network designed to foster a safe and welcoming building community.
“We’re thrilled to be working with Journal as they embark on their next exciting chapter.
“They’ve already set the bar extremely high, but their future projects will absolutely change the Australian student living landscape as we know it.”
Simon Haussegger, Director, COX
The placement of spaces at the lower levels of the scheme promote engagement between residents and the neighbouring precinct, through a series of external landscaped terraces designed to provide spaces of respite, entertainment and urban greenery.
Journal Garden Place, another COX project, is currently under construction in the heart of Brisbane CBD, where the indoors are designed to flow seamlessly into the subtropical outdoors.
It comes as the Student Accommodation Council has welcomed the government’s historic recognition in the Budget of the critical role PBSA plays in providing a first-class experience for international students in Australia. The focus on Australia’s PBSA housing is another feather in the cap for the expanding sector.
