Under construction since mid-2021, The Standard, Melbourne marks the boutique international hospitality brand’s first foray into Australia. Located in the heart of bustling Fitzroy in Melbourne’s North-East, the hotel will feature 126 rooms spread over seven storeys, as well as a rooftop and pergola with views overlooking the city.
Woods Bagot Principal Peter Miglis walks by the hotel construction site daily on his commute to the firm’s Melbourne studio, but it was the sight of the vibrant cladding being craned in that stopped him in his tracks.
“The façade’s weathered cladding is the centrepiece of our material palette for the hotel, defined by a robust simplicity that echoes the neighbourhood’s industrial heritage,” says Miglis.
“There is a rawness to Fitzroy that stems from its working-class background. The workers and craftsman that occupied the area for many years heavily influenced our design journey.”
Progressing up the hotel’s seven stories, the cladding is increasingly fenestrated and punctured. This enhanced texture at the upper levels softens the building form and differentiates each of the levels.
Fitzroy is Melbourne’s oldest inner-city suburb and this long history has resulted in a neighbourhood without a singular character, rather it is a diversity of spaces and textures that defines it.
Woods Bagot Associate Robert Rosamilia describes change as the only constant of the neighbourhood.
“It’s a place permanently in progression, in a state of undoing and redoing,” says Rosamilia.
“For the façade, we chose Corten’s self-healing steel that patinas to a point, heals itself and then weathers again in a testament to the neighbourhood’s constant state of flux.”
Located at the intersection of Rose Street and Fitzroy Street and a mere 100 metres from Brunswick Street, the hotel holds the corner like many of the much-loved local pubs in the area.
The hotel’s punch windows are a design feature borrowed from these cornerstone pubs explicitly honouring their role in defining the character and community of the neighbourhood. Of this choice, Peter Miglis describes The Standard as innately a local hotel that will continue the traditions and support the essential spirit of Fitzroy. “It is not a glazed box. The design for The Standard places guests firmly in their location rather than siloing them from it.”
The Standard, Melbourne is the continuation Woods Bagot’s defining of the contemporary architectural character of Fitzroy. The studio’s award-winning multi-residential C.F Row at 237 Napier Street retained the original brick façade of the former furniture manufacturer, introducing a new row of low-scale collaged brick and concrete townhouses.
A 10-minute walk from The Standard, Woods Bagot and developer Piccolo have received planning approval for Gore Street, an eight-storey residential that draws its inspiration from the neighbourhood’s quintessential Victorian and Edwardian terrace houses.
Completion for The Standard, Melbourne is expected in early 2023.
Media enquiries Tili Bensley-Nettheim Content and Communications (Australia & New Zealand)
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