Our warmest congratulations to our partners Decibel Architecture for taking out a silver medal at the London Design Awards for their conceptual work on “Magic” as a “for-purpose” project! “Importantly, this project is not a development play, but a community-driven, purpose project. The plans predict a $30million profit from apartment sales which will be used to upgrade RSV’s heritage-listed home on the neighbouring site, develop a new science engagement centre and cafe, and create a perpetual endowment fund, enabling the RSV’s purpose, projects and awards programs to be supercharged for the next 160 years.”

“The residential tower will also double as a science engagement precinct and will demonstrate ingenuity, striving for PassivHaus standard and cutting-edge sustainable technologies.”

The London Design Awards are convened to “accelerate transformation, celebrate courage and grow demand for design.”

On 8 October, a group of about 16 people, including the Society’s Councillors, the senior team from Grocon and the leaders of Decibel Architecture, convened in the historic Burke & Wills Room to sign a Heads of Agreement, setting out the scope of our collaboration for our proposed Magic Project. In this place of deep significance to Victoria’s rich history of scientific endeavour, we took a major step on the path to realising a future vision for Victoria’s scientific capabilities. In exploring the boundaries of what we can achieve on our small, CBD site, we embark on a new expedition; to be well planned, and with the appropriate expertise in the mix to lead us through as a community of members and supporters. This is substantially new work in the development sector, and will require a translational research approach – the opportunities for involvement by some of Victoria’s outstanding scholars in the broad field of sustainable urban development are plain to see.