Bourke Place: 600 Bourke Street, MELBOURNE

Building Profile

Location

Construction Details

Built in the Nineties period in the Modern style

Notable features

Bourke Place is Melbournes second tallest building, and rises above Bourke Street only a short distance from the tallest - Rialto Tower. The Bourke Place building is often overlooked due to its lack of landmark qualities for such a large tower, and has aged much more quickly than others from the same boom.

The building serves as the global headquarters for BHP, and their logo, which sits near the top of the tower, is the highest sign in Australia.

Constructed during the office boom of the late eighties, the tower has a distinctive sloped roof, which distinguishes it on the skyline.

When the Melbourne architectural firm of Godfrey & Spowers set out to design the structure, they wanted to achieve a "crisp, clean and pure building envelope", according to Peter Langford, a partner with the firm.

Currently the second tallest building in Australia, Bourke Place incorporates about 170,000m2 of reflective laminated glass. The architects selection of laminated glass for the curtain wall was determined mainly for aesthetic reasons. The project architects varied the depth of the inner lite to avoid a potential variable shading effect. External lite thickness remained constant, maintaining a visually uniform facade.

History

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