With the recent completion of the Sage Hotel, Ringwood, QIC has finished its radical overhaul of the 1960s Eastland Shopping Centre. Located in a suburban fringe of Melbourne, Australia, the new mall is the product of an unusual partnership between three design practices in London: ACME, Universal Design Studio, and Softroom. QIC commissioned Seventh Wave to appoint these three studios and oversee the project which spanned half the globe.

Architects ACME designed the new hotel, as well as creating a town square, a sculptural entrance to the mall (the Shard), a library and civic center, the David Jones department store, and a number of multi-story car parks. Universal Design Studio was responsible for the interior design of the refurbished central mall, as well as the smaller link malls. Softroom designed a largely glazed rooflight that links the existing part of Eastland with the new Town Square.
The new town square (or piazza) inverts the original inward-facing 60s masterplan and offers the area a civic focus. Shoppers are lured outside of the interior mall into the daylight and a new sequence of spaces, forming a new public heart for Ringwood and Maroondah. Eastland is the first in a series of major transformations of shopping centers by QIC, acting as a test case to demonstrate the ways in which commercial and civic spaces can coexist happily and form real public facilities for the local community.

Rising out of the center of the square, the Shard provides access ...