Property developer Landream has unveiled designs by Zaha Hadid Architects for a 54-storey skyscraper in Melbourne, featuring a volume broken up into four curved segments.
Proposed for 582-606 Collins Street in the city's central business direct, the mixed-use tower will house shops, offices and apartments, and is designed to look like "a series of stacked vases".
Hadid is teaming up with local studio Plus Architecture on the project. It is expected to become the London-based architect's third building in Australia, following skyscrapers in Brisbane and Gold Coast.

Related story: Zaha Hadid proposes a pair of tapered towers for Australia's Gold Coast

The tower's glazed exterior will be clad with a filigree facade system that forms a colonnade at ground level. This will also act as a sunshade, helping to reduce the building's solar gain. Each "vase" will accommodate a different function, and the tapered forms will create three large elevated terraces. There will also be a public plaza surrounding the building's base.

According to Landream, the aim is to "embody and emulate the finest examples of historic architecture that can be found within the Melbourne CBD, yet reinterpret them in a contemporary solution that is driven by the building's structural integrity and the logical division of its overall volume".
"Central to the concept is the break-down of the vertical volume by the design team to establish a cohe...