The University of Melbourne End-of-Trip Facilities Searle x Waldron Architecture

At the time of writing, Hobart is on the precipice of becoming a campus city as the University of Tasmania plans its $600 million relocation to the CBD from the suburban Sandy Bay campus. The increase in the number of large-scale buildings this will bring to Hobart will have a significant impact on the character and life of the city, particularly for the small, delicate and often climatically challenged CBD.

As the city prepares for this transition, it may well look to other Australian campus cities to discover the unique contribution that universities can make to the sense of identity, cohesion, amenity and quality of the public realm. As large-scale urban developers, universities have a responsibility to ensure and protect the integrity of their developments in the interest of the public. In Melbourne, the campus city model has been particularly successful because its institutions – the University of Melbourne and RMIT University – acknowledge and