Breathe Architecture has won the tender for an elevated greenhouse at Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market that will provide space for fruit and vegetable traders during its $250 million redevelopment.
The firm’s design proposes a 200 metre-long and 16 metre-wide commercial greenhouse that will be suspended on columns nine metres above Queen Street. The $5 million greenhouse will be able to digest some of the green waste from the market for reuse so that plants can be grown in it.
During the redevelopment of Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne City Council has pledged to keep the market open for business. The greenhouse will allow for this, and traders from the market’s upper sheds will be asked to move into the greenhouse spaces.
Once no longer needed, the council should be able to sell the building for a portion of its expected $3.6 million purchase cost.
Other considered proposals for the project came from Jackson Clements Burrows and Kerstin Thompson Architects.
