Finalists have been announced for the Urban Land Institute (ULI)’s Urban Innovation Ideas Competition to regenerate part of the Melbourne CBD.

Young professionals and students were asked to generate ideas to help revitalise the north-west corner of Melbourne’s CBD, bound by La Trobe, William, Bourke and Spencer streets.

As a whole, the finalists identified a significant need for more public art installations in the area. Other ideas from the finalists include improvements to the laneway scene, the creation of a civic plaza and the blocking of vehicular traffic on Spencer Street between Collins and La Trobe streets.

The three finalist teams include:

  • ‘Reflective Lane’ – Bohan Jones, Hee-Jung Yoon, Linda Lin and William Cai from Mirvac’s design team
  • ‘Welcome to Melbourne’ – Fabian Culican, Kavita Sonar, Shelley Black and Simon Zhao from Tract Consultants
  • ‘Mixed Collectivo’ – Lindy Huang, a student at University of Melbourne, and Marc Schmailz, a student at Technical University of Munich

“The level of granularity or analysis of rigour in thinking gave confidence to the jury that the future planning of this city is in safe hands and will continue in the tradition of Melbourne,” says ULI Australia executive director David McCracken.

“Being an innovation competition, it was great seeing the entrants think outside the box while still demonstrating clear, achievable urban interventions that would make this part of Melbourne a better place.”

The finalist teams will each receive $2,000 and now proceed to the next stage of the competition for concept development and further refinement of their ideas. The overall competition winner will be announced in late October and will receive an additional $2,000 in prize money as well as a trip to Shanghai to present their proposal at the ULI 2019 Asia Pacific Conference.

The public is invited to vote for their favourite submission until voting closes on 22 October.