The world has changed and architecture must change with it, that’s why we resolve issues, not briefs. We are a design-led practice guided by an ethical imperative: every element of the built environment must be viewed through the lens of a climate crisis.
Drawing on a long track record of built work, depth of experience and specialist expertise we seek to design architecture that makes a positive contribution to communities, cities and the environment.
Philosophy
Fraser & Partners was born of a desire to address the challenges presented by our environment with a process that is slower, deeper and fundamentally driven by discovery. We are interested not only in thinking about solutions to global problems, but doing something about them.
Regeneration comes by addressing our process, production and consumption, and investing in nature and ecology. This means going beyond minimising negative impact to making positive contributions. It means putting architecture back in the service of the city, and communities. It means design that gives new life to landscapes – revitalising local species of flora and fauna. Our legacy is built not just on big ideas, but meaningful action.
Methodology
We’re animated by the desire to reimagine and reconstruct environments worth inhabiting. We address the demands of our times by integrating wellness at all scales: materials, people, buildings, communities and cities. Drawing on the modernists who have always inspired us, we intervene at the point that nature and technology converge, harnessing both as tools to design architecture as a user interface.
Each project is driven by a bespoke platform, this forms a series of non-negotiables and ambitions defined in partnership with our clients to help realise the best triple bottom line outcomes. Navigating multiple sectors, the platform centres around 8 core pillars that guide us along the pathway to regenerative practice.
Capability
We aim to approach each project from the position of our client and the perspective of future inhabitants, creating architecture that responds to the unique constraints presented by each brief.
Our portfolio is testament to the success of this approach: we have over $4B AUD of constructed work and a further $3B AUD in planning or development. We work across diverse typologies – from multi-residential buildings and master plans, hospitality spaces and hotels, commercial offices, and interior architecture. Our design philosophy, people, experience and process allows us to create original design solutions that not only look good but work for all stakeholders of the built environment: the client, the community and the end users.
Fraser & Partners has the unique ability to adapt to changing project demands, expanding and contracting resources seamlessly in response to project requirements, through an established pool of experiences resources. Our core design team have the innate ability to undertake work across offices efficiently and effectively, adapting to varying degrees of output and meeting the short term increase in demand in an expedient manner.
Working through our internal procedures and processes, we are rewarded with a flexibility to transcend across each project and effectively manage our time to achieve our strategic objectives.
We consider our buildings total environments where ecology, technology, and people converge and landscapes and species are regenerated in concert with the built form. Architecture is a user experience and there are no borders between design, technology and community in our spaces.
Our projects have demonstrated potential to improve returns, work within strict floorplan and cost considerations. They provide truly inhabitable environments that excite and engage their owners and tenants.
Aurora Melbourne Central
Aurora Melbourne Central is a metropolis, an integrated mixed use precinct with an alluring and seductive yet technologically advanced form. The proposed building has a rich fusion of Malay culture and Melbourne eccentricity, reflecting Melbourne’s position as a primary international south East Asian city. In this way we can create a metropolis that doesn’t have to be hard and gritty but rather has an organic softness.
The hybrid form and plan of the tower is drawn from the hibiscus flower, a species constantly reproduced in Malaysia to create new, exciting colours and textures. In plan, the petals radiate out to the corners of the site, and the sculptural façade is three-dimensional, its textures merging into one another like the colours of the iconic flower. This project represents our new design direction – it was designed parametrically to optimise privacy, wind and sun-shading – the computational process enables us to design good apartments even better. The building is conveniently connected to Melbourne Central and the train network. To make the most of this subterranean link we have inserted a hawker market into the basement space. This food destination will not only help with pedestrian flows, but will be a welcome addition to the university precinct.
It’s not just Asia that’s represented here – we wanted to make this building a part of Melbourne as well, so we re-instated the laneway network through the site, inserting restaurants and shops between Latrobe and Little Latrobe Streets. We have also responded to recent criticism that residential CBD developments put strain on civic amenities by creating unparalleled communal space. Naturally we have the essentials – pool, gym, lounge and dining rooms – but we’ve also added in wine cellars, sky gardens, karaoke rooms and a golf room. This is a vertical city with the equivalent amenity. As the icing on the cake, the building also contributes to Melbourne’s tourism reputation, with 200 serviced apartments offering employment opportunities and increased economy.
250 La Trobe Street, Melbourne VIC
Project cost $350M AUD
Area 120,770 sqm
Typology Hotel, Multi Residential
Completion 2019
Abode 318
It’s no secret that everyone covets corner apartments. More light and better views, right? Well, not so with Abode318, our Melbourne CBD residential apartment tower, where everyone gets a view: it’s democracy in action! Look closely at the wave-like 55 storey form and you will realise that each of the horizontal and vertical waves consist of individual rooms articulated as protrusions, creating the effect of a set of drawers pulled out at random.
These drawers gives residents the chance to give their home an individual identity as well as coveted corner views up and down Russell Street, challenging conceptions of the homogeneity and limitations of apartment living. Each apartment has a presentation to the street, creating a collection of variably expressed individuals.
The building achieves a softness that skyscrapers can’t achieve, because they need vertical facades; Abode318’s three-dimensional curve is an innovation in construction technology. In addition to articulating individual apartments, the curved form also has environmental benefits – art and science! The undulation affects wind pressure, which determines the fluctuating amplitude and breaks up downdrafts to protect pedestrians. Abode318 is clad in low-emissivity glass that appears as a pink blush from the exterior, yet is clear from the interior. The base of the building incorporates industrial design through the detailing of the decorative mesh screen that surrounds it.
Inside, follow the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur through the white and silver communal interiors. Silver and white travertine walls adorned with wall reliefs become Ariadne’s thread, leading up to the apartments designed by Disegno.
302-304 Russell Street, Melbourne VIC
Project cost $100M AUD
Area 45,000 sqm
Typology Multi Residential
Completion 2014
Premier Tower
The responsive approach to precinct regeneration sets a new bar for mixed-use developments. This building, sitting directly in front of Southern Cross station (the first thing people see when arriving) seeks to anchor the increased westerly shift of the CBD, heralded by the regeneration of Fishermen’s Bend and Southbank.
The twists and turns of this new project belie its pure and simple, first principles rationale, Occam himself would be proud. Premier Tower is the articulation of our research into how to work with individual sites and their climatic constraints, brought together using parametric modeling techniques. The complex form, a vertical cantilever – is actually the most effective way to redistribute the building’s mass, giving the best results in terms of structural dispersion, frequency oscillation and wind requirements.
For those more on the art than science side, we will reveal that the form does pay homage to something more aesthetic – we’re going to trust you’ve seen the music video for Beyoncé’s Ghost. As far as this project goes up, our focus also extends outwards – with retail space as well as hotel rooms and apartments, the project is designed with a more long-term view to urban design, creating a self-sustaining development.
138 Spencer Street, Melbourne VIC
Project cost $351M AUD
Area 85,000 sqm
Typology Hotel, Multi Residential
Hotel keys 172
Operator Movenpick
Completion 2020
C6 Perth
At 189.1 metres, C6 will be the world’s tallest hybrid timber residential building. It will be constructed using 42% mass timber – the result of extensive research with timber and structural experts – along with green steel and ‘greencrete’. The mass timber utilised in the building’s structure can be sustainably regrown in less than 1 hour, sequestering 10.5M kg of carbon.
C6 will be carbon neutral at completion and continue to remove carbon from the atmosphere through considered material selection, planting and energy efficient technology. The building features an embedded network, powering the building with 100% renewable energy, while the innovative elastic transport strategy will provide bike share and an EV car-share fleet of 80 Teslas.
C6 sits in concert with the site’s pre-settlement history, its connection to the local Indigenous peoples and native landscape. Fostering social capital, a 500 sqm podium and forecourt will be shared by residents and the wider community alike as 20% of the site area is given back as publicly accessible space. The landscape reconnects people and aids in re-habitation of the endangered Black Cockatoo.
An educational experience centre, playground, public art, towerto-plate restaurant and urban farming will contribute to year-round amenity while invigorating the public realm.
6-8 Charles Street, Perth WA
Project cost
Area
$350M AUD
40,000 SQM
Typology Multi Residential
Completion 2027
380 Londsdale
Decidedly cosmopolitan, 380 Lonsdale Street seems to have everything that Melbourne needs. This project puts the mixed in mixeduse, taking cues from our client to bring a bit of Singapore-style precinct urban planning and a tropical twist to this prominent site in the CBD.
380 Lonsdale is actually two towers in one. One houses a hotel, the other apartments, and both are united by a low-level podium with eroded massing that contains separate pods for office space, a business club, dining and health facilities and retail. These floating pockets break up the volume of the podium with the functions themselves. On top sits a jungle-like communal garden for hotel and apartment residents, sending foliage cascading down the façade. This untamed, green space includes pocket parks and landscaped areas, a veritable urban oasis.
This isn’t just about the high life though: the building stays down to earth with lots of street level interaction, including an extension of Timothy Lane to create a new café and dining thoroughfare that cuts through the site, adding to Melbourne’s world-renowned laneway culture. This big picture planning means that the line is blurred between street, tower and laneway.
The forms of the towers appear as silver ripples emanating from the heart of the site. Moulded bay windows – a contemporary update for this classic device give the building’s surface a vertical rhythm, a waterfall that pours into the garden beneath.
380 Lonsdale is an urban intervention that brings a touch of the tropics to Melbourne – and ticks all the right boxes for the city in the process.
380 Londsdale St, Melbourne VIC
Project cost $300M AUD
Area 98,500 sqm
Typology Hotel, Multi Residential
Hotel keys 312
Operator VOCO
Completion 2020
Aspire
Aspire Melbourne, our new multi-residential project in Melbourne’s West end, responds to the presence of nearby Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne’s oldest park, by intertwining local stories to represent the origins and future of the precinct. In the mid 19th century, this part of the city was Melbourne’s flourishing commercial centre: a diverse urban precinct home to the Indigenous Kulin nation, Chinese immigrants enticed by the Gold Rush as well as settler populations. This project embraces the distinctive elements of this site-specific identity, creating a thoroughly local architectural narrative.
Like the imposing flagstaff erected on the site to communicate between the town and the port, King Street will anchor the West end’s renaissance, signaling its return as the beating heart of Melbourne. The concave and convex silver glass facades reinterpret the fluttering of the flag against the flagstaff. The moulded form appears as if volumes have been carved out of the tall, slender tower. The undulating curves of the podium echo the rolling hills of this, the highest point of the city, while the park has become part of the building itself, with heavy planting creating green bands of foliage across the lower surface.
Transcending time and space, the past present and future of this significant site come together in King Street, re-establishing Melbourne’s West end as the beating heart of the city.
295 King Street, Melbourne VIC
Project cost
Area
$400M AUD
50,000 sqm
Typology Multi Residential
Completion 2023
The Queensbridge Building
Born from an investigation of place, the Queensbridge Building references Southbank’s heritage, from time immemorial as a meeting place where fresh and salt water collided through to post-settlement and the more recent industrial era.
Using real and raw materials and rewilding through endemic planting, the architecture and landscape characterise the natural environs that once occupied the land. Industrial era influences become evident through bronze details and steel framed windows.
Parallel to this, the building reflects a new experience economy. A hotel in the podium is accompanied by a work-club, rooftop bar and restaurant, fitness and wellness offerings while the tower includes over 350 short- and long-stay apartments. From turndowns to room service, residents and hotel guests enjoy membership to ‘Queensbridge Social’, a curated platform bringing together amenity and community.
Complementing the Queensbridge Building, a proposal to the City of Melbourne crafts a vibrant reimagining of the undercroft below the Kings Way overpass. Activated with food trucks, basketball court and public art commissions, the 4000 sqm proposal also offers EV charging and a sunken amphitheatre, setting the tone for the community-centric neighbourhood.
Located with a flood zone, the design incorporates a series of water catchments that remove surface water and filter it through an urban wetland rich with endemic species.
88 Queensbridge Street, Melbourne VIC
Project cost $400M AUD
Area
46,512 SQM
Operator Hannah St Hotel by TFE Hotel keys 190
Typology Hotel, Multi Residential
Japan is known for many things: sushi, geishas, harajuku girls, and now as the inspiration for Fifty Albert Road, our new residential project located on St Kilda Road near the Domain Interchange. The building also reflects the leafy Albert Park location, linking culture, architecture and landscape to reflect the grand inner city green spaces.
This building is in love with its location – its serpentine outline, which grows bigger towards the corners reflects the picturesque planning of the nearby Domain. The North wall balustrades twist from horizontal to vertical, making the building appear as if in motion and giving it virtual gills; the reptilian aspects are reflected in the white snakeskin surface. The gills also create high and low pressure zones to assist with breeze direction for the apartments, literally a building that breathes!
But where were we? Japan, that’s right. The front plaza, which also contains a 19th century townhouse, contains a cherry tree – Fifty Albert Road is the short-lived flush of a Japanese Winter. Pink light installations delicately blush the white porcelain exterior surface that rolls into the hotel-style lobby.
Inside there are many points for the building’s community to interact, with a lounge, bar and concierge, all in a pale, high key palette punctuated by a cherry tree art piece. Walk through to the back and further into the land of the rising sun, a health and fitness area is also a Japanese garden, with gold tiles, timber objects, air plants and pebbles. Rope elements suggest the more ‘covert’ side of Japanese culture and create an Onsen experience. The themed interiors continue throughout the building: the pure white walls have unexpected bulges, asking questions of the flawless Japanese aesthetic.
The communal rooftop area provides more opportunities for residents to mingle. The space has more hotel style inclusions such as a sundeck, outdoor hot tub, dining area, poker room, and plunge pools. You can even rent out the preview room and have your own rock star party!
Instead of the Yellow Brick Road, let Fifty Albert Road’s serpentine form lead you down a white porcelain path. Enjoy being lost in translation when the nuances of Japanese culture meet contemporary apartment living.
42-50 Albert Rd, Melbourne VIC
Project cost $76M AUD
Area 32,000 sqm
Typology
Completion
Elysium Fields
An expansive regenerative urban development over 22,000 sqm, Elysium Fields integrates architecture, landscape, and wellness. The design establishes strong outer edges while maintaining permeability within and framing a network of active central parks that enhance pedestrian movement and public life.
Robust masonry architecture defines the edges, acting as a buffer against Wurundjeri Way and Spencer Street Yards. This strategy mitigates urban noise and pollution while fostering an inward-facing orientation centered on public spaces and podium residential apartments. Digital Drive, a pedestrian-prioritized shared zone, weaves through the site, linking key open spaces and integrating with existing urban connections while preserving Wurundjeri Way as a vehicle corridor.
Concieved as a wellness precinct, incorporates green spaces, pedestrian-friendly environments, and communal areas that promote health, well-being, and social connection. Biophilic design principles ensure natural light, ventilation, and landscape elements are embedded throughout the project.
Drawing inspiration from the former Docklands Delta’s wetlands, the towers employ native materials and contextual design strategies, creating a unified architectural language. The development strikes a careful balance between built form and open space, contributing to the evolving character of Docklands while fostering a sustainable and wellness-oriented urban environment.
208-240 Harbour Esplanade, Docklands VIC 3008
Project cost
Area
$700M AUD
160,000 sqm
Typology Integrated Resort
Hotel Keys 270
Operator Confidential
Completion 2030
This design has been created for an emerging social group we like to call the ‘modern primate’. Modern primates are redefining contemporary life satisfaction by returning to the simple pleasures – food, shelter, social engagement, rejuvenation and learning – while maintaining a certain sense of aestheticism in their busy lifestyle.
A straight, front façade contrasts with stepped down volumes to the back carving out a scalloped curve. Façade treatments are a nod to Paris’ Bibliothèque Nationale – a silvery glass shell with semi-reflective qualities, activated by the changing positions of the thin timber screens fitted to the interior of each apartment. These screens, as well as a cutting edge window technology, enable complete customisation according to light, shade, ventilation and privacy needs. A first for Australia this parallel projection means windows pop out, opening up the front edge of apartments adding extra sunlight and breezes as well as texture from the exterior. Shut the window and open the screens to create a winter garden, or close the screens to retreat into your inner sanctum – even modern primates need to hibernate once in a while.
Inside, the apartments offer built-in joinery and dedicated display spaces to allow the modern primate to pick and choose curated collections to express their individual style. Study and work nooks have integrated charging stations to meet the out of hours demands of busy minds. Sleeping areas are rejuvenating spaces: spa-like ensuites and cocoon-like bedrooms have generous provision for storage and dressing. Kitchens are conceived as the centre of modern social life, a pale cinnamon grey stone bench the focal point for shared meals and moments.
Each building has been given an identity through a signature tree: Southern Magnolia, Chinese Pistachio or Gingko Biloba. This design references the significance of trees as ancient shelter while bridging nature and artifice and nourishing a form of sensory architecture where residents are surrounded by the sights and smells of these diverse environments. The foliage, bark and flowers of these species direct the palette, textures and material selections in each lobby, with motifs and finishes translated into more micro details in the apartment interiors. Thus, you’ll see the fanned shape of the Gingko Biloba leaf in ceiling and wall detail in the entry, as well as handles in apartments. Natural materials – from leather, stone and timber –deliver a raw tactility in tune with this contemporary interpretation of primitive life.
601 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne VIC Project
Typology
Completion
Victoria One
We used to be told that we would love every piece of Victoria. You’ll be able to find every piece of Victoria in our residential building Victoria One, on the northern edge of Melbourne’s CBD. Our first project with developer Golden Age marked the next chapter in our rejuvenation for Melbourne’s northern corner. The form and façade of this mixed-use tower recalls Victoria’s famous landscapes – the gardens, waterfalls, rainforests, waterways and beaches that make up this southern state.
The fluid façade appears soft and yielding like the local parks, oceans and rivers. Green glazing with gold highlights gives a botanic feel. The fins – which appropriately also assist with wind and sun protection – are shimmering silver, shifting like the currents of a stream or leaves being shaken with rain. The story continues inside, as the fins peel away much like Rosie Huntington-Whitley’s famous Gucci dress, from the diagonal corners of the building, exposing the life within.
You’d never guess, but the building contains automated car parking concealed behind a layer of apartments in the podium facing Elizabeth and Franklin streets. These activated facades keep the inhabitation of the building alive, adding vibrancy day and night. You enter into Victoria One through the tactile lobby area, with the best of nature and artifice. Polished stone, forest green soft furnishings, rolling lighting installations and digital interfaces create a sanctuary and meeting place.
For residents of the 629 apartments, there are three floors of communal spaces that again touch on the great outdoors and give a sense of community within. Mid level offers a pool, sauna and steam rooms and a fitness club, with views across the market, out to the Macedon Ranges and across Melbourne. There is also a garden lounge retreat and dining facilities with a kitchen and bar. Way up top there are lounge spaces and television screens to catch up on your favourite film or series. The palette of materials is inspired by the environment outdoors with elemental tones and textures – earth, rock, water and vegetation.
There’s those of us who dream about spending nights in the wild, under the stars – we’ve created something that comes pretty close, only better. If you loved every little piece of Victoria, then you’re bound to love every little piece of Victoria One.
We’re creating a road-map to regenerative design. Each project is driven by a bespoke platform, with a series of non-negotiables and ambitions defined in partnership with our clients to realise the best triple bottom line outcomes.
Navigating multiple sectors, the platform centres around eight core pillars that guide us along the pathway to regenerative practice.
01 Climate positive
Our buildings make positive contribution through negative carbon, achieved through intervention at all stages. Each one must achieve carbon neutral status during construction. This is a non-negotiable action taken in partnership with our clients and collaborators.
Emphasising renewable, local materials and embedding considered landscape elements turns our buildings into carbon sinks: climate positive outcomes and lower ongoing operating costs.
We embed technology within our developments to monitor and improve energy consumption throughout their life-cycle. We also take an active role in negotiating long-term renewable energy supply agreements, expanding the capacity of local providers.
02 Performative architecture
How we design healthy environments has shifted dramatically since the onset of the pandemic. Twenty years of development has been compressed into two, forever changing the ways in which we work, live and play.
Our architectural approach explores a raft of passive design principles such as thermal performance and heat control, access to fresh air, high performance building envelopes, views and vistas, and lighting. These proven considerations are combined with the latest thinking around ventilation, technological integration, healthy materials and contactless mechanisms.
Salutogenesis
True well-being is not about cure, but prevention. Fraser & Partners creates salutogenetic environments that promote collective and individual physical and mental health. Salutogenetic environments offer people what they need in order to feel good, not just feel better. They foster creative expression, access to nature, social connection, movement and activity, and rest.
We understand these needs change depending on the demographics of users, and we actively consider how to make our buildings inter-generational and inclusive, remaining attentive to the diverse needs of different groups.
04
Regenerative landscapes
Regenerating landscapes requires an understanding of climate and context alongside the re-establishment of nature as central to the built environment. For each of our projects, we prioritise the planting of native endemic species to restore the local pre-European ecology of the site. We create total environments that in turn provide vibrant ecological habitats for wildlife and sanctuaries for birds and pollinators.
On-site water strategies mitigate downstream impacts and reduce land pollution. Rainwater harvesting, biodiversity management plans, indoor vegetation and community gardens are but some of the many opportunities to be explored on the pathway to regenerative practice.
05 Value chain
Each building is much more than the sum of its parts. We care about where things come from and how they’re made. Understanding the provenance of every material, every element that goes into our work, allows us to design from the macro to the micro scale, including direct to manufacture elements. This knowledge enables us to create designs that don’t just break-even but give back.
Drawing on the legacies of modernism, The New Standard is our demonstration of iterative design. During the design process, the Fraser & Partners team utilises benchmark data and a suite of custom details – each manufactured to rigorous requirements and adaptable to a range of projects and typologies.
06 Technology
At Fraser & Partners, architecture is user experience – we treat people, architecture and communications as integrated assemblage, rather than separate elements. Our projects have a strong technology backbone, which means that we can measure and analyse almost every aspect of a building’s performance from light, to air quality to heat mapping.
Multi-dimensional sensors create buildings that literally learn to perform better, adapting to the behavioural patterns of users to optimise consumption. Software interfaces for building systems add another layer of adaptability, giving managers the capacity to transparently access data and manually adjust settings.
07 Social and culture
Our architecture puts people at the centre, using design to facilitate connection and community. Respecting the land on which we operate, from time immemorial to more recent history, we learn from the stories of Australia’s First Nations peoples, which connect place, environment and cosmology.
We undertake partnerships and engagement processes with local community representatives and the Traditional Custodians of the land and waterways of Country. This is vital as we shape the flora and fauna of endemic landscapes and enable them to repropagate and thrive.
Industry leadership
Our collaborations actively seek to demonstrate industry leadership. Projects embody the principles of advocacy, future value creation, ethical decision-making and contributing meaningfully to the built environment sector.
The seed of each project is a specifically commissioned piece of research. Conducted by industry specialists and university researchers, this in-depth exploration of the vital challenges we face when designing total environments cements the collaborative focus of our process. Research findings are shared upon project completion for wide-reaching benefits.
Acknowledgment of Country
Fraser & Partners acknowledges Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We acknowledge that Countries, knowledges and customs were never ceded, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
