Design Choices | Northern Memorial Park Depot
On-Demand
1 Formal CPD Point
About the Session
This session examines how sustainability and human-centred design can be established as core drivers of architectural decision-making, rather than layered onto projects as secondary considerations. Using the Northern Memorial Park Depot - recipient of the 2025 AIA National Award for Commercial Architecture, Victorian Architecture Medal, and Melbourne Prize - as a case study, the presentation explores how an inherently utilitarian brief can be transformed and reframed as a civic opportunity.
The project will be discussed through the lens of a return brief process, demonstrating how client values, user needs, and long-term environmental outcomes can be aligned from the outset. The session will focus on key moments across the life of the project where these ambitions are tested - from early option development through to material selection and construction - and the strategies used to maintain design intent under the pressures of cost, program and procurement.
Rather than presenting a linear project narrative, the session offers a practical framework for embedding and sustaining sustainable and human-centred principles across all stages of a project. Attendees will gain insights into how to translate early design intent into built outcomes that retain both environmental, civic and human value.
NSCA 2021 Performance Criteria
PROJECT INITIATION AND CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
- PC23: Be able to prepare a return brief for approval by the client and relevant stakeholders in response to a client brief and any areas of deviation or non-compliance.
- PC24: Be able to prepare and analyse project development options in response to a project brief – its objectives, budget, user intent and built purpose, risk and timeframes, including environmental sustainability considerations.
- PC31: Be able to identify, analyse and integrate information relevant to environmental sustainability – such as energy and water consumption, resources depletion, waste, embodied carbon and carbon emissions – over the lifecycle of a project.
DETAILED DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTATION
- PC38: Be able to work within budget and time constraints while maintaining the defined project design intent. This includes participating in value management processes where engaged to do so.
- PC45: Be able to nominate and integrate quality and performance standards with regard to selected materials, finishes, fittings, components and systems, considering the impact on Country and the environment, and the whole life carbon impact of the project. This includes integrating life cycle assessments and other expertise and advice from consultants.
DESIGN DELIVERY AND CONSTRUCTION PHASE SERVICES
- PC54: Be able to monitor construction progress and quality as required under the provisions of the construction contract, which may include site visits.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Apply return brief methodologies to align client values, user needs and sustainability objectives at project inception.
- Evaluate project development options that balance environmental performance, human-centered outcomes, cost and risk.
- Integrate sustainability principles, including lifecycle thinking and material impacts, into architectural design from concept through to delivery.
- Maintain key aspects of design intent, including wellbeing and environmental performance, through detailed design and value management processes.
- Assess construction phase decisions and quality outcomes to ensure alignment with design intent and project objectives.
Your Facilitator
Suzannah Waldron is Director of Searle x Waldron Architecture, a Melbourne-based practice specialising in inventive public and community projects that respond to place. A graduate of RMIT University, she established the studio in 2007 following international competition wins, bringing together creativity and strategic thinking with a strong civic focus to deliver work that is both conceptually rigorous and publicly engaging. In 2025, Searle x Waldron received the Victorian Architecture Medal and Melbourne Prize at the Victorian Architecture Awards for the Northern Memorial Park Depot, recognising the studio’s commitment to thoughtful, site-responsive design that strengthens both community and context.
Price
Members: $79
Student members: FREE
Non-members: $149
FAQs
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Cancellations and Refunds
Generally, the Institute will not agree to a refund if the request is received less than 14 days before the event starts, unless otherwise stated in the cancellations and refunds policy.