Density, Done Deliberately: Notes from Melbourne Design Week
News
20 May 2026
What does it actually take to build density well in Victoria? That was the question we brought to Melbourne Design Week last week, alongside Jill Garner (Victorian Government Architect), David Allt-Graham (Assemble), and Nicola Smith (Niche Planning Studio). Convened by Olivia Round of ArchitectureAu Products Magazine, the conversation skipped the familiar debate about whether density is necessary and went straight to the harder question: how we deliver it well.Director Ian Briggs opened with Reservoir Central as a working model. The project begins with place: pre-colonial country, post-colonial layers, a pastiche of Mediterranean tile and pastel that defines the local built character. Two grids meet and collide across the site, generating spaces between buildings that are neither purely Anglo nor European, but distinctly Reservoir. A village green here, a village square there. As Ian put it, “Who puts brown and blue together? Well, Reservoir does.” A catalyst masterplan for something much larger, and a reminder that good density starts with context.
“Who puts brown and blue together? Well, Reservoir does.”
David Allt-Graham drew on Preston Crossing to argue that density works when it is deliberate. Know the market. Design for specific people at specific life stages. Keep the massing simple, because complex forms have a way of letting residents down years later. Transit-oriented development, in his framing, is what frees up the ground for landscape, walkability, and the slower pleasures of street life.
“Planning initiatives are pulling the right levers, she said, but planning is only 20% of delivery. The other 80% sits with construction costs, financing, and the broader economic cycle.”
Jill Garner was characteristically clear-eyed on the reform question. Government, frankly, does not build housing. Its job is to set the scene so the private sector can. Planning initiatives are pulling the right levers, she said, but planning is only 20% of delivery. The other 80% sits with construction costs, financing, and the broader economic cycle. Public infrastructure investment, often overlooked, is what produces the tapestry of a city ready to develop on. She also made the case for genuine three-dimensional masterplanning, noting pointedly that a subdivision is not a masterplan, and questioned why Victoria still has no statutory requirement to use a registered architect for significant residential buildings.Nicola Smith added that constant policy change, however well-intentioned, is outpacing communities’ ability to keep up with what is changing in their own streets. Planners, she said, too often draw rudimentary catchment circles without looking at the fine grain of the actual place. Nic Antoniou pointed to the DFP process as a genuine shift, with architects positioned as design guardians once again, “all architects want to do great stuff. We’re interrogating the fine-grain design a lot more deeply, a lot earlier than we used to.”
“All architects want to do great stuff. We’re interrogating the fine-grain design a lot more deeply, a lot earlier than we used to.”
Different corners, one conclusion. The missing middle is not really a gap in housing stock. It is a gap in community, and the typology will follow once we get clear on who we are building for. As Jill put it, “A good suburb has a newborn and has a community of elderly. And everyone crosses paths.” That is the standard. Everything else is how we get there.
