Laing O’Rourke for Level Crossing Removal Authority
Mooroolbark Station
A transport hub that redefines civic generosity, enhancing place vitality via urban intervention and community connection.
As one of 85 level crossing removal projects commissioned by the Victorian Government, BKK’s Mooroolbark Station transformation was designed as an architectural sibling to Lilydale Station, which we undertook in tandem. Working in partnership with Kyriacou Architects, Jacobs, and ASPECT Studios, we reimagined the historic Mooroolbark Station precinct for improved civic vitality, elevating the railway line to deliver an indoor/outdoor public concourse beneath with entrances and thoroughfares strategically located for convenient multi-modal transport connections. The addition of a three-storey multi-deck commuter carpark, integrated with the precinct, serves to further strengthen the new transport hub. Beyond functional infrastructure, our design demonstrates the benefits of sensitive urban design, delivering enhanced public amenity and celebrating local heritage through materiality and craftsmanship.
Big Picture Thinking
The designs of both Mooroolbark and Lilydale Station sought to deliver ideologically democratised buildings that would be the antithesis of monumental civic architecture, shaping places that embrace the local character and are open and inviting for all. To achieve this on the Mooroolbark Station project, we initially needed to challenge the brief which proposed to remove the Manchester Road level crossing by raising the road over the train line, bypassing the lovely local village centre and as a result, compromising its future viability and sustainability. We instead proposed to elevate the train line, providing a compelling urban design intervention that would serve to enhance rather than destroy the vitality of the village centre.
Elevating the train line allowed us to create a street-level concourse as an open, porous public zone that welcomes pedestrians to flow through, and shapes a transport hub that simultaneously strengthens car, train, bus and bike connections. The design purposefully engages with and amplifies the existing Brice Avenue retail strip, utilising key design mechanisms such as a landscaped piazza zone to create a vibrant civic interface, and a contemporary clock tower rising above the raised platforms to deliver a new civic marker.
Collaboration and Humility
Our design partnership worked together from our Alliance project offices, which facilitated a highly efficient and deeply integrated and collaborative approach to design, enabling real-time resolution of design challenges. This collaborative environment fostered meaningful dialogue between architects, engineers, and builders, and drove a construction strategy that balanced prefabrication with craft in alignment with the tight occupation timelines associated with rail projects.
The integration of public art exemplifies this collaborative spirit, with BKK identifying elements of the design where artwork could be meaningfully integrated, and then facilitating conversations between the client and Melbourne artist/designer Jordan Rowe. Seeking guidance from the local historical society, Jordan’s artwork weaves together narratives of pioneering station master Elizabeth Meade and the humble gumboots that once lined the platforms ready for commuters’ muddy walk home, layered with images of native flora and fauna, strikingly articulated on concourse-level glass screens. This artwork was one of three options selected by the community for inclusion.
Playfulness and Innovation
Designed as a sibling station with Lilydale, both stations feature a similar sense of materiality and design expression. We purposely contrasted the visual bulk of the viaducts and support structure, with the handcrafted, natural materiality of zinc and hand-laid local Coldstream mudstone, popularly utilised throughout the Yarra Valley. An ETFE roof system floats between the viaducts, its inflated plastic structure providing a lightweight, maintainable solution that draws natural light into the concourse below. Both stations incorporate towering lift shafts as urban markers, with Mooroolbark’s expressed as a contemporary clock tower clad in a robust snakeskin-patterned zinc, celebrating the symbiotic relationship between time and train travel. Reminiscent of many European examples, the clocktower frames, and acts as an anchor, to the new piazza created on Brice Ave.
The adjacent 900 space, multi-level commuter carpark represented a significant departure in scale to the local neighbourhood character, requiring a sensitive approach to minimise its visual presence while creating a distinctive identity. We created an array of fins for the façade, applying a range of greens sampled from an image of the nearby Brushy Creek, to effectively dematerialise, or camouflage the building and enable it to appear less bulky in its environment.
Collaboration and Humility
Our design partnership worked together from our Alliance project offices, which facilitated a highly efficient and deeply integrated and collaborative approach to design, enabling real-time resolution of design challenges. This collaborative environment fostered meaningful dialogue between architects, engineers, and builders, and drove a construction strategy that balanced prefabrication with craft in alignment with the tight occupation timelines associated with rail projects.
The integration of public art exemplifies this collaborative spirit, with BKK identifying elements of the design where artwork could be meaningfully integrated, and then facilitating conversations between the client and Melbourne artist/designer Jordan Rowe. Seeking guidance from the local historical society, Jordan’s artwork weaves together narratives of pioneering station master Elizabeth Meade and the humble gumboots that once lined the platforms ready for commuters’ muddy walk home, layered with images of native flora and fauna, strikingly articulated on concourse-level glass screens. This artwork was one of three options selected by the community for inclusion.
Leadership and Advocacy
Maximising the positive impact of this project, beyond the level crossing brief, was a key driver for our team. We led the urban design approach with Landscape Architects, Aspect, working together to achieve impactful physical and place-based connections whilst also utilising the Urban Design Advisory Panel process as a means of communication and advocacy for stronger community outcomes. Building upon this, we designed the station to achieve a 5-Star Green Star Railway Stations rating, incorporating a recyclable ETFE polymer canopy sheltering the concourse, a 15-kilolitre rainwater harvest system that satisfies around 60% of the station’s water need, and photovoltaic panels that generate 35% of the station’s power requirements.
Transformative Places, Holistic Benefits
The Mooroolbark Station level crossing removal project represents a sensitive intervention that transcends its role as infrastructure to become a place of community connection and historical resonance. The elevated rail line, rather than dividing the suburb, creates new public spaces that celebrate local identity while serving contemporary needs. Every element, from the democratic architecture to the integrated artwork, contributes to a precinct that honors its past while embracing its future as a vital transport hub. The result demonstrates how thoughtful infrastructure design can enrich community life while solving critical urban challenges.