Chadstone Carpark B – Arboretum

THE MADERIGHT WAY

Inspire with quality

Chadstone’s Carpark B, Arboretum, continues Vicinity Centres’ ambition to elevate essential infrastructure into civic-scale design. The new carpark is wrapped in an integrated façade that transforms a functional structure into a precinct landmark. A layered field of leaf-like blades brings rhythm, softness and a seasonal atmosphere to the site’s expanding edges.

The earliest design thinking began with a butterfly as a provocation around lightness, motion and pattern. As the project developed, the concept evolved into something more grounded and enduring. The final narrative became Arboretum, drawing on the idea of a curated collection of trees and shrubs assembled as a living, ordered expression of landscape. In the tradition of arboreta, spaces that organise botanical variety into a deliberate and immersive experience, the façade became an architectural analogue. It reads as a “collection” of individually cut blades that suggest foliage, canopy and leaf fall, shifting in tone, density and shadow across the structure.

Artist Matthew Johnson developed the integrated artwork as a public interface, with Buchan translating the concept into a buildable architectural framework. The façade behaves like an urban canopy. It changes as visitors move past it and as daylight moves across it, giving the carpark a sense of time, texture and place. The work reads less like a screen and more like a landscape condition.

Louvreclad was engaged early alongside Hacer Group to help translate the evolving concept into engineered reality. From the outset, the role was to ensure the façade could perform structurally, withstand Melbourne’s weather, and still retain the delicacy and legibility of its arboreal intent.

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Engineer with expertise

Where Billow challenged fabrication at scale, Arboretum proved a more complex engineering test because the leaf geometry defied conventional structural logic. The design’s deepest cantilever sits at the top, producing a top-heavy profile that runs counter to typical engineering principles, where mass and width are usually resolved lower for stability.

To preserve the sculptural intent, Louvreclad’s engineering team developed a custom outrigger support system that enabled the upper portion of the blades to project confidently while remaining stable under wind loads. The result appears effortless, but is fundamentally a controlled, high-performance structure.

Material performance was designed into the process. Louvreclad’s Platinum Series® blades were prototyped at full scale and tested on site in real wind and storm conditions before installation began. A concealed fixing system was also developed for the Barossa Series® battens, detailed for curved steel and designed to deliver uninterrupted lines across the upper façade.

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Implement with surety

Installation demanded precision. Louvreclad coordinated closely with the steel contractors to plan every hole and bracket to the millimetre. Six-metre curved fins were craned into place from the rooftop using a custom-coded and engraved identification system, ensuring each unique blade landed exactly where intended. The work was completed with zero disruption to pedestrian or traffic movement below.