Pritzker Winner Jean Nouvel To Design $700m Melbourne Tower

Renowned French architect Jean Nouvel - the architect behind Sydney's One Central Park development -  will design a $700 million, 70-level mixed use tower on La Trobe Street in Melbourne CBD, according to The Australian Financial Review.

Developer Sterling Global lodged plans on Wednesday for the tower, which is to feature 488 residential apartments plus a 196-room luxury hotel on the 338 La Trobe Street site.

The Australian Financial Review said Sterling Global purchased the site from Investa Office Fund last year for $70.7 million.

The planned building site - which currently houses an Australian Federal Police office - has a plot ratio of 29:1. As such, the 82,000-plus square metres of space will be 29 times the area of the site.

This exceeds the limit Victorian planning Minister Richard Wynne proposed last month, but the developer is seeking leniency as a result of the design by Mr Nouvel that will create a laneway through a block, plus space for digital artwork to be viewed by the public.

"What we're providing justifies the bonus."Each building face will reportedly have a different coloured facade and sky gardens will be accessible to residents. Some levels will be accessible to the public.

Mr Nouvel, is a winner of the Pritzker Prize – architecture's equivalent of the Nobel – being recognised for work including the 1987 Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Mr Nouvel is widely known for his distaste toward general rules on developments.

The project is the latest of a number of CBD developments targeting local owner-occupiers. One-third of its dwellings will be one-bedroom apartments ranging from 55 sqm to 60 sqm in area, with the rest larger. The penthouse will cover 480 sqm. Pricing is not available.