Allara Street Kiosks
The Allara Street Kiosks are a set of three small buildings providing retail tenancies for local, independent businesses. Below a cluster of mature trees and the face of an eight-storey commercial building, we looked to reimagine the site’s scale and landscape – to humanise a corner of Canberra’s central business district, and create a personal, welcoming public space.
The final stage of our Allara Street masterplanning work for Molonglo, the kiosks neighbour one another in a tranquil landscape of washed concrete aggregate, seating, pot plants and Australian native species. The space between the kiosks is as important as the buildings themselves – interspersed with nooks and benches beneath a canopy of existing trees, it is a place for people to stop, rest, eat, drink and socialise.
Brought forward from the street’s colonnade, each kiosk offers its tenants a 360-degree shop-frontage and a number of entrances; while the many windows, opening configurations and folding door panels allow the buildings to move with the seasons and the needs of the occupant. Working with Allara Street’s businesses in mind, our landscape design was informed by our conversations with the site’s existing tenants – instead of detracting from the existing facade, we looked to create a small, open space that would bring people to the district.
