Five lessons from the Metro Tunnel: Insights from our Melbourne Symposium

Co-hosted with the Committee for Melbourne, our recent design symposium revealed how the city’s new Metro Tunnel redefines urban liveability. Here are our top five takeaways.

How does massive infrastructure become a city’s heartbeat? Beyond just moving people, Melbourne’s new Metro is unlocking the life of our streets. Our recent design symposium featuring a panel discussion with industry leaders (pictured above, from left to right) Scott Veenker of Committee for Melbourne, Joanna Stepp of Mijo Tenders, Hassell’s Mark Loughnan, Jeremy Gaden of Greenshoot Consulting, Hassell’s Ingrid Bakker and Alan Nargessi of Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority, explored how world-class design is powering the creation of vibrant, revitalised public spaces that draw Melburnians back into the city for work, leisure, and connection.

Here are our top five takeaways from the event that define this new era of civic design.

1. ENGINEERING THROUGH NATURE

At Arden Station, the landscape isn’t just a calming green backdrop; it’s a functioning urban sponge. By creating a series of sunken gardens and reintroducing indigenous species that once thrived in the original Moonee Ponds Creek wetlands, we’ve turned planting into a high-performance engineering solution. These specific grasses and shrubs naturally absorb high volumes of stormwater, preventing local flooding while closing a biological cycle that began long before the city was built.

2. DESIGNING OUT THE DARK: THE POWER OF THE OPEN METRO

Safety usually feels like an afterthought of cameras and lighting. For the Metro Tunnel, it’s baked into the architecture. By removing excessive pillars and dark alcoves on station platforms, our Open Metro design offers sweeping, unobstructed sightlines. Whether you’re at Town Hall or State Library, the openness ensures that every corner is visible, creating a natural sense of security through intuitive design.

3. DEEP LISTENING: ART WITH ANCESTRY

Metro’s five new stations serve as subterranean galleries where First Nations storytelling is etched into the civic experience. From Abdul Abdullah’s expansive Come Together mosaic at Arden to Maree Clarke’s line-wide celebration of native fauna, these works are fundamental to the project’s identity. By embedding the stories of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong people into the physical journey, the design ensures the world’s oldest living culture is the first thing commuters see.

4. CIVIC POROSITY: THE STATION AS A PLAZA

The wow moment at Anzac Station is the massive timber canopy that feels more like a pavilion in the park than a train stop. It blurs the line between the street and the platform, allowing natural light deep into the concourse and inviting the city inside.

5. THE LIVING NETWORK: A LEGACY OF URBAN GREENING

Melbourne and its residents have gained 16,500sqm of generous new green spaces. The redesigned station precincts feature new parks, substantial tree plantings, and biodiverse flora alongside separated bicycle lanes. Dramatically expanded areas include the Albert Road Reserve near Anzac Station, which creates a vast green corridor that seamlessly connects Albert Park and the Shrine of Remembrance to the Domain. This design-led urban greening initiative also supports the broader ​‘Shrine to Sea’ project, carving a vital biodiversity link through to Port Phillip Bay.

The Metro Tunnel Project is a collaboration between international architecture design practices Hassell, WW+P Architects and RSHP. Landscape architecture by Hassell, line-wide and wayfinding by Maynard Design Consultancy, engineering by Arup, Arcadis and WSP as part of the CYP Design and Construction (CYP D&C) Joint Venture comprising Bouygues Construction, John Holland and Lendlease on behalf of the Victorian Government.