Architect Lyons with NMBW Architecture Studio, Harrison and White, MvS Architects and Maddison Architects

In 2016 I wrote in Architecture Australia: “The city campus can be an effective agent in the process of urban change and can add to the cultural landscape of the city.” (“The City Campus and Urban Agency,” July/August issue.) The point being that because a university campus controls a whole precinct of buildings, including the streets and open space, it has the ability to act in the broader public interest with respect to urban design. The article highlighted major new works at the University of Technology Sydney and at Melbourne’s RMIT through the New Academic Street (NAS) project by Lyons with NMBW Architecture Studio, Harrison and White, MvS Architects and Maddison Architects. At the time I had not visited NAS, as construction had barely begun, but now it is finished.

The aim of NAS was to transform the heart of the RMIT