Earlier in the year the Victorian government announced the $1 million Flinders Street Station International Design Competition. The Flinders Street Station precinct is a heritage icon as well as Melbourne’s busiest railway station.

All entries were submitted anonymously to the competition jury in a bid to maintain the highest level of fairness and equity. Out of 118 entries from a range of local and international talent, 6 have been announced as making the shortlist.

The shortlisted designers are:
- Ashton Raggatt McDougall (Melbourne)
- John Wardle Architects + Grimshaw (Australia & UK)
- HASSELL + Herzog & de Meuron (Melbourne & Switzerland)
- NH Architecture (Melbourne)
- Eduardo Velasquez + Manuel Pineda + Santiago Medina (Columbia via University of Melbourne)
- Zaha Hadid & BVN Architecture (UK & Melbourne)

A particularly notable shortlisted entry includes Zaha Hadid, renowned as one of the most recognised and acclaimed female architects in the world. Hadid’s claim to fame include being the first female recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (the architectural equivalent of the Nobel Prize) as well as winning the Stirling Prize two years in a row for the Maxxi in Rome (2010) and for the Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton (2011). In 2008 she ranked 69th on the Forbes list of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” and in 2012 she was named by Time Magazine as influential thinker of the year.  This is just a small representation of the acclaim she has garnered on the international stage. Hadid has coupled up with local architects BVN, who notably won the 2012 Sulman Medal for the Ravenswood School for Girls Library and Resource Centre.

The shortlisted entrants now have six months to develop their ideas and attend various technical briefings and workshops before Stage 2 of the competition closes.

The jury has admitted to having a very hard task choosing the finalists from such an impressive display of entrants. Needless to say, whichever entrants takes out the prize will surely result in a memorable, remarkable and functional landmark for Melbourne.

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