Highpoint — Activation Projects

Over several years, ASPECT Studios has been involved in designing impactful permanent and temporary additions to the Highpoint Shopping Centre in Maribyrnong.

These projects have made room for public spaces within a dense commercial landscape. As shopping centres in Melbourne increasingly double as community spaces, these projects make a powerful argument for the inclusion of generous public-oriented spaces as a matter of necessity.

Pop-up Park

The Pop-up Playground offered new ways of talking, sitting, watching and playing for visitors to Highpoint. Located at one of the centre’s busiest entrances, the small plaza was marred by cracked in-situ concrete, stains from food, drinks and cigarettes, and a lack of seating. The Pop-Up Park was designed to be quickly and cheaply installed with accessible materials like form ply and a standard stud wall framing system. In addition, the seating elements, with their laminate fixings and colours, contribute to a unique identity for the space.

The Sticks

The Sticks playspace is a permanent addition to the shopping centre. More than just a place to park the kids while shopping, this playspace features vertical elements that are visually striking and offer a tactile, exploratory experience.

Retail Village

This temporary adaptive events space provided new experiences for visitors to the shopping centre, and consisted of a series of raised plinths, feature surface treatments and custom furniture elements.

ASPECT Studios designed additional seating elements, feature resurfacing and a minor reconfiguration at the south-west entrance to provide clearer sight lines and improve pedestrian permeability. These works included an integrated custom seating element, ornamental garden bed, the relocation of the barrier kerb and raising the pavement to footpath level to provide pedestrian circulation to both sides of an existing palm tree.