By Cimara Pearce
ST ALBANS resident Claire Mensforth aims to please both residents and Brimbank City Council in the plans she is drawing up for the location and design of the council’s $30 million civic centre.
The 23-year-old architecture student has chosen to design the civic precinct as her final university assessment piece and will submit her completed plans to Brimbank Council at the end of the year.
Ms Mensforth said she had the option to design anything she liked for her final project but had chosen a St Albans project because she had lived in the suburb all her life.
Although in the early stages of her project, Ms Mensforth said her preliminary ideas were to put the precinct at the old St Albans Town Hall or on a section of Errington Reserve, rather than on the entire reserve as the council had suggested.
“Because I live in St Albans I wanted to do something for St Albans,” she said.
“I thought about doing the train station at St Albans, like doing an underpass-type thing, but that’s not really the type of thing I want to do (in the future).
“With all the controversy (surrounding the civic precinct) it made a lot of sense to try and decide something that would satisfy their (the council’s) needs that wouldn’t cause so much trouble for the community.”
Ms Mensforth has been attending the community forums being conducted by the council to listen to community concern and has been driving around Melbourne looking at other civic buildings and town halls for inspiration.
She said other precincts she had been impressed with included council buildings in Preston, Manningham and St Kilda.
A key concern of residents has been that the council’s new municipal offices will be largely just offices and will have little to no space for community use. Ms Mensforth said this would be something she would look to overcome in her plans.
“I’ll propose multiple uses. I’d like it that you’d be able to pay bills there, or maybe even have a Vic Roads or a Centrelink,” she said.
“My plans will have council chambers and a performance place and places the community could meet.”
Ms Mensforth said, while she was not expecting her plans to make the final plan for the civic precinct, she said she would be flattered if the council wanted to adopt her designs.
Her project is due for completion on 2 November.
