City of Melbourne undertook engagement on the draft Design Competition Guidelines as part of the Design Excellence Program deliverables.

The draft guidelines outline an ethical and streamlined competition process to support high quality design thinking and architecturally-diverse buildings.

Community engagement commenced on 22 March, for a period of 7.5 weeks, closing 14 May 2023 and was conducted primarily online via Participate Melbourne and through interviews with users and industry groups.

Community and industry:

• Were generally supportive of the design advocacy and leadership of the guidelines, and possible benefits of competitions
• Were supportive of the competition model and scalability to allow for a tailored process
• Suggested simplifying the competition steps and limiting the submission requirements.
• Cautioned that design competitions should not further encumber the planning process.

Suitable adjustments were made to the Guidelines in response to the feedback received, including:

• Clarification that, for now, the guidelines support voluntary design competitions.
• Clarification that the Guidelines typically apply to selected City of Melbourne owned sites and sites where City of Melbourne is the Responsible Authority. It retains the possibility of collaborating with the Victorian Government on State managed sites.
• Simplified competition models from three to two. This gives clear limits to the degree of design resolution requested and de-risks the process for participants by limiting deliverables.

The endorsed Design Competition Guidelines will lift the quality of Melbourne’s building and places by:

• influencing the diversity of practices designing projects across the municipality
• driving innovation
• prioritising holistic and site responsive design that balances public and private interests
• enabling investment and growth in the design talent pool of emerging, small and medium sized practices. Advocating and growing a culture and understanding of Design Excellence.