South Lawn

The South Lawn at the University of Melbourne is a sprawling, elevated green space that conceals one of the university’s most unconventional engineering projects. From above, it appears as a wide, open courtyard of grass and trees, but beneath this surface lies a structural network of reinforced concrete shells designed in the early nineteen seventies. These shells are shaped like parabolic saucers and supported on short columns, a system engineered by Jan van der Molen to hold the weight of the soil and trees required for a rooftop garden.