Paradise Regained
At the intersection of ecology, sculpture, and urban infrastructure, Paradise Regained reclaims an overlooked pocket of Melbourne and transforms it into a critical node for both biodiversity and cultural expression. Sited at the underutilised Power Street loop, long considered a void in the city’s urban fabric, the project proposes a visionary intervention: a vertical habitat that acts as an ecological stepping stone within a dense metropolitan context.
This towering structure, sculptural in form and ecological in function, emerges as a vegetal beacon rising between the spire of the Melbourne Arts Centre and the tower at ACCA. In doing so, it creates a visual and symbolic gateway to the city’s arts precinct, offering a new point of orientation while fostering a dialogue between nature and the built environment. As an object in the landscape, it is simultaneously iconic and performative, marking territory while nurturing life.
Paradise Regained is not a conventional park, nor merely an art installation. It is a hybrid typology that reimagines what urban green space can be. Its bulbous form provides shade and shelter for native bird species, while water harvesting systems embedded within its core collect and store rainwater for dry summer months. Nesting chambers are elevated above ground level, offering refuge from predators and the encroachments of the city. In a city increasingly dominated by impermeable surfaces and rapid development, the project reduces stormwater runoff and reintroduces layered biodiversity into an area that had been rendered ecologically inert.
The significance of Paradise Regained lies not only in its physical presence but in its quiet resistance to conventional urban design practices. Where the city often builds over, around, or through its remaining natural assets, this project builds with and for the non-human. It elevates the value of ecological systems, proposing that even a loop of land left behind by infrastructure can become a sanctuary. It invites us to reconsider our hierarchies, placing birds, pollinators, and native plants at the centre of an urban gesture.
As a sculptural form, it resonates with the language of contemporary art. As an ecological tool, it serves as infrastructure for environmental repair. The project operates across scales, visible to the city from afar, yet intimate and protective in its detail for the species it serves. In its bold, biomorphic silhouette, Paradise Regained stands not only as a new landmark but as a call to design with empathy, integrating urban life with the quiet, vital processes of nature.
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"While there were engaging and challenging outliers on this spectrum, the two that best demonstrate the negotiation between artful occupation and functional futurism are the Horti-Cultural-Tower by team HAU and Paradise Regained by Dan Whelan. Paradise Regained uses a very large sculptural gesture to store stormwater and provide an ecological stepping stone for the migration of various species. This giant sculpture also intends to advertise its role as habitat creator." — Competitive Territory (ArchitectureAU)
