QUEEN VICTORIA VILLAGE, MELBOURNE

Queen Victoria Village, generally known as QV Village or just QV, is a precinct in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia. Covering the city block bounded by Lonsdale, Little Lonsdale, Swanston, and Russell Streets, and located directly opposite the State Library of Victoria and Melbourne Central, QV comprises a large shopping centre, a central plaza, an underground food court, Melbourne central city's first full-size supermarket, apartment buildings, and the global headquarters of BHP Billiton. Queen Victoria Village takes its name from the Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne which formerly occupied the site.

The site was originally the Melbourne Hospital, built in the 1860s and designed in the gothic revival style, it was completey rebuilt between 1911–1912 by architect John James Clark to accommodate a larger number of patients and renamed in honour of Queen Victoria. The hospital was composed of several Edwardian pavilions or loggia, each of them with fanciful domed cupolas except for a corner building, which was based on a square plan and more of the Richardsonian Romanesque style. A women's hospital opened on the site in 1946. The hospital was closed in 1987, and the site was valued at A$63 million in 1987. It was eventually sold for merely $15 million to property developer David Marinner in 1992. All but three of the hospital pavilions were demolished in the following year.

The "urban village" of QV is a high-density, mixed use precinct containing retail, business, and living spaces. The site is split into four main structures, named QV1 through QV4, two of which are skyscrapers, the remainder being low-rise structures along Swanston Street (owing to strict height limits along the Swanston Street axis). The spaces between buildings were specifically designed as shop-filled laneways, pointing to Melbourne's historic lanes and arcades, many of which no longer exist due to the amalgamation of plots to build office buildings. These new laneways are named for figures in medicine: Jane Bell Lane, Albert Coates Lane, Artemis Lane, and Red Cape Lane. At the centre of the site is an open-air public square, behind the historic Women's Centre, housed in the remaining original hospital pavilion. QV began to open progressively from late 2003, and is now complete.

BHP Billiton has its world headquarters located in the skyscraper located on the corner of Lonsdale and Russell Streets. This building also houses offices of Telstra, GHD and Accenture.

This post is part of the Walk in the Streets Challenge meme.