Coles Cobblebank Village

Located in Melbourne’s new gateway to the west, Coles Cobblebank Village is the town centre's first retail development. Designed to be a future-focused, transport orientated, sustainable, mixed-use village, setting a high benchmark for future developments. The 2.1-hectare village comprises of a full-line Coles, 18 specialty shops and community facilities including a town square and café, medical centre, 24-hour gym with panoramic views, parents’ room, end of trip facilities for employees and car parking with charging for electric vehicles. The architecture evokes authentic materiality inspired by the area’s iconic woolsheds and the stone wall structures of the gold rush era. It is angular and robust in form. A local stonemason was commissioned to create feature elements of stacked local stone. Polyrok, a concrete aggregate alternative containing recycled plastic collected from supermarkets nationally, is used for external paving, equating to six to seven million pieces of soft plastic that would otherwise go to landfill. Cobblebank Village is the first major shopping centre to take on this sustainable initiative. Photography by Rachael Dere.