Development of a Masterplan for a new tourism ecodevelopment in Risdon Vale is Xsquared Architect’s first step in this exciting project. Located in a semi-rural setting less than 10 km from Hobart’s CBD, the project involves providing a high quality tourism visitor experience within a natural bushland and agri-landscape setting with views to Hobart, kunanyi/Mt. Wellington and the Derwent River.
The project’s vision is to cater for a range of guest and visitor types, with a design that incorporates a high-end luxury resort, mid-level self-catering family cabins and recreational day use facilities. Guests and visitors will enjoy opportunities to be pampered at the day spa or sauna, dine in the restaurant or cafe, exercise at the indoor pool or gymnasium and explore the bushwalking track and bike riding opportunities on the extensive 102 hectare site. A vineyard forms a landscape feature adding to the semi-rural ambience and will allow visitors, in time, to sample wine produced on the property at a cellar door tasting room.
The team at Xsquared Architects has undertaken careful ecodevelopment masterplanning to maximise the site’s potential, develop the project brief and assess the project’s feasibility. A central tenet of the Masterplan is improvement of the ecological values of the locale by minimising the impact on the environment of the new development and rehabilitating the degraded natural attributes of the site, which has suffered from historical dumping and wood cutting. This focus on rehabilitation has been recognised by the local statutory authority which has unanimously supported amendment of the Clarence City Planning Scheme to create a Specific Area Zone that will facilitate progress on the development.
With Council support now secured we are looking forward to progression of the design phase and lodgement of detailed development applications, so that the project can move to construction in the near future.
Photos and images by Xsquared Architects
