Architectus, Aurecon, McGregor Coxall and Greenshoot Consulting are designing a new cemetery at Harkness, Melton, in what is Melbourne’s largest public cemetery project in over 100 years.

The consortium of leading architecture and landscape design firms has been appointed by the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) to work in partnership to design Stage 1 works at the brand new, 128-hectare greenfield site adjacent to Gilgai Woodlands Nature Conservation Reserve in Melbourne's west.

The new site at Harkness is a place that respectfully examines our relationship with memorialisation. It strives to be a place of care, connection, adaptation, and progression woven into the fabric of Melton and Melbourne’s greater western growth corridor. This project and site provide a significant opportunity to invoke action, to preserve memory and celebrate life with a design that supports individual journeys of growth and acceptance. A regional destination for those seeking a unique open space experience, the reimagined cemetery will be a place that repairs Country, connects Country to people to and people to one another. A place that adapts and reflects our changing society.

The masterplan response reflects such ambition for the new site at Harkness, responding to the needs of its community, nurturing, and guiding the path through life and beyond.

The design comprises three axes – ecological, cultural, and community – each playing an important role in supporting the journey and connecting the site to its surroundings, people to one another, and repairing Country. The Cultural Line presents a dramatic threshold that contrasts and amplifies the vastness of Melbourne's West. The Natural Axis, Arnolds Creek, is a demonstration of the commitment to Caring for Country and a sustainable future. The centrepiece of the cemetery is the Core, which is positioned at the confluence of the three axes and celebrates Country and elevates the beauty of the landscape.

The reimagined cemetery will embody fundamentals of Circular Economy – Regeneration, Resilience, Sustainability – to combat climate change in service of communities now and into the future. The new cemetery aspires to be off grid, utilising on-site sources for energy and water. A site-wide integrated water management plan will be created to capture, cleanse, infiltrate and detain water onsite for reuse.