Melbourne today, in Christopher Alexander's terms, is a centralized city. It has the crowded, intensive CBD, and surrounding it, on a very large area, quiet spacious residential neighborhoods are spread. A city that is based on private vehicle transportation. However, many neighborhoods are distant from the CBD. Therefore, for the daily needs, some commercial and public functions are entering the neighborhood. 

To strengthen that process, the project suggest to connect the public spaces and to create local centers, so that they are large enough to create interactions between the neighborhoods. With that, gradually, the idea of the CBD as an only center could be challenged, and there could be sub-centers in the neighborhoods. We found that these interventions are best placed in the "backyard", the spaces no is interested in.

We chose Balaclava as a case study, on which we implemented our strategy. A trainline crosses the neighborhood, on an elevated mound that creates a dramatic border in the heart of the neighborhood. we used the mound's slope and the abandoned spaces around it to connect the centers and open new possibilities for what was until now a "leftover".