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Fountain Gate Estate

Location Ashwood Court and Dawn Drive and Fauna Court and Flora Court and Fountain Drive and Greenridge Avenue and Highrise Court and Hollydene Court and Larkrise Court and Oakwood Court and Parklands Court and Patio Court and Pinelands Court and Prairie Court and Prospect Hill Road and Raven Crescent and Spruce Court and Sundown Court and Sweet Gum Avenue and Tinks Road and Uplands Court and Valewood Court NARRE WARREN, Casey City Level Included in Heritage Overlay

Statement of Significance

What is significant?

The Fountain Gate Estate, comprising the area bounded on the west by Tinks Road, by Sweet Gum Avenue on the east, by Prospect Hill Road on the north and Dawn Drive (parallel to the Princes Highway) to the south as laid out to a design by Robin Boyd and developed from 1960 onwards, at Narre Warren.



How is it significant?

Fountain Gate Estate is of local historic and aesthetic significance to the City of Casey.



Why is it significant?

Historically, Fountain Gate Estate precinct is significant as an innovative and imaginative housing development designed by Robin Boyd in collaboration with the developer Isador Magid, and involving four equally notable architectural firms in the provision of a suite of contemporary house designs. Fountain Gate is one of few Victorian examples of the Radburn design concept which separates traffic from open spaces and provides communal ownership of extensive parklands, and this is probably the best realised example. The overall concept of an integrated residential, civic and commercial complex - essentially a new town for the car age - was the creation of Isador Magid, a man whose firm Overland Development Co. created many of Melbourne's later suburbs (Mountain Gate in Knox, Brandon Park, and many others). The 1950s industrial developments at Doveton sparked Magid's interest, leading to his long and continuing involvement in the shaping of this part of Narre Warren, and essentially in the creation of a location now identified with the formation of the new City of Berwick. (AHC criteria A4, D2 and H1)



Aesthetically, Fountain Gate Estate is significant for its unique and special character, which is derived from the overall design using the Radburn principles of vehicle and pedestrian separation to create large parklands and small cul-de-sac residential precincts. Notable elements include:



- The quality of the contemporary architect-designed suite of housing created for the estate, much of which remains substantially intact.



- The character of the streets created by garden and street plantings and the extension of the lawn to the kerb without the interruption of a footpath.



- The landscape quality of the parklands achieved by the use of specimen trees, now approaching their mature forms.



(AHC criteria E1 and F1)

Group

Urban Area

Category

Subdivision - designed