PROJECT #030: MANNHEIMxMELBOURNE GRID MAP
Arguably, Japan and Germany are known for sharing an almost cultural obsession with efficiency. In 2014 I visited the hometown of a good friend of mine, the city of Mannheim in Germany. A feature of Mannheim stood out to me, the layout of streets of the CBD were in a grid layout that would be familiar with many city-dwellers, but with a nifty difference. The blocks formed by the grid were given an alpha-numeric naming system for the benefit of locations and wayfind. In February 2017, when I was back in Melbourne, I wanted to bring some Germanic efficiency home with me, and create a Mannheim-influenced map of Melbourne’s Hoddle Grid.
The area mapped in this project is Melbourne’s famed, vibrant, and diverse Hoddle Grid, formed by the rectangular grid of streets and laneways that forms the central business district in Melbourne, originally surveyed by Robert Hoddle in 1837.
In addition to the Mannheim alpha-numeric labelling system I wanted to create an aesthetically pleasing and unique depiction of the grid and its network of laneways, so for each large section of blocks I applied a graduating pastel palette of Pantone colours.
As well as creating a standalone map, I thought it could be useful as a base map from which to show different features. I did an uber localised sample of this with pubs around the area of my workplace at the time, as one example.
To create this map, I used the VicMap road layer which includes all the major roads and laneways, and applied buffers depending on the class of roads, cutting these out of a solid rectangle shape. What was left were the “islands”, which were given a logical numbering sequence.
As with most of my maps, I set out to create a fictional universe where things are done differently. If the Hoddle Grid were numbered this way, could this be a useful navigational tool? Let’s say you’re meeting for drinks at such-and-such bar, if you told your mate it was at B37, could you potentially locate it more easily?
The MannheimxMelbourne map was one of my personal favourites, and I breathed even more life into this fictional creation after completion. A mate of mine requested a version of the map to decorate their offices, I turned the pattern into a t-shirt design, it was included in the “Melbourne in a box” gift pack, and it ended up being the blueprint for a tattoo I put on my right arm “the mapping arm”, 3 years later.
For Melburnians, there’s nothing more recognisable than the Hoddle Grid, and I think it works beautifully as a visual representation of our city’s renowned laneway culture.
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