hometown | melrose central

Completed 2026 | Melrose Central | Melrose Park, NSW

Hometown is Sydney’s newest dining precinct, celebrating Asian Australian food, art and culture within the emerging high-density neighbourhood of Melrose Park.

Designed by Basalt Studio, led by Design Director Anthony Ho, Hometown explores how the familiar rituals of home can be translated into the public realm. The dining room becomes the restaurant, the pantry becomes a place of discovery, and the living room becomes the street – creating a new type of urban gathering place for the local community.

The Objective

The premise behind Hometown was simple: to create a destination that is not only photographed, but explored, experienced and remembered.

As the relationship between people and place continues to change through digital media, destinations increasingly need to offer more than a static backdrop. Hometown was conceived as an immersive environment where architecture, food, art and technology work together to create moments of discovery.

The precinct is designed as a journey. Visitors arrive as Travellers, discovering an unfamiliar environment, before gradually becoming Locals through repeated visits, familiar rituals and connections with the people and places around them.

The Place

Hometown reimagines the traditional functions of the home at an urban scale.

Intimate, mood-lit laneways form the urban streetscape, lined with restaurants, food vendors and curated shopfronts. These spaces open into a landmark city square and onto Melrose Park, creating a shared backyard for the surrounding community.

The architectural language draws from the density, energy and layered urban character of contemporary Asian cities, reinterpreted through an Australian context and its connection to landscape, place and community..

Food provides the common language. Asian culinary traditions are brought together with Australian produce, contemporary techniques and the lived experiences of Asian Australians, reflecting the continual evolution of culture through food.

Art + Technology

A permanent collection of Asian Australian artworks is integrated throughout the precinct, developed through collaboration with local artists, designers and digital technologists.

Digital technology is treated as an extension of the architecture rather than an addition to it. Lighting, projection and interactive installations allow the environment to evolve throughout the year, responding to cultural celebrations, seasonal events and changing community experiences.

At the heart of the city square is a digital pond featuring procedurally generated koi fish, developed by Basalt Studio in collaboration with Illuminate Creative and Sakana Studio. Each visit produces a different experience, challenging the conventional idea of digital artwork as a repeating loop.

Hometown is ultimately a living precinct – one that changes, adapts and develops with the people who use it.

Rather than recreating a particular Asian city or culture, the design draws on the broader experience of Asian Australian life: the movement between cultures, the rituals of gathering, and the memories created around food and family.

Media articles:

Retail World: ttps://retailworldmagazine.com.au/melrose-central-opens-as-new-heart-of-melrose-park-in-sydney

Credits:

Client: Deicorp
Precinct Design/RDM: Basalt Studio
Precinct Fitout: Regiment Workshop
TC: HGWProjects
Certifier: McKenzieGroup
Art/Food/Cultural Consultant: Anthony Ho
Lighting Design: Basalt Studio
Lighting Consultant: Ayuh Studio
Artists: Chris Yee, Christina Huynh, Steffie Yee, Fiona Ho, Sam Absurd