The second volume of Melbourne’s Sound of Buildings architectural walking tour iPhone application has hit the Apple store.

Following on from last year’s popular first volume, Sound of Buildings Vol. 2 takes you behind the walls of another ten of Melbourne’s most interesting buildings including:

  • Royal Children’s Hospital
  • Flinders Street Station
  • Old Treasury Building
  • State Library of Victoria
  • Collins Place
  • Melbourne Terrace Apartments
  • MCG
  • Shrine of Remembrance
  • RMIT Design Hub
  • Hamer Hall

Sound of Buildings Vol. 2 is free to download and features more than 40 interviews from a diverse range of people, including architects, historians, a cricket player, a Vietnam veteran, a haemotologist and an artist famous for releasing 10,000 paper planes in the State Library.

Open House Melbourne ambassador and host of the popular television show Grand Designs Australia, Peter Maddison said the app — which is available for both iPhone and iPad — was part of Melbourne’s love affair with great buildings.

“The Sound of Buildings is a celebration of Melbourne’s unique architecture and built heritage. It gives people a deeper level of understanding and context about our buildings as well as highlighting their diversity,” Maddison said

“With the first volume averaging 1,100 downloads a month there is clearly great interest in the stories behind the buildings. The inclusion of interviews with children adds another unexpected and charming perspective often overlooked in traditional architecture media.

“The free application and associated website means everyone can go behind the walls of these buildings and find out what makes them work.

“The ongoing success of events such as Open House Melbourne held last weekend, with 135,000 visits to 100 buildings, shows Melbourne is a place that values good design,” he said.

Associate Victorian Government Architect Jill Garner said the app was an architectural voyage of discovery.

“The Sound of Buildings showcases architecture as a living, breathing discipline that makes the threads from which the fabric of our city is woven,” Ms Garner said.

“The application lets us hear from the people that determine the pattern of this fabric. We can hear the voices of those who design, plan, build, use, embrace or criticise — each has something unique to say about the buildings and their experience of them.

“For Volume 2 we have brought together a remarkable set of buildings and places — each one playing a significant role in the making of our city and in the hearts and minds of Melburnians.

“The two volumes of the Sound of Buildings are an insightful record of discovery and consolidates a unique resource of local design history,” she said.

Curator Dan Honey of the Office for Good Design said that the new soundofbuildings.com website would make the app’s content available to a wider audience.

“All the content on the 20 buildings featured in Volumes 1 and 2 is available on the website with links to download the free app. Events like Open House Melbourne demonstrate the strong interest people have in our architecture and we are really excited to be able to host everything on the new site,” Ms Honey said.

Sound of Buildings Vol.2 was developed by the Office of Good Design and supported by Major Projects Victoria, Arts Centre Melbourne and the Office of the Victorian Government Architect.

For more information or to download the Sound of Buildings Vol.2 please visit www.soundofbuildings.com