Employed in buildings designed to span great distances or enclose huge light-filled places, Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl (1958), an all-steel tent-like stadium, was a prototype in Australia. Structuralist architects view design as a process of searching for basic, underlying structures. Within a highly structured or ordered framework, Structuralists often attempt to instil innovation and complexity.
Stucturalist buildings are characteristically large scale, sculptural, often appearing to be floating above the site to dramatic effects. The metallic structural skeleton of the style's more recent commercial examples remains exposed with the walls, windows and other additions attached to the frames.

1958 - Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Kings Domain, Melbourne, Vic. The Sidney Myer Music Bowl is a canopy of aluminium-faced plywood supported by steel cables and tapered steel masts, stretched over a stage and orchestra pit with some fixed timber seating, and a sloping lawn area. At the rear of the stage and under the stage are a number of service and support rooms. In the international context, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl differed from the concrete shell structures which may have partly inspired its designers, and which offered a challenge to traditional architectural forms during this period.	1957-59 - The Shine Dome, Gordon Street, Canberra, ACT. One of Australia's earliest Structuralist designs, many Canberrans refer to it as the 'Martian Embassy'. Completed in 1959 and reflecting some of the more adventurous architectural ideas of that time, the Shine Dome (previously known as Becker House) remains one of the most unusual buildings in Australia. The Shine Dome was conceived before Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin existed, and was created in the visionary scientific era of the Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth when the Australian Academy of Science needed a home.	1988 - Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre, Sydney, NSW. The exhibition centre is designed to infill the city's needs for an inner city recreational, educational, exhibition, tourist area centred on the Harbourside Park and Darling Harbour. It is planned based on 25,000 m2 area with five main halls (bays), where each hall has area 87m x 60m with height 15m. The centre is capable of performing as a single space or subdivided into the five or smaller subdivisions as required. The exhibition centre is served by a single level car park of 1,000 car capacity located beneath the exhibition centre floor.

1985-88 - Aussie Stadium, Moore Park Road, Moore Park, NSW. An elliptical design by Philip Cox of Cox, Richardson, Taylor and Partners, which utilised advanced steel engineering systems. As part of the brief, it was determined that a roof which shelters 60% of the 40,000 spectators was needed and maintains sight lines to the field. Flood lighting had to be incorporated for evening matches. Inspiration from the Coliseum and surrounding amphitheatre buildings gave rise to its circular plan. Harmonising with the low-scale residential areas to the north and providing maximum seating at the halfway line created an undulating ribbon-like roof shelter, heightened by the use of two different roof structures. Detailed Analysis

1998 - Sydney Olympic Train Station, Homebush, NSW. When Sydney won the bid to stage the 2000 Olympic Games, a loop rail link and proposed underground station in the centre of the Olympic site was seen as necessary and incorporated into the Olympic precinct plan. The basic design is that of a barrel vault. The concept of a series of single span vaulted roof trusses which gave a leaf like expression with a ribbed underside was developed and studied using physical models before being tested through computer modelling. A single span system was selected in order to achieve a column-free and spacious concourse. Natural lighting and ventilation required the extensive use of glazing and favoured a columnar structure to a walled one. Detailed Analysis

Melbourne Exhibition Centre, Normanby Road, Southbank, Vic. The Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre is purpose designed to cater for large international and national events and provides outstanding efficiency and flexibility for Conferences and Conventions, Exhibitions, Meetings and Gala and Special Events. Its features include 50 Conference/Meeting Rooms; a Conference capacity in excess of 10,000 sq. metres; 30,000 sq. metres of single floor, pillarless exhibition space; three auditoriums (from 460 - 1,499 seat).