2009 NSW Architecture Awards | Jury Citations
|
||
This primary school serves the Greek Orthodox community based around the All Saints Church. It is the first stage in a master plan that will include further institutional and educational buildings. The building is a simple, four-storey linear block. It is positioned on the site to create large public spaces along a road on the western boundary, and more intimate garden spaces to the residential eastern boundary. The block is roughly divided in two: the eastern half of the plan contains the classrooms and offices, while the western half is a breezeway that serves as both circulation and social space. The diagram easily allows cross ventilation and natural lighting. It is then elaborated to provide moments of delight. The roof profile is designed to provide soft natural lighting to the spaces below. On the west, the facade cantilevers out to create outdoor rooms shaded with fine timber screens. Facades on the east use large sunshields to both moderate the lighting and give privacy to residential neighbours. At the lower ground level, the library opens to an intimate protected garden, stepped seating and terrace. Public spaces along the road take full advantage of the sloping site, working the ground levels to create playgrounds and assembly areas that are alternately exposed to, and sheltered from the public domain. The school is restrained and of high quality, yet elegantly economical. It has an unassuming civic quality that is appropriately institutional, with a refinement and scale to the detailing that is right for children and families. It strikes exactly the right chords, and has already taken its place in the heart of its community. |
||
This competition-winning scheme transforms the relationship of the university mall to Victoria Park and the city. The building is divided vertically into a podium and floating superstructure. It is split in elevation to create an urban-scaled opening to the city when viewed from within the campus, and a shimmering gateway to the campus when seen from the park that connects to the historic Wilkinson axis. The building expresses its ambitious sustainability strategies in the layered facade: the frameless polished-glass skin is animated by adjustable timber sunshades and complex reflections within the ventilated double facade. Offices in the superstructure are offered individual customisation of light, air and views, lowering energy use. The glazed bridge framing the opening is a theatrical space for highly visible interaction. The podium is punctuated by light wells ensuring that the library and circulation areas below have ample natural light. The crisply resolved building gives an appropriately refined, technologically sophisticated face to the law complex and this historic campus precinct. |
||
Located at the City Road link between the Camperdown and Darlington campuses, this project responds dynamically to the pedestrian flows, level changes and urban scale around the site in a chameleon-like, sculptural response. The building is not a uniformly treated object, but an assemblage of different elements that vary in colour, texture, scale and detail, incorporating abstractions of the history of the site, the sky and gardens at various scales, in different materials. The public plaza, crossed by diagonal pedestrian routes, is inspired by the 1920s Wilkinson master plan. Pedestrians feed into it from City Road, the overhead bridge and the Maze Green connection; this busy route will become a lively node when the cafe and retail spaces are tenanted. The building handles the level changes by folding the major route and secondary connections into the podium around a pedestrian lift, with the major landing forming the entrance to the architecture, engineering and science library. The library is the project’s major interior space: a vibrant terraced learning common, already well loved by staff and students. With sculptural elements in marmoleum, carpet and glass, this colourful landscape has immediate impact as a public space — visible from the City Road footpath and the link to Maze Green. This building is an open-ended architecture of multiple narratives representing a contemporary alternative to the resolved certainties of traditional academic buildings. |
||
Ivy challenges the notions by which we categorise development typologies. It is best understood as a vibrant meeting place: a big ‘house’ in the city, a place to party, an escape from the formality and pace of the city’s work environment. Its planning deftly understates the scale of the complex which includes 18 bars, nine restaurants, a ballroom, a garden atrium and rooftop swimming pool, as well as two penthouse suites. In spite of its overall area, most of ivy’s venues retain a sense of intimacy more akin to a domestic environment, albeit an extravagant modern residence of the late 1950s. The public realm is enhanced considerably by the reinforcement of the previously neglected laneways and pedestrian thoroughfares through and adjacent to the site. This involved relocating the former Palings Lane to the northern end of Ash Street, providing direct entrances to many of ivy’s venues and retail boutiques from these attractive laneways. This has ensured a new vibrancy for these long-neglected spaces. |
||
The Armory Wharf landscape Precinct was undertaken to provide picnicking and informal recreation areas and to relieve some of the demand pressures experienced at the popular Bicentenniel Park nearby. The precinct adjoins the historic Newington Armory, a fascinating landscape that arose in response to the practicalities of storing large quantities of ammunition. In planning the Armory Wharf Precinct, the designers sought to retain the industrial character of the wharf, its strongly linear seawall, its two cranes and its strong relationship with this part of the river. The turfed slope rising up from the riverfront also bears witness to the site’s former uses via its grassed terraces and conspicuously uniform berms. The relatively few trees across this extensive slope have each been planted in a large mound of soil, both for practical reasons as well as an aesthetic gesture. Once grown, these large figs will provide a further layer of delight. The project has retained and reinforced a strong link to the site’s fascinating past without resorting to sentimentality, and has included several delightful modern structures that complement the industrial heritage context. The reed-filled water feature running parallel with the river foreshore, as a through-way habitat link for the green and gold bell frog, has been particularly well handled. |
||
The University of Sydney conducted an international design competition for this project, which is intended to offer a new vision to the centre of this historic campus. With a strong pedestrian focus and the virtual elimination of cars and at-grade parking from the precinct, the area now provides a more open and inviting entrance to the campus. One of the gestures considered by the jury to be most successful was the opening up of this part of the campus to the adjacent Victoria Park, recognising one of Wilkinson’s historic axes. This has already been achieved visually by the siting of the new buildings, and it will be fully realised when the detailed design of the pathways is resolved within the park itself. Once its trees are fully grown, the avenue of Sydney red gums will also contribute substantially to the rich experience of walking through this part of the campus. |
||
Jacaranda Square, is the first new public space in Sydney Olympic Park to be undertaken within the framework of the SOPA Master Plan 2030. The plan sets a new urban framework that seeks to augment the Olympic legacy of ‘event and spectacle’ with a more fine-grained urban centre. The design strategy concentrated on creating a long stand of shade trees to the north of the site, opposed by a linear edge of seating to the four streets that bound the site. A gently curved shade structure runs along the south side of the site, culminating in a circular kiosk structure. A single constructed ‘hill’ has been placed in the turfed area off-centre to the site. The jury enjoyed the playful approach taken to both the tiled seat backs and steel shade structure, with these elements and the moulded concrete seats simply defining the open space and encouraging pedestrians to enjoy this new park. |
||
This design brings a 1950s beach resort into the canyons of downtown Sydney, stacking and folding what is an essentially low-rise, resort typology into a dense urban form. The result is a delirious maze of spaces that blur indoor and outdoor, domestic and public, courtyard and street, taking full advantage of Sydney’s mild climate. At the urban level, the project succeeds in bringing back a fine-grained texture and scale to the streets and lanes of central Sydney, a scale largely lost since colonial times. The planted, open facade further loosens up the street edge, the large exterior openings to internal spaces almost shocking in the age of acoustically sealed facades. The facade frames outdoor rooms that open to the street, which have the same intensely urban qualities as Barcelona’s oriel windows. This dialogue between the public realm and private property is generous and exciting. Internally, the design is a machine for socialising. The circulation and views are designed to allow the glitterati to see and be seen to best advantage, a contemporary version of the foyer of Garnier’s Paris Opera. As with anything fashionable, the interiors and facilities are of varying quality, and will no doubt be in a state of continual reconfiguration. However, the importance of the project is in the bold invention of an exuberant, urban, indoor–outdoor beach club that dissolves away the serious hermetic, glass walls of the CBD. The urban fabric we make strongly influences our lifestyles and demeanour; this project asks |
||
A new cafe has been built on the site of a previous cafe, destroyed by a fire in 2007. Constructed in a remarkably short 42 days, the cafe is a comfortable element on the industrial waterfront. The strong silhouette of its Corten steel chimney and simple shed form work well as part of an ensemble with the cranes and other industrial relics. The rooftop is carefully considered, as it is highly visible from the slopes of the adjacent park. The design is extremely well integrated with the existing landscape elements and the timber and steel shade structure that survived the fire; it is a seamless insertion into the surroundings. Despite its rapid construction, the detailing is highly resolved, yet appropriately straightforward and industrial. |
||
Over the past 15 years, the architect and client have adapted, enhanced and extended the conservation and heritage-listed Woollahra Hotel to reflect contemporary needs. The development has been a catalyst for the invigoration of the area. The small scale, sensitive response and broad clientele are a model for mixed-use developments in inner-city suburbs. The nuanced outcome reflects the complete understanding between the client and architect, with a perfect match of hardware and software. Design and operations have evolved together over time. A careful balance between retaining heritage elements and providing customer amenity has ensured the project is both meaningful and contemporary. The hotel venues have been designed to serve a diverse cross section of the surrounding residents, and have become an integral place in their lives. The longevity of the venues and breadth of appeal is testament to the success of the approach. |
||
The owner-occupants of this project, the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA), embarked on the process of delivering new premises as a result of an approach from a developer to acquire the building they had previously occupied. This unexpected opportunity led to APRA buying a former warehouse building in Ultimo, which was developed in two stages. The first stage involved a base building upgrade to the five-storey brick warehouse, which is of heritage significance. Smart Design Studio provided broad design input to this first stage, which was followed by stage two, a detailed fit-out that fleshed out the refurbished shell. The jury was impressed by the evident processes that arose from the client and their architect continuing to develop the design brief from first principles, which involved both changing workplace cultures and embracing a long-term ownership perspective. Thus a brief evolved that, in many ways, embraced sustainable design, although these requirements were developed from the consideration of specific long-term needs and goals, rather than an initial intent on behalf of the client to deliver a ‘deep-green’ building. Apart from the adaptive re-use of the building, which conserved a useful resource and adapted it intelligently to a new function, a well-considered array of specific initiatives were adopted. The retention of the simplicity and rawness of the existing warehouse building has been achieved, while providing a comfortable, stimulating and healthy environment for both the employees and members of APRA. |
||
The Sydney Law School Library and Teaching Complex at the University of Sydney responds |
||
Fitzroy Terrace is a perfect example of how heritage can be treated with clever analysis and articulation to return all layers of a building’s history to a state that is legible and respectful, and continues the conversation of time. The original 1845 terrace, remaining largely intact and with some interiors lovingly refurbished by the client, had seen varying degrees of adaptation, extension and reconfiguration. These layers — an 1890 scullery, a 1900 bridge, and a 20th century breezeway enclosure — are all retained in some way, whether it be a re-establishment, a transformation or a scar of removal. A new layer has been added in 2008: a family home that is clearly legible as new, but also takes part in a dialogue that is enriching. Old fabric — walls, windows, doorframes and render — is retained, expressing its historic period and age. Salvaged materials are re-used in paving and cladding. New forms and spaces are also derived from the traditional. This approach is brave and admirable and, although following guidelines of the Burra Charter, is a challenging approach to dealing with heritage. |
||
The Wiston Gardens House is a response to heritage issues that is not a clear reading of the Burra Charter, and is an architecture that will create debate. The new and old elements are not clearly identified and in fact blur, allowing us to wonder what is new or restored. The spirit of the original architecture is continued in the restoration and is best described by the architect, “Professor Leslie Wilkinson’s domestic architecture is a bottomless source of surprises, discoveries and idiosyncrasies; his houses are complex and full of unexpected twists and turns. The scale is human, comfortable and not rhetorical...Wilkinson’s organic house designs and 4 Wiston Gardens’ fragmented design have attempted to reinterpret the richness of the layering of time in vernacular architecture. Also, the new additions attempt to adopt the same principles in the direct surroundings of 4 Wiston Gardens. The place should feel now more like a venerable ancient village than a suburban house”. There is a lot we can all learn from this analysis of the original architect’s intention, its subsequent interpretation and execution. It is interesting to note that both award-winning projects in the Heritage category were held up by the authorities, on points of heritage, for long periods of time, one having to battle through court to achieve its end. |
||
This apartment was originally two properties combined to accommodate the clients who live there and often have their family to stay. While the rooms have extraordinary eastern views over the Royal Botanic Gardens, the apartments had minimum-height ceilings, awkwardly placed columns, and a number of other building difficulties to overcome. The architects have used extremely resourceful measures to make these problems disappear and the apartment presents as a seamless arrangement of beautiful spaces, sometimes small, but absolutely masterful in both their restraint and generosity of spirit. The apartment is loosely divided into three zones: living/dining/study, a bedroom/dressing/bathroom zone, and a guest wing accessed via a double-height entry lobby. This guest wing can be closed off when not in use. A client requirement for soft carpets, rounded corners and padded columns has been used with great success as the basis for a palette of rich timbers, leather-wrapped screens and curved stone bathroom walls. Even the stainless steel benches have rounded edges. The care and consideration given to such details ultimately ensure the overall success of the project, which confidently conveys restrained luxury. |
||
Spread over a number of stepped levels that connect the subterranean City Road side of the new building to the gardens of Maze Green, this library is enormously popular and remarkably inventive. It is generally arranged with coloured book stacks towards the road and a variety of spaces overlooking the gardens and each other. A consistent language of brightly coloured banquettes, strange forms wrapped in marmoleum and luminous obscured green-glazed screens separate its different zones, which vary from noisy group spaces to more contemplative, private study areas. Collaborative table designs by Sue Knight and customised ‘autumnal’ carpets add further visual movement. In the international student area, etched panels of birch ply surround a void to the entry level, and the offices employ a range of bright colours to identify certain staff areas. Staff are encouraged to further personalise their work areas and the fit-out is strong enough to continue to present as a unified idea. |
||
This tiny apartment, designed for two people whose adult children and their partners occasionally stay, is a remarkably creative interior. The space, only 85 square metres, has sweeping harbour views on three sides of the kitchen, dining and living room. One wall is painted a rose tint from the Le Corbusier colour palettes, the perfect antidote to the copious blue sky beyond. From this area, a slatted oak screen wall acts as a spine leading to the end of the apartment. It conceals cupboards and a bathroom (which, in turn, unfolds into the laundry, WC and bathing spaces that can be separated from each other as necessary). The two bedrooms emerge as required by pivoting dark blue screens, behind which are concealed more storage for items such as audiovisual equipment. The detailing involved customised ironmongery, careful junctions, allowances for concealed doors and finger pulls to open them. |
||
Sited on a bushy hillside overlooking the ocean on Sydney’s northern peninsula, Whale Beach House steps and folds its way from street to native forest and escarpment beyond, providing an architecture that is, in the words of the architects, topographic. On arrival, one is immediately engaged with strong architectural forms that draw one up the hillside and announce the beginning of a journey. Steps rise up and across the land, offering various vantage points to panoramic views of the beach or bush, and the imminent enigmatic building. The architecture is a result of a very thorough mapping of the site, relating to every nuance of the topography. The response to changes in the ground form, rock shelves and tree lines is what gives each individual room and area of the house its ambience and unique quality. The shape and size of windows reinforce this approach and frame these natural features as a cinematic experience. Window openings are all fully adjustable so the occupants can easily tune the house to prevailing weather conditions. While the rooms are unique in their relationship to the outside, a highly crafted fit-out is tailored specifically for the use of the occupants. Materials are also chosen for specific function: the living area’s white walls allow the focus to shift outward to the view, while the timber-lining in the master bedroom gives it intimacy and warmth. While there are many moods to this interior, they are beautifully balanced as a whole in relation to the site. |
||
A site steeply sloping to the ocean view to the south and exposed to savage winds set the challenge for this project. A translucent polycarbonate roof provides overriding, beautiful day-long natural light that is reflected down through curved plywood ceiling baffles. Under this roof, a unified open space focuses on a picture window to the south. Careful deployment of spaces has created some defining moments in the house: it is possible, for instance, to see right through from a wind-protected north courtyard to a strategically placed picture window focusing on the ocean view — with all the spaces in between also utilising this view. A natural convection system cools the house: hot air drawn through the roof vents pulls fresh air inside over the swimming pool, which cools it. Inside, the main structure is overtly expressed. Materials are undressed, expressing their natural qualities of texture and colour. Well-considered and innovative detailing prevail throughout. East and west walls that focus on the view, are punctuated only by recesses for sculptures, blocking out neighbouring properties from the interior, which gives the impression that the house is in a remote area. Intimate bedrooms open to the view, through other public spaces, via beautifully detailed solid timber doors. |
||
Sitting on Kalkite Mountain, a very rugged and equally beautiful location, in the New South Wales Snowy Mountain region, is a holiday house for an extended family that has camped on the site for more than thirty years. They have an undoubtedly close relationship to this land, as there is a clear and strong connection between the building and the landscape; no doubt the result of a detailed study that has informed the precise siting and pitch of the structure as well as its ground-hugging form. The building’s arched facade, curved spine and cocoon-like internal spaces are daringly anchored with fins of galvanised steel, at once tethering the house to this windswept site. The building also offers a low embodied energy and low-maintenance regimen with materials — concrete, timber and galvanised steel — being left to weather over time like the landscape itself. Designed to deal with extremes of nature such as wind, fire and snow, it features a concrete plinth for fire protection and water shedding, an efficient hydronic wood-burning fireplace that heats water pipes in the floor, a solar-power system that currently returns power to the grid, and two rainwater tanks catering for domestic use and fire- fighting. Around the base of the building, native grasses are being encouraged to regenerate. |
||
Positioned at the end of a cul-de-sac on a steep harbourside lot facing south, the Clifton Gardens House modestly nestles into its location, showing a low-rise face to the street. The entry immediately frames a harbour view and sets up a planning arrangement for the house that is clearly legible, while not completely revealing what is inside the concrete and face-brick wings. Circulation through the house is a gentle descent that gradually reveals the programmatic intent — and the view — with dramatic effect as you move through the house. Each of the rooms meet the need of public and private functions, while always engaging with the site and its relationship to Sydney Harbour. Carefully selected materials comprising the fabric of the structure also provide the interior lining and are beautifully detailed and crafted. These are complemented with other tactile materials for the joinery and fixtures. While the architectural form is strong in itself and makes a bold gesture, from the outside, internally the rooms are perfectly scaled for human comfort, being neither too large, nor too small. |
||
The Freshwater House provides a valid alternative to the traditional beach house that is most evident in its dark colours, which are a shield from the aspect’s excessive glare from sand and ocean. Slatted timber screening gives the house an uncompromisingly powerful street presence. A transparent and open mid level is sandwiched between a timber-screened lower level and an extremely simple upper-level box. The strong timber base raises the ground plane to a useful landscaped platform for outdoor living. The open mid level allows for easy reconfiguration for different uses. Apart from sliding doors, the built form is limited to service and storage rooms. Dark reflective surfaces simultaneously provide containment and abstracted reflected views. Upper-level screens are operable, transforming the strongbox shape of the upper bedroom to be completely opened or closed — for maximum privacy, a sense of enclosure, view control and, above all, climate control. When closed these make a powerful yet elegant gesture. These screens provide sustainability with their ability to change to suit the weather. |
||
The Parsley Bay House is a beautifully designed and crafted house with a high level of elegant |
||
The Parsley House is strong in concept, and this is clearly legible and reinforced through all areas |
||
The Kangaroo Valley House is surrounded by archetypal Australian bushland, beautiful and majestic, offering all that is to be expected from such a location. It is in this setting that an equally bold and powerful form has been built in a dialogue that is both respectful of its context and somewhat challenging. The siting of the house is responsive to the local weather conditions and landscape. Issues of strong prevailing winds and the threat of bushfires are addressed by siting the building a clear and sensitive distance from the nearby escarpment and wildlife corridor. Copper and concrete chosen as principal materials make a robust and formal palette that sits comfortably in the landscape, with an already weathering patina. The interior program is equally responsive to the landscape, incorporating framed views of surrounding bushland, and the sculptures by local artists that are installed around the property. |
||
This holiday house occupies a long thin site running east-west, separated from the beach by only a densely landscaped public reserve. A wide public pedestrian way, also set in landscaped surrounds, traverses the northern boundary. Unlike its neighbours, the house is of relatively modest scale and single-storey, allowing a garden aspect and penetration of winter sun into the site. The architects have adopted a simple strategy: the building opens to the north via solid-core hinged walls — the dimensions of a door — that can be adjusted to allow each room to open almost fully to the north. These are interspersed with glass louvres. Cross ventilation through the southern corridor does not compromise visual privacy. At the eastern end are the kitchen/living areas and a large roofed deck. The temptation to maximise the tree-filtered ocean views to the east has been resisted, using the occasional framed view, rather than a predictable panoramic approach. The living spaces have an intimacy that is atypical of modern beach houses. There is a casual simplicity and a refreshing avoidance of the more obvious design responses prevalent in beachfront homes. |
||
A modest street presence is encountered on entry to reveal a breathtaking picture window of a beautiful leafy inlet of Sydney Harbour: Gore Creek in Northwood. A grand staircase leads you past a controlled view of a pond which takes the eye away from the adjacent neighbouring building and down to an even more open and impressive long kitchen/dining/living room. Impeccable off-form concrete walls and ceilings, poured with bravado in one pour, frame this living pavilion and the view east to the water. A cross-axis leads past a television room into a sun-drenched protected courtyard that all the children’s bedrooms open on to. This intentionally contrasts the openness of the living area and the aspect beyond. Down another level, the master bedroom not only has the water view, but receives natural light from a light shaft from the top level. Concrete is used for its plastic quality and its mass for even thermal conditions. The architect has responded to the site and the owners’ brief with an idiosyncratic layout. |
||
A powerful and direct flat street elevation immediately establishes a response to the suburban streetscape of the Kensington House. As well as signalling the entry, it affords complete privacy, while offering some transparency. A steep fall in the site establishes the plan of open living room on the top entry level, giving an extensive view of the golf course and beyond on entry. A naturally top-lit stair winds down through private spaces to end up at the lower ground level with pool and garden at golf course level. The three-level plan has a small footprint that maximises outdoor space. Adjustable external venetian blinds coupled with a deep roof overhang control heat load and glare for the extensively glazed west facade, while protruding off-form concrete blades limit sun penetration and prevent cross-viewing to maintain privacy within the site from neighbours. A limited palette of materials with no finish coating make the structure evident. Carefully considered details, such as the finely tapering roof edge, show commitment to giving pleasure to the eye from different viewing angles. |
||
A simple, direct addition to a dark, introverted Federation semi in Mosman provides clear delineation between old and new, with the new being all white, open and light-filled. The owners’ request for no columns through the undercroft necessitated a cantilevered box. The request was worthwhile with clean, clear open space to the undercover deck leading to the rear yard. Above, the necessary structural members of full-height steel trusses are well detailed, embraced and expressed. A wall of mirror in the kitchen gives the illusion of double the space and eliminates the feeling of a dark ‘back end’ of the addition. Texture is embraced with the use of a MINI ORB® ceiling, decking boards and striped sunlight from horizontal sun-shading. Much was retained and recycled. Overall, there is a resourcefulness that was necessary to meet the tight budget, which did not compromise the overall space or ambience. |
||
While this house was commended in the Heritage category, the jury believed it is also worthy of an award in this category. The alterations and additions to a Leslie Wilkinson house have been masterfully handled in their respect for the existing house and their sensitivity of approach with the new additions. |
||
A bold intervention into an otherwise featureless dwelling created a cohesive interior whereby the existing exterior is not evident from inside. Carefully thought out detailing, vibrant colours and contrasting materials provide the interior with visual interest. Deep window reveals draw attention away from the existing building to views through to the green landscape beyond; they also provide concealed storage. Previously under-utilised space has been grouped, rationalised and carefully managed to provide restful, stimulating and useful environments. |
||
The client’s brief to create the parti of two discrete but related beach houses, separated by a courtyard and pool, has been beautifully achieved. From the dunes and beachside road, the buildings have a subdued language of self-weathering materials and appear to be mostly single-storey, with a small room above that is a shared library/living room with a balcony. However, from the battleaxe entry to the block — lined with melaleucas — they have a completely different sensibility. One approaches a four-storey ziggurat of a building, composed of different layers, constructed in different materials. A dramatic zigzag off-form concrete stair rises up to the main living (garden) level. The building below garden level is predominantly off-form concrete; the walls, floors, steps are all made from it. Below the living spaces, the bedrooms have a monastic restraint, although even in these compact rooms, the planning is masterful and maze-like. The arrangement of both houses is similar, though the (slightly) larger house has somewhat richer finishes. In both buildings, the main level is organised into pods for services and cupboards that provide separation between sleeping, bathing, eating and cooking functions. In each space, one can look right through the building, from end to end. These spaces can then be made more private by concealed doors, so that the houses can be made more private depending on the relationships of the occupants. The building is very finely detailed by the architects and exquisitely built by a local contractor. |
||
Located on a wooded site in North Randwick, this development comprises a mix of 66 units and townhouses. It completes the master plan for the site, the first phase of which was built in 2006. |
||
On a waterfront site in Wagstaffe, with views framed by mature trees, this is a refined and refreshing project. It gently tinkers with, and improves on, a much-loved family holiday house. The original fibro cottage provided entry through a small kitchen, with a simple living space and two bedrooms. The new work is like a sleeve, a box that fits around and over the existing cottage, providing a large covered deck to the garden and the street, and an enclosed deck between new rooms on the water side of the house. A new living room occupies the western side of the site, with a fireplace for winter at the southern end. Three modest bedrooms, bathrooms and a laundry have been added to the eastern side of the old cottage. The humble detailing of the original cottage has been retained, restored and celebrated throughout. The new work is simple construction, with careful detailing to columns and windows, built with standard fittings and off-the-shelf materials by local builders. This project celebrates the humility of simple weekenders, and the light touch of a masterful architect whose work here is both timeless and selfless. |
||
Park amenities are now a clear and defined type of small public building. Adjacent to a well-used local sporting ground, the kiosk and change rooms set themselves apart for two reasons. First, a clever screening device wraps each of the buildings with two asymmetric slats cut from the same piece of timber, alternated to provide a rich wall treatment made more dramatic with direct sunlight. Second, a small kitchen/cafe building, its base in off-form concrete, opens up on three sides to reveal a ply interior. It is able to be used by a variety of community and sporting groups. Each structure is thoughtfully detailed, with careful attention to bespoke rainwater gutters and hoppers. The relationship of these structures to a large Moreton Bay fig tree on the site, and their siting between the oval and tennis courts, makes a small node of greatly enjoyed buildings. |
||
These structures are incredibly refined and considered versions of a popular park amenity type. The three structures that make up this project are each sited in quite different environments. One marks an almost Miesian formal entry to the site, one nestles below a weeping sandstone cliff, surrounded by reed beds. The third, a lightly framed lookout structure, has sweeping harbour views, with stairs descending down through gabion walls to the waters edge. In each of the structures, the off-form concrete is absolutely precise, with careful details, like low-level water spouts for pet water, cast in situ. |
||
Its architect owners, who also carried out most of the building work, have lovingly transformed this simple semidetached cottage in Annandale into a rich inventive interior. Completed over a number of years, the interior explores the use of ply in a series of playful reworkings and interventions. Ply forms a kitchen, lines a bathroom, is suspended in window openings as shelving for display, and is used for a bench seat that becomes the staircase to a new mezzanine. |
||
The majority of new housing in NSW is designed by non-architects and the project home market in particular has, for many years, favoured quantity (floor space) over quality (liveability and sustainability). While Petit and Sevitt offered a range of architect- designed project homes in the 1960s and 1970s, the cost premium incurred for custom architect- designed homes has, in recent years, precluded many home buyers from taking advantage of architects’ designs. Crucially, this has meant that buyers had little access to innovative sustainable design, and little opportunity to adapt standard project-home designs to meet the climatic/orientation needs of individual sites. The Logic represents an initiative to offer a better compromise to project-home buyers between cost per square metre and good (and more sustainable) design. Simple strategies embraced in this approach include: flexible modular design to allow for better orientation of living areas and courtyards; extensive use of thermal mass and insulation to achieve better indoor comfort; strategic location of windows for optimised night flushing and cross ventilation; low-energy fittings, solar water heating; and rainwater storage. Collectively these provisions go well beyond the standard BASIX requirements. The jury was enthused by the potential of this approach to deliver better designed and more sustainable homes to the broader market. |
||
The Curry House 2 has withstood the test of time as a seminal building by a talented and unassuming architect who has had an enormous influence on most Sydney architects. A site steeply sloping to the north-east, with extensive views to the north and east gave Rickard the opportunity to exercise his skills of marrying building with site. Circular concrete columns up to two storeys high lift the floor plates out of the steep slope and form a strong relationship with the powerful trunks of surrounding angophoras. These plates terminate in people-friendly seating edges that are also out-turned edge beams. Once these plates are established, the upper levels are restrained timber frames. The walls away from the view are rough-hewn sandstone, as if from the site. This gives privacy, security and thermal mass, and contrasts the north and east facades as fully-openable timber-framed glass sliders. |
||
Extreme weather conditions experienced on Kalkite Mountain—which overlooks the Snowy River and Thredbo River valleys—was one of the primary drivers for a ground-hugging form. The building’s profile resembles an aerodynamic tent, while the splayed edges of the structure mimic the tension lines expressed in the stays, supporting a membrane structure resisting the wind. The building is a summer and winter retreat for an extended family that has been coming to the property regularly for more than 30 years. The brief required a modest, understated building that was not wasteful of resources, and that respected the stark beauty of the magnificent site. The building plan is very simple, with its long axis running east-west and a roofed veranda off the living area taking in spectacular views to the west. Sustainable design principles were applied throughout the project, which—though connected to the grid—is essentially self-sufficient thanks to its PV solar array, as well as its sophisticated combustion heater that provides hot water, hydronic slab heating and space heating. Water is collected from the roof via beautifully detailed gutters, recessed into the line of the curved roof, and blackwater is treated on site. The roof and raked walls are well insulated and low-e glazing and heavy curtains retain warmth. The consistency and expertise of the detailing contribute significantly to the building’s simple beauty, and the execution of the design by a local builder at modest cost is evidence of a remarkable commitment to quality on behalf of both the architect and the contractor. |
||
The most commonly used material for buildings in the rugged Snowy Mountains has traditionally been galvanised steel, and the property on which the Snowy Mountains House is sited still has an old shed clad entirely in this material. This shed has housed the owners for holidays for many years, as well as serving as an agricultural building. In determining an appropriate material for the new dwelling, galvanised steel was a natural choice for both aesthetic and practical reasons. The old shed has now weathered to a subtle zinc grey, but at this stage the new house is still sparkling, with the large crystals of the galvanising readily legible. Steel was selected also for structural framing because of its strength, lightness of section and capacity for complex forms. Coupled with this is its ability to resist fire and termite attack. It is used throughout the exterior and interior as a ceiling/soffit lining. The simple elegance of this structure has been achieved in part because of the qualities of the materials selected, in combination with masterful detailing. It is an appropriately beautiful and stark structure for a remarkably striking site. |
||
Providing public transport is an important, expensive and difficult issue for all cities. Sydney is no exception, but the new rail link between Epping and Chatswood has delivered first-class infrastructure for the city and its commuters. The architecture of its stations presents a complex and difficult design exercise. Solving at once issues of urban presence, customer amenity, engineering complexity and interiors that have a 100-year life expectancy is no mean feat. The fact that these issues have been resolved and the result is also fine architecture is a compliment to designers and clients alike. It is gratifying to me that this project was commissioned and delivered by the Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation, a government agency, and was reviewed by a design panel chaired by the Government Architect. However, full congratulations, and this award, go to HASSELL for the excellence of the architecture. |
||
Dr Catherine De Lorenzo is a Senior Lecturer at The University of New South Wales and has been teaching architecture students since 1975, joining the Faculty of the Built Environment (FBE) in 1987. |
||
This year I have decided to give the President’s Prize to two practitioners who have strategised their practice and ideas, well outside the norms of conventional architectural practice, to embody the ethics of city making. They have each won a number of awards from this Institute, so they are known to many of us as architects of note. Less well known, perhaps, is that fact that, both individually and collectively, they have received numerous awards from the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, the Planning Institute of Australia, various development corporations, the National Trust of Australia Brian Zulaikha, NSW Chapter President
|
||
|
||
The Australian Institute of Architects is the peak body for the architectural profession, representing more than 9500 members across Australia and overseas. The Institute actively works to improve the quality of our built environment by promoting quality, responsible and sustainable design. Visit the Institute at architecture.com.au |
