Architectural projects combining modest footprints, big social agendas, and striking sculptural forms have dominated this year’s Australian Institute of Architects’ 2010 NSW Architecture Awards.
From commercial architecture, to heritage, interior architecture and sustainable architecture, projects skilfully blending these elements took out many of the top honours presented at the Institute’s annual awards ceremony in Sydney tonight (Friday 18 June). In total, 37 architecture awards and commendations were presented to 32 of the record 200-plus architectural projects entered in this year’s awards. A further five special prizes were also presented.
The State’s top public architecture prize, the Sulman Award, was presented to the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link, Intermediate Stations, by HASSELL. Presenting the award, the jury said: “The four stations that make up the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link set a new benchmark for transport design in Australia. They are an elegant and innovative integration of engineering and architecture, where technical challenges and complexities have inspired rather than constrained the outcome. While the station planning is highly rational and easy for all users to understand, the spatial experience is rich and exciting.”
A public architecture award was also presented to the Surry Hills Library and Community Centre by Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp (fjmt), which emerged as this year’s most honoured project – also taking out the Milo Dunphy Award for Sustainable Architecture and the John Verge Award for Interior Architecture.
The jury said: “The Surry Hills Library and Community Centre delivers a wide range of services including a community library, childcare centre, and meeting spaces over four floors on a modest footprint. Overall, the building presents as a finely crafted piece of joinery, magnified to sit comfortably within the scale of the public domain. The jury was impressed with the project’s commitment to sustainability and the elegant way many of the initiatives have been integrated from first principles into the building form and its operation.” They added: “Surry Hills Library and Community Centre is a confident and considered piece of civic architecture. The building has been warmly embraced by the local community, and the client and the architect are to be commended for their commitment to delivering an exemplary outcome that eschews conventional notions of contemporary public architecture for local communities.”
Also winning multiple awards, and similarly embraced by the public, is the Paddington Reservoir Gardens by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer with JMD Design and the City of Sydney – recipients of this year’s Greenway Award for Heritage and the Lloyd Rees Award for Urban Design.
Describing its outstanding urban design qualities, the jury said: “Its design creates a high quality public open space and a multipurpose community venue, while conserving and interpreting the ruin of the heritage-listed Paddington Reservoir (circa 1866–1878). The project goes well beyond the brief from City of Sydney to reinforce the roof structure and create a new community park at street level. It is an exemplar of the ICOMOS Burra Charter principle of ‘changing as much as necessary but as little as possible’. …/more
The new park enables the appreciation of the site’s history and, through sensitive and sophisticated design, provides an exceptional enhancement of the public domain.”
In a big year for Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, the practice also took out the Blacket Prize for regional architecture with the Glasshouse: Arts, Conference and Entertainment Centre in Port Macquarie, which also received a commendation for public architecture.
A joyful four-storey building at Roslyn Street in Kings Cross sitting on a very small triangular site of less than 200 square metres – 5-9 Roslyn Street by Durbach Block Architects – was awarded the Sir Arthur G. Stephenson for Commercial Architecture, with the jury describing the design as a “a poetic sculptural element that gathers and unifies the building’s surroundings, creating an apparently new space drawn in around itself, and giving dignity to the small pocket park in which it now appears to sit”. They said “the building sits easily in its place and recognises the architectural traits of its neighbours”, adding that “from anywhere in this pocket of Kings Cross you can feel the presence of this building, how it occupies the precinct, and how it reacts to changing light”. “What by day appears a solid building with punched openings formed by casually misaligned windows, at dusk becomes a moulded, ephemeral container of light.” |
This year’s major residential architecture award for new houses or alternations and additions, the Wilkinson Award, was presented to Tzannes Associates Pty Ltd for the Bilgola Residence on Sydney’s northern beaches. This marks the fourth Wilkinson Award for practice head Alec Tzannes since 1988 – an honour only rivalled by legendary architects Harry Seidler (four Wilkinson Awards) and Glenn Murcutt (five Wilkinson Awards). The jury said: “The house is composed predominantly of concrete, glass and steel, and is remarkably sober and robust. The concrete, in particular, is used with great finesse to achieve a thoroughly convincing, honest and high quality expression, well suited to its domestic context. The use of timber panelling and softer furnishings internally completes a well considered hierarchical attitude to interior and exterior domestic space. Although the plan and materials are minimal and direct, the jury was very impressed by the subtlety derived from the architect’s restraint and the avoidance of extravagance.”
The Aaron Bolot Award for Multiple Housing was awarded to 20-24 Alfred Street Apartments, North Sydney, by BVN Architects, with the jury saying: “In the rationality of this building, BVN has created a laconic and timely statement. We hope this assists in the prioritisation of orders of importance in future exclusive buildings; the plan and air and natural light are, as found here, more important than an emphasis on material inclusions, which we are thankfully spared in this clear and rigorous building.” |
A “powerful building” that “has matured with an ease and elegance that belies its age - Offices, Milsons Point by Harry Seidler & Associates - was awarded the 25 Year Award for Enduring Architecture, with the jury adding: “All three buildings (No2, 2a and 4 Glen Street) are significant for their continuing association with Seidler’s office, and No. 2 Glen Street in particular is significant for its use of a concrete frame and pre-cast concrete T-beams spanning the width of the building and forming both ceiling and formwork for the floor above.”
A small pay station in Sydney’s west – the P6 Pay Station, Homebush by Tony Caro Architecture – was awarded a small project architecture award, being described as “a witty ‘decorated shed’ exercise that never lost sight of the function for which it was designed. From the simple diagram to the patterning of the perforated screen, it is true to its core idea: to be graphic and bold.”
The Charles Sturt University School of Dentistry, Wagga Wagga by Brewster Hjorth Architects was awarded the COLORBOND Award for Steel Architecture. The jury said: “The use of steel and metal for the exterior, in colours derived from Australian native species, provides the basis of an appropriate and attractive architectural response to the brief. The architecture is both memorable and sensitive to the landscape of the campus and the School of Dentistry provides excellent levels of amenity for its staff, students, patients and visitors alike.”
A range of prizes for outstanding contributions to the architectural profession were also presented, being the President’s Prize, Premier’s Prize, Adrian Ashton Prize for architectural writings, and the Marion Mahony Griffin Prize for female architects.
This year’s President’s Prize was presented to “someone whose unwavering support for architecture is based on her interest in social justice and the environment” - Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore - with NSW Chapter President Brian Zulaikha saying: “Clover Moore entered politics out of concern for her local community, and her support for architecture and a quality built environment springs from that concern.” He added: “As Lord Mayor she is determined to increase the certainty for residents and developers of existing planning controls and to undertake a massive review and consultation process of those controls. Her cultural program, including the Laneways Project, involves many artists and architects. Her plan to remove Sydney’s dependence on coal–fired electricity and increase its self-sufficiency of low-carbon energy and sustainable water supplies beyond 2030 is remarkable. We applaud her determination to create a lively and engaging city centre, and are pleased that she sees the value of architecture to this program.”
The Marion Mahony Griffin Prize was presented to architect Jan McCredie, with the jury citation stating: “The jury recognises her lifetime commitment to urban design in government as a developer of frameworks, guidelines and standards, as a passionate educator (as both university lecturer and tutor), as a private practitioner and promoter of good urban design through her active involvement with the Australian Institute of Architects and the Planning Institute of Australia. At a time when both architecture and planning have become compromised by the political process, it is timely to honour the work of a practitioner whose integrity and vision still lights a path to the future.”
The Adrian Ashton Prize for architectural writing was presented to internationally renowned author David Malouf. Noting his contribution to Australia’s built environment, the jury said: “Drawing on the motif established in his early memoir 12 Edmondstone Street, David Malouf’s essays examine the effect of the spaces and places in which we live, and how they define our private worlds. As with all his works, they are written in a luminous, evocative way, and deal with the particular experiences of life in our Australian landscape, and notably, the built environment. Most importantly, all have contributed to the growing public awareness of the value and meaning of the spirit of place, of the intrinsic value of good design and architecture, and of the imperatives of recognising and safeguarding the valued spaces and places that define our lives.”
The 2010 Premier’s Prize was jointly awarded to the Maitland Regional Art Gallery and Junee Library and their respective architects - Paul Berkemeier Architect with Barry McGregor and Associates, and Workshop 1 Dunn + Hillam Architects. Presenting the Prize, Premier Kristina Keneally said: “The two projects awarded for this prize are both modest in scale and budget, and quite different in their architectural expression. Each makes an important contribution to the public life in their regional communities and each demonstrates that simple inexpensive interventions can invigorate the public life of New South Wales regional centres. Together they show how architects can work with local communities to deliver quality projects for modest sums, and incorporate sensible environmental design.”
All awards recipients are now in the running for National Architecture Awards, to be announced in late October. |
