2026 South australia architecture awards - city of adelaide entrants
Adelaide Aquatic Centre (Kauwingka) | JPE Design Studio with Warren and Mahoney and Karl Winda Telfer
The new Adelaide Aquatic Centre (Kauwingka – Place of Water) is guided by principles of inclusivity, community, and environmental rejuvenation. The project’s core philosophy is to create ‘a landscape within a landscape’; a destination that fosters participation and wellness, while connecting communities and enhancing the Adelaide Park Lands as a social and cultural heart.
The collaboration between JPE Design Studio, Warren and Mahoney and Karl Winda Telfer as design partners, ensures that the Centre is of its place, embedding story, identity, and the presence of water in all aspects of the design. It offers a wide range of programs and services that are multi-generational and seeks to create experiences and engagement, inspired by water and nature.
Designed for the community, the new Centre provides the city with a new benchmark; a contemporary sports and wellness hub, with multi-program capability, sustainable design and connection to the precinct.
Adelaide Town Hall | Swanbury Penglase
Adelaide Town Hall is one of the city’s most recognisable and historically significant buildings, standing at the centre of civic and community life for more than 160 years. As part of the City of Adelaide’s commitment to preserving its most important cultural places, a series of conservation and refurbishment works has been undertaken across the Town Hall complex. Externally, restoration works addressed deterioration to ensure the long-term stability of the building and the safety of the public, including conservation of the landmark Albert Tower and reconstruction of its lantern. Internally, the historic 1866 Auditorium and surrounding spaces were revitalised through research-informed repair and redecoration, and careful refurbishment of significant elements. Together with upgrades to other prominent rooms, the completed works strengthen the Town Hall’s sustainability, enhance cultural engagement, and reinforce its enduring role in Adelaide’s civic and community life.
Eighty Eight O’Connell | Woods Bagot
Eighty Eight O’Connell Street is a landmark mixed-use development, transforming a long-dormant site into a major hub for residential, commercial, retail, health and wellbeing activities. Vertically massed residences are designed to support North Adelaide’s growing population, offering panoramic city views and integrated amenities. As a radically mixed-use development, this precinct combines high-quality residences with commercial suites, retail, wellness, and public terraces, connecting people to nature, culture and each other. Combining luxury living, high-end residential, public spaces and an experiential market, Eighty Eight is a destination for culture, commerce and community.
Opuntia and Olea: Stories of Adaptation | Giuseppe Matteo Pappalardo
The Guildhouse Collections Project
Giuseppe Matteo Pappalardo
Opuntia and Olea: Stories of Adaptation
Presented in partnership with the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium of South Australia
7 December 2025 — 28 February 2026
Artist Giuseppe Matteo Pappalardo examines the complex intersections of cultural heritage, ecology and migration. As an Australian-Italian artist, he draws from his lived experiences, developing new works across painting, ceramics, sculpture, installation and design. Drawing on specialisations in couture fashion and horticulture, the resolution of new works moves between hyper local and global, as he explores the cyclical (re)contextualisation of Opuntia (prickly pear) and Olea europaea (olive tree) in Opuntia and Olea: Stories of Adaptation.
The Guildhouse Collections Project with the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium is supported by CreateSA.
Reno’s | RADS
Reno’s is a lobby café servicing the espresso rush, long lunches, and evening events. Gloss, chrome, and sculptural cues draw from 1970s Milan and suburban delis, reimagined through Italo futurism. Classic hosting. Espresso ‘til late.
Located within the lobby of a refurbished commercial tower, the venue operates as a public threshold rather than a tenant amenity. The venue balances speed with social occupation, accommodating high turnover coffee service alongside longer stays.
Spatial compression transforms the lobby into a hospitality setting. A cinematic light box frames the experience, with daylight animating the space and artificial light defining evening use. Reno’s reframes the perception of a commercial lobby as a shared civic interface through hospitality.
YWCA | + Tridente Boyce
YWCA Australia is an evolving intersectional feminist organisation that is working towards a future where gender equality is a reality for all women and people of marginalised genders. Their primary objective for this modest corner site within the City of Adelaide was to deliver an affordable housing project to provide long term housing solutions for women and their families who have experienced domestic and family violence. As Australia’s only national specialist women’s housing provider, this project of twenty-four new rental homes extends YWCA’s pipeline of secure and affordable accommodation. The compact site, of just over 350m2, is located on the northern end of Hutt Street, in close proximity to the park lands and within walking distance to the retail precincts and closely linked to public transport. The safe and secure one, two and three-bedroom apartments are available to women and their families on low to moderate incomes, below market rent.
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