The Embassy of Australia, Washington D.C. | Bates Smart

Award for Commercial Architecture

The new Australian Embassy in Washington sits confidently on its site in Massachusetts Ave; an exemplar of refined and innovative commercial architecture that offers up to Washington subtle colours of the Australian landscape.

The variegated staccato of the bespoke copper cladding fins catches the light in different hues throughout the day, while the glazed façade between the fins emerges translucent into the evening twilight. Shadow-lines, recesses and rhythm are deployed to refine subtle massing elements and reference the fault lines of a rocky outcrop.

The built form maximises the permissible building envelope, yet allows for a Tarkine-inspired sunken garden at the south-west corner, whose soft landscaping will connect spatially to the main entry drop-off at ground level above. The generosity of the central light-filled atrium is remarkable, cloaked in deep honeyed-blonde horizontal layers of vertically-stacked native timber veneers and screens.

Security and circulation routes are rigorously streamlined, yet with a clever shifting of the core at upper level, staff from different siloed departments are brought back together into a vertically orientated social space which borrows light from the soaring atrium. Meanwhile, Australian artists are quietly championed, with striking commissions for bespoke furniture, art and textiles, organised through a collaboration with the DIA.

Award for Interior Architecture

The Embassy interior successfully promotes openness and transparency whilst also skilfully addressing the pragmatic issues of security and restricted access required of buildings of this nature. The central circulation spine or ‘street’, as an extension of the city, allows visitors and occupants to comprehend and navigate the building in multiple dimensions—from the ground plane and horizontal connections with the city, to the dramatic and jewel-like atrium at the heart of the building which connects earth and sky.

The architects have abstracted the Australian landscape in the use of textures and striated native timbers, complementing the architectural language of the exterior. This sophisticated layering and activation of space creates an interior filled with warmth and facilitates a changing play of light and shadow throughout the building. The interiors demonstrate a timeless and elegant use of Australian materials and a refined and restrained palette. There is a sophisticated level of craftsmanship and detailing here, including the well-considered use of Australian furniture, and Indigenous design in art and rugs that highlight Australian creative excellence.

Australia’s new Embassy is both functional and delightful; its expansive and generous light-filled interiors are unashamedly grand but also warm and intimate, showcasing Australia at its modern, vibrant, and welcoming best.

The Louise Cox Award for Public Architecture

The design of the new Embassy bravely eschews monumentality and excessive deference to its eminent Washington DC surroundings to paint a compelling picture of Australia as a vibrant, inviting, and youthful country. This picture is realised with remarkable consistency at every scale from urban form to crafted interior detail, and it is a testament to the commitment of both client and architect in delivering on the promise of the original competition-winning scheme.

The building plan skilfully responds to the inherent paradox of the Embassy brief, which called for a place that was at once highly secure whilst also open and welcoming. A sequence of connected representational spaces are flooded with light from the central atrium, creating a sense of transparency across the ground plane that is not encumbered by the usual security infrastructure thanks to careful orchestration of visitor and staff circulation.

References to the Australian landscape are unmistakable, from the gleaming copper and glass facade recalling expansive skies and red earth, to the layered interior panelling echoing the peeling bark of a eucalypt forest. Works by Australian artists and makers are well chosen and bring a depth of colour, detail, and texture with a strong sense of belonging to the building.