2025 National
Architecture
Awards
Architecture
Awards
National Emerging Architect Prize
Jennifer Mcmaster | Trias
National Emerging Architect Prize
A founding member of the award-winning practice Trias, and a professor at the University of Sydney, Jennifer McMaster’s exemplary work spans architectural practice, research, teaching and advocacy. She shows an unwavering enthusiasm for the profession and is an inspiring role model for how we, as architects, can lead society to a brighter future.
In her work at Trias, cofounded in 2017, there is a clear, shared vision for what she calls a “sophisticated sustainability” – an ambition to create solid, simple and beautiful buildings that are environmentally responsible at their core. This vision has been well-executed and well-received by both the profession and the public at large, as evidenced by multiple awards, publications and speaking opportunities.
Jennifer was also recently appointed a professor of practice at the University of Sydney, where she has been able to use her twin passions for housing and sustainability to inspire others. Research underpins her teaching; she is currently focused on embodied carbon and regenerative and waste-based materials, bringing to practice new knowledge and skills through the next generation.
Jennifer has long shown a commitment to supporting others. As co-chair of the NSW Medium Practice Forum, she has fostered an open culture of transparency and generosity for practitioners to exchange knowledge and grow together.
Her consistent focus on opportunities over obstacles, coupled with her optimism for the profession and passion for sharing knowledge makes her a most deserving recipient of the 2024 Emerging Architect Prize.
COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture
Flinders Chase Visitors Centre | Troppo Architects
COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture
The Flinders Chase Visitors Centre demonstrates an exemplary synthesis of architectural resilience, material expression, and environmental sensitivity. In the wake of the Black Summer bushfires, Troppo Architects has employed steel not merely as a structural necessity but as a strategic and symbolic element of the design. Steel’s high durability, fire resistance and capacity for long spans enable a lightweight construction system that minimises ground disturbance and supports the centre’s dispersed pavilion typology.
Exposed steel elements frame generous roof planes that hover protectively above rammed-earth walls, evoking both strength and shelter in a fragile ecosystem. The use of steel allows for modularity, ease of prefabrication, and longevity in harsh coastal conditions, and is further integrated with autonomous energy and water systems, enhancing the building’s long-term performance and low-maintenance ethos. It is a materially articulate, functionally robust response to place, demonstrating how steel can powerfully mediate between endurance and post-disaster contexts.
Commercial Architecture
Northern Memorial Park Depot | Searle x Waldron Architecture
The Harry Seidler Award for Commercial Architecture
The Northern Memorial Park Depot merges shed and workplace for staff who care for memorial parks under the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust. Responding to an unusual brief and workforce, Searle x Waldron developed an entirely fresh approach: creating a supportive environment for staff in emotionally demanding roles, while accommodating vehicles and equipment.
Created in close collaboration with the client and landscape architects, the depot is embedded within an evolving ecological system of woody meadows, wetlands and future public space – reframing the cemetery not only as a place of grief, but also of life and regeneration. Site planning and a permeable green mesh facade draw significant trees into the building’s composition, while lifted skirts at the entries reveal the recycled brick base and glimpses of the timber frame.
Freed from the constraints of the typical workplace, the design embraces the qualities of a timber treehouse. Enclosed pods and open walkways are suspended within human-scale glulam trusses, forming an intricate canopy of spaces connected to both depot and landscape. Stairs, planting and meeting places cascade between levels in a joyful sequence, offering the full biophilic embrace of large-scale timber.
Sustainability is integral, with low-embodied carbon materials such as mass timber and recycled brick, naturally ventilated circulation, on-site energy generation and reduced water use – all supporting a net-zero operational target.
Searle x Waldron bring rare humanity to what could have been a purely utilitarian facility, setting a new benchmark for the industrial workplace.
Everlane Cremorne | Fieldwork
National Award for Commercial Architecture
Contextual response and careful execution make Fieldwork’s Everlane Cremorne a standout. Positioned on a narrow street among warehouse-style offices and single-storey houses, the project balances scale with a strong neighbourhood vibe.
The building is composed of two distinct forms. A four-storey base, washed in terracotta tones and softened with planting, is cranked back from the street edge to create a sunny corner for cafe seating and greenery. A dedicated laneway guides workers and cyclists directly to the entry. The upper facades shift to silver, articulated with bespoke sun-shading.
Typical floors do all the right things: floorplates are efficient and adaptable, materials are low-carbon, services are neat, and Juliet balconies open for fresh air. Above, the roof garden is an unexpected highlight: a generous, well-planted retreat that captures sweeping views and functions as a genuine extension of the workplace. Everlane sets the standard for semi suburban office development.
Melbourne Place | Kennedy Nolan
National Commendation for Commercial Architecture
The abstract, zoomorphic form of Melbourne Place – with its elongated brick neck and oversized, north-facing eyes – injects personality into what might otherwise be just another finely crafted brick building. Kennedy Nolan’s seamless integration of architecture and interiors delivers a strikingly cohesive experience. Positioned between two laneways, the building holds tight to its boundaries, while a double-height street frontage evokes a warehouse character. A robust palette of brick, red-framed openings, and neon signage is applied consistently yet playfully, creating a strong compositional rhythm across the facades. Melbourne Place has re-energised its part of the CBD, establishing itself as the city’s new place to be seen.
39 Martin Place | Tzannes (Lead Architect) and Lendlease Integrated Solutions (Executive Architect)
National Commendation for Commercial Architecture
Designing in Sydney’s Martin Place and integrating with a new metro station is a highly complex undertaking. The result, 39 Martin Place, successfully accommodates multiple through-site connections and servicing requirements while responding to its civic context. Positioned opposite the historic 50 Martin Place, it establishes a new architecture that is equally monumental and richly detailed. Its material palette references the neighbour’s tiles and bronze accents, even sourcing stone from an old quarry to match. The podium’s vertical curves give a contemporary expression, while the tower above adopts a more classic form, offering tenants expansive views and exemplary environmental performance.
The St Lukes Building | TERROIR
National COMMENDATION for Commercial Architecture
This project embodies the ambition of the client to have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of Tasmanians. Located on a busy street in Launceston, it generously gives over its ground plane to a through–site link, drawing together public uses and the church at the rear of the site. Heritage building trusses and facades create additional character to the space. The hybrid timber building structure for the typical floors is exploited for biophilic advantages, sustainability and character. The commanding, double–height terrace linking the top two floors reveals the timber structure and opens to expansive views. The St Lukes Building makes a significant contribution to the future of commercial development in Tasmania.
Educational Architecture
James Cook University Engineering & Innovation Place| KIRK with i4 Architecture and Charles Wright Architects
The Daryl Jackson Award for Educational Architecture
The Engineering and Innovation Place at James Cook University is an exceptional piece of educational architecture. Deeply grounded in Indigenous knowledges of place, the building is considerate of the university’s original Stephenson and Birrel Master Plan but embraces its role in repositioning the campus into a contemporary learning environment. The combined experience of Kirk, I4 Architecture and Charles Wright Architects has produced an architecture that explores the opportunities of its tropical context and understands the pedagogical demands of a hardworking piece of university infrastructure.
The learning spaces are responsive and adaptive, with peer-to-peer informal areas stacked around a central atrium that can be opened up to the main thoroughfare of the campus. A dynamic series of research spaces is vertically assembled from the exciting prototyping warehouse on the ground floor, alongside highly functional laboratories that provide clear visibility to the activities inside.
These spaces rise to the truly innovative Multi-Modal Studio, which is a beautiful room that shifts effortlessly from public lecture space to function room to incidental study space. The articulated facade crafted of zinc and timber creates deep shade in its immediate response to place, but its refinement conceals a highly innovative facade system that leverages cyclonic construction techniques to reduce the core concrete structure. The Engineering and Innovation Place marks an ambitious new phase of campus development for JCU and sets a new standard for tropical architecture in Australia.
The Shed, University of Tasmania | Wardle
National Award for Educational Architecture
The Shed continues the important body of work that Wardle has produced for the University of Tasmania over the past decade. This elegant shed connects the Inveresk precinct across to the edge of the City of Launceston, providing an important link and presence for UTAS in the CBD. Designed for disassembly, this sprawling learning and teaching building is structured around a deep atrium that lofts up towards an industrial articulated-timber-lined roof that punches light into the depth of the plan. A broad range of disciplines is contained by a robust architecture of transparency that facilitates educational aspiration.
Wardle worked closely with local manufacturers and suppliers to provide real opportunities to innovate and showcase Tasmanian materials and products in the making of the building. The practice’s ongoing commitment to UTAS is manifest in this confident, sensitive building that speaks to the underlying strength of the relationship between architect and client.
St. Joseph’s Catholic Primary School Rosebery | Neeson Murcutt Neille
National Award for Educational Architecture
A good school is a fundamental part of its community. At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School Rosebery, Neeson Murcutt Neille has produced a suite of buildings and spaces that are respectful to the heritage of the site (both built and landscape) but also chart a sophisticated catalyst for the future of a precinct. The school building embraces the magnificent existing trees on the site and cleverly utilises the topography to scale the large volumes into the surrounding suburban context. The playground is cast as a north–facing plaza that provides community amenity and connects the school across new landscapes to the existing church and early learning centre. The highly functional classrooms respond to evolving pedagogies and serve the diverse student cohort well with playful cubby holes and delightful decks under the canopy of adjacent trees. The architects have produced a learning environment that is embedded in its place as a vital piece of community infrastructure, and that will grow with the community that has embraced it.
Pascoe Vale Primary School | Kosloff Architecture
National Commendation for Educational Architecture
Kosloff Architecture has worked diligently and incrementally with Pascoe Vale Primary School over the past decade to craft a collection of excellent projects that respond to the heritage context of the school and the shifting social infrastructure of the surrounding area. The projects talk of material and place, removing fences, respecting history, and further embedding the school into its community. New classrooms, adaptive re-use staff spaces, a STEAM facility and a gymnasium were all delivered within very tight funding constraints and driven by the passion of the long-term principal. Extensive consultation with Traditional Owners was maintained over all the stages of the project, ensuring meaningful inclusion of Indigenous knowledges into the very fabric of the architecture. The masterplan is stitched together with lyrical First Nations stories transformed into a learning landscape created in collaboration with Glas Landscape Architects, local elders and the school students.
Enduring Architecture
Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre | Gregory Burgess Pty Ltd
National Award for Enduring Architecture
With a form forged in dialogue between Country and community, the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre stands as a profound testament to the foregrounding of relationships, collaboration and First Nations wisdom in the design process.
In the 35 years since its commissioning, the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre has embodied a living partnership between architect, community and Country. Groundbreaking in its conception, it draws deeply on Anangu wisdom, collaborative design and local materials, blending innovative international construction techniques with community-based experimentation and tradition and transformation, and setting new standards for the practice of architecture in Australia.
The Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre embeds gifted Anangu wisdom in its organic, serpentine forms, which evoke shared stories, unity and respect. Embracing the culturally significant desert oak, and an arrangement intended to reflect the stories of sacred snakes Liru and Kuniya, the building’s flowing design embodies the unity of the Anangu and the national park rangers – holding form, light, culture and community in dynamic balance, and breathing spirit of place and respect into shared space. Architect Gregory Burgess’s pioneering design process has become foundational in the evolution of Australian architectural practice and embodies the joint care for Country, balancing tradition and innovation through permeability, connection and cultural learning.
The collaborative design relationship between the First Nations community, the national park and the architect endures today through the rejuvenation, adaptation and repair of the centre to align with the original design vision. The Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre is not only a landmark of its time but also one that endures today. It is a seminal work that has shaped the ethos of designing with, and caring for, Country – setting a precedent for generational stewardship, shared authorship and genuine partnership in architecture.
Heritage
Parliament of NSW Restoration | Tonkin Zulaikha Greer and Purcell Architecture
The Lachlan Macquarie Award for Heritage
The NSW State Parliament Restoration, masterfully undertaken by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer in collaboration with Purcell Architecture, represents a landmark achievement in heritage architecture. The project revitalises the historical grandeur of the parliament while thoughtfully integrating modern requirements, including accessibility, building systems, and technology upgrades. Tonkin Zulaikha Greer approached the restoration of the Rum Hospital with exceptional care, peeling back layers of later modifications to reveal and celebrate the building’s original materiality and spatial qualities, creating an experience that narrates the story of the parliament through its architecture.
Purcell brought meticulous attention to the preservation and enhancement of architectural features, evolving the character of the Parliamentary Chambers while employing traditional craftsmanship and high-quality materials. Rigorous documentation and innovative approaches enabled the team to sensitively accommodate contemporary functions, ensuring the building retains both historical authenticity and practical relevance.
Much of the work, including security enhancements, system upgrades and technological improvements, remains discreetly integrated, preserving the integrity of the heritage fabric. The restoration balances reverence for the past with the functional demands of the present, delivering a parliament that is both historically enriched and fully operational.
This exemplary project sets a benchmark for heritage conservation, demonstrating how careful intervention, craftsmanship, and thoughtful design can sustain the cultural, architectural, and civic significance of Sydney’s treasured landmarks. It is a testament to the enduring relevance of heritage architecture in contemporary civic life.
The Australian War Memorial New Entrance and Parade Ground | Studio.SC
National Award for Heritage
The Australian War Memorial New Entrance and Parade Ground exemplifies excellence in public architecture, delivering a respectful and innovative enhancement to one of Australia’s most revered commemorative spaces. Led by Studio.SC, the project seamlessly integrates new facilities with the existing heritage architecture, achieving a careful balance between memory and modernity. The extension enriches visitor experiences, reconfiguring the journey through the memorial while adding functional spaces including a lecture theatre, multi-purpose function room, and generous gathering areas for tours and school groups.
Studio SC’s design combines a pragmatic response to a highly regulated brief with bold interventions, such as the oculus, addressing functional challenges while creating dramatic and moving spatial moments. Materials are thoughtfully selected, and sustainable design principles are embedded throughout, reflecting sensitivity to the site’s historical and cultural significance. The extension honours past sacrifices while revitalising the memorial’s role for future generations, reaffirming its significance at the heart of the nation and setting a benchmark for commemorative architecture.
Interior Architecture
Babylon House | Casey Brown Architecture
The Emil Sodersten Award for Interior Architecture
Nine years in the making, Babylon House is an extraordinary reworking of an existing house. Nestled in bushland on the ridge between Pittwater and Avalon Beach, the original home was a quirky product of the 1950s, typical of the area. Its purchase by new owners in 2015 was followed by a long and thoughtful collaboration between Casey Brown Architecture and the client, one that preserves the best of the original house while infusing it with the personality and spirit of its new owners.
Everywhere you look in Babylon House has something surprising to capture your attention, a stark contrast to commoditised house interiors. Every space and detail has the heart of the architect and client in it: integrated rock ledges, bathrooms set down a hatch in the floor, bespoke patterns in the floor treatments, crafted handrails, hand-finished timbers, and a stage in the lounge room. But it isn’t just the detailing – each space delivers experientially. The house is a journey that takes you through a combination of internal and external spaces until you arrive at the plateau, with views in all directions through the angophoras. Internally, it’s just as fabulous, drawing you deeper with moody tones and textures offset by colour. Babylon House feels ancient and contemporary all at once, a truly beautiful example of working with the essence of an existing building and bringing it back from the brink.
Melbourne Place | Kennedy Nolan
National Award For Interior Architecture
Melbourne Place should come with its own soundtrack. Uber-cool, it has firmly established Melbourne as a destination for the jet-setting crowd. The interiors draw inspiration from the city’s best features: dimly lit laneways, hidden bars and a fearless use of colour. Kennedy Nolan has set a new benchmark for boutique hotels in Australia, lifting standards to compete with international offerings.
The single-colour palette of the brick-and-steel exterior provides a backdrop to the masterful use of colour internally. Each level and room is defined by colour, art, and lighting, complemented by Australian-designed products and materials that add a uniquely local character. Guests enjoy rooms full of playful detailing, including the luxury of openable windows. The hotel experience is completed with the rooftop bar, set within a deep brick parapet, and large scale portholes that capture the city skyline.
New Castle | Anthony St John Parsons
National Award For Interior Architecture
New Castle by Anthony St John Parsons is an indulgent and profoundly immersive exploration of polarities. The project challenges the often-binary positions of interior and exterior; a protected, dreamlike domestic realm versus a deeply connected civic gesture, it questions how we might live separately and yet connected.
Through meticulous craftsmanship and masterful manipulation of light, material, and threshold, each space is tuned to amplify experience and delight through the lens of the garden. Each finely crafted, flexible enclosing architectural element shifts, pops, slides, clicks, and hums like a symphony orchestra to tune experience through light and ocean breezes, and connects family, friends, the city and a garden of earthly delight.
A cascading series of spaces, each one impossibly better than the last, intersecting, enclosing, connecting and surprising. New Castle is a forever home – offering a rare, poetic experience where the possibilities for living within a connected family campus are generatively exponential and delightful.
Boot Factory and Mill Hill Centre Precinct | Archer Office
National COMMENDATION For Interior Architecture
This adaptive reuse project unites the 1892 Boot Factory and its sister Mill Hill building as a shared civic hub for community and council. A new link consolidates services, storage and lift access, liberating the factory’s interiors for active public use. Spaces have been carefully reworked to uncover hidden qualities and enrich the heritage fabric. New elements, finely crafted in timber and brass, complement the existing character while culminating in roof forms that elevate the buildings’ civic presence. With a focus on retention, prefabrication and minimising waste, the result is a sustainable, enduring and community-centred civic landmark.
International Architecture
Reuben College | fjcstudio
Australian Award for International Architecture
Australian architects operate at the highest of standards both at home and abroad, as evidenced by Reuben College, Oxford, where FJC Studio has designed and delivered one of the most complex heritage projects in one of the most revered global institutions.
With architectural vision and meticulous care, FJC Studio has masterfully reimagined one of Oxford’s treasured heritage precincts. The architects have navigated the formidable challenges of hazardous materials and complex historic fabric, to deliver a transformative new residential college – Oxford’s first since 1990 – that balances reverence for the past with the needs of tomorrow’s scholars.
The existing building fabric included historic lab facilities which were steeped in hazardous and contaminated materials, including radioactive spaces, all of which were expertly remediated during many years of restoration. Through forensic investigation and sensitive rehabilitation, layers of history have been revived and celebrated, while adaptive reuse has seen former laboratories reborn as vibrant, digitally integrated communal spaces.
The new college exemplifies the seamless integration of contemporary campus living and learning environments within a historic context. From luminous dining halls and technologically advanced libraries to inclusive, welcoming and accessible circulation spaces, as well as beautifully crafted custom furniture and fittings, every element is thoughtfully layered to provide a rich, enduring legacy. The project not only breathes new life into the campus but ensures its relevance and vitality for generations to come.
Public Architecture
Yarrila Place | BVN
The Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture
Yarrila Place distinguishes itself as an exemplar of regional social and civic infrastructure – one that places community impact before excess, efficiently yet generously weaving together library, museum, council and community functions within a single robust and dynamic form The playful programmatic Tetris and hardworking structure result in a building that is resilient and delightful, fostering a unique sense of joy and optimism.
Architecture at its best catalyses engagement, learning and inclusion across diverse communities. Yarrila Place embodies this ethos, challenging conventional paradigms to unlock broad opportunities for connection and shared experience. The central, light-filled vertical street provides vital precinct and landscape connections, animating the interior through the expressed performative spaces while establishing a beacon of community life – a fitting response to the name “Yarrila,” a Gumbaynggirr word, chosen by the community, that translates to “place of light.”
The all-electric project enhances civic uses through its main vertical circulation spine. Formal articulation through the green shading device is playful yet functional and animates the facade by shifting tone and reflection over the course of the days, weeks and seasons.
The dynamic forms and green roofs celebrate biodiversity and regeneration, conversing with the area’s culturally significant landscapes and Gumbaynggirr heritage. Stakeholders report the seasonal delight it brings to both community and workplace, and the building’s catalytic influence in community connection and precinct regeneration, underpinned by urban generosity.
Yarrila Place stands as a model for civic renewal, its impact far exceeding the sum of its parts, setting a new benchmark for community engagement and cultural celebration.
Truganina Community Centre | Jasmax (Canvas Projects)
National Award for Public Architecture
Truganina is high impact, hardworking social infrastructure with a brief and outcome co-designed with the local community. The building’s lean brief is brilliantly transformed through the use of the community library as a social spine that provides a dynamic heart – engendering belonging within one of the most economically challenging, socially complex and culturally diverse emerging Melbourne communities. The design team has expertly woven intersecting programmatic elements that connect, welcome and embrace users – often members of marginalised communities – with facilities that include kindergartens, healthcare, library, community kitchens and council services.
This all-electric building is an exemplar of the possibilities and potential future for Australian suburbs. It showcases its sustainability credentials overtly, including regenerative landscapes, solar PV, rainwater collection and re-use, waste minimisation, design for disassembly, and a high-performance, low-carbon building envelope.
At its core, the centre stands as more than a collection of services – it is a catalyst for social connection, learning and resilience. Generous daylight, open sightlines and tactile, natural materials enhance a sense of safety and warmth, while outdoor play areas and gardens encourage active engagement with nature and community.
The collaborative design process embedded local stories within the architecture, ensuring the building celebrates the rich cultural tapestry of Truganina while meeting functional requirements. The centre fosters civic pride and positions itself as a model for integrated, sustainable, and inclusive community infrastructure, setting a benchmark for new developments throughout Australia’s suburban landscape.
Eva and Marc Besen Centre | Kerstin Thompson Architects
National Award for Public Architecture
The new Eva and Marc Besen Centre is yet another exceptional addition to the Tarrawarra Museum, continuing a refined and distinctive character while also referencing the campus’s rich architectural legacy.
The complex and dynamic spatial composition expertly sculpts volume, texture, space and light with a brilliant programmatic interplay of hierarchy that amplifies existing and new architectural interventions on the site. The refined outdoor and indoor circulation serves to guide but also builds anticipation and immersion through shifting layers of translucency and texture.
The program is expertly handled to reveal the collection to audiences and augment its experience of the collection through learning, making and performance. The spatial composition flips the traditional back-of-house museum storage model into a dynamic, public-facing educational and cultural facility. It is quite extraordinary how carpark, retaining wall and a sunshade come together in combination with the rear of the Tarrawarra facility to embrace the art collection and create the most immersive, spectacular, delightful and unexpected experience.
Continuing the campus’s tradition of nuanced spatial choreography and material sophistication, the building’s remarkable flexibility and civic generosity are woven seamlessly into the fabric of the museum’s evolving identity. Here, every threshold and junction becomes a site of cultural activation – where the boundaries between public, educational and curatorial realms dissolve. The project exemplifies a bold yet measured approach to public architecture, one that foregrounds access, learning and the transformative potential of art.
Paula Fox Melanoma and Cancer Centre | Lyons
National COMMENDATION for Public Architecture
With the Paula Fox Melanoma and Cancer Centre, Lyons has navigated the notoriously difficult St Kilda Road urban condition and achieved a highly successful formal resolution, working with Rush Wright Associates to deliver a spectacularly biodiverse, welcoming and serene entry forecourt, with exterior patient wellbeing and retreat spaces.
The hardworking floorplate traverses elaborate geometries and adapts with agility to a complex healthcare, wellbeing and research program. Moments of delight are carved through the form, connecting communities and injecting light to transform and uplift. Treatment spaces are cleverly designed to conceal clinical elements and feel more like a high-quality spa experience.
The all-electric facility deftly integrates abstracted layers of skin to frame views and improve thermal performance. It’s clear from the refined form and tectonic qualities that this was a collaborative effort between architecture and engineering teams, and a new benchmark for sustainable healthcare facilities with patient wellbeing at their heart.
Allan Border Oval Pavilion | Archer Office
National Commendation for Public Architecture
In the Allan Border Oval Pavilion, refined, sophisticated and elegant simplicity is exemplified in plan, section, volume and material composition, to create a piece of community sporting infrastructure that is sure to be an enduring precedent for Australian suburbs.
The pavilion’s grandstand, cafe, multifunctional space and changerooms are expertly woven together under the most elegant of parasols to create hard-working social infrastructure that is much more than the sum of its parts. This fabulous yet functional “great room” has become the location of choice for local spectators, yoga groups, community meetings and anything else the community can dream up. Much more than a grandstand and locker room, the Alan Border Oval Pavilion is modest in relation to its neighbours, generous to the community, and spectacular in anchoring its sideline presence. It has quickly become integral to the fabric of the community.
Residential - Houses (Alterations and Additions)
Niwa House | John Ellway
The Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award for Residential Architecture - Houses (Alterations and Additions)
Niwa House, designed by John Ellway with Hannah Waring, is a nuanced reimagining of a traditional Queenslander, subtly transformed through a spatial and philosophical lens inspired by Japanese domestic architecture. Drawing on the concept of the niwa – a small, cultivated courtyard – this project introduces a 30-square-metre addition that mediates daily life through a careful interplay of architecture, nature and climate. The central courtyard acts as a contemplative heart of the home, allowing light, air and seasonal change to permeate, while promoting spatial calm and environmental responsiveness.
The use of fine bronze mesh evokes Japanese screen architecture, delicately filtering light and views while enabling cross-ventilation, rain protection and insect control. The design’s sequencing – through verandahs, garden and gently stepped living spaces – fosters a reflective domestic rhythm reminiscent of traditional Japanese planning. Material restraint and spatial compression further reinforce a language of quiet intimacy and minimal intervention.
Sustainability is embedded through passive design, a 12-kilowatt solar array, native planting, water sensitivity and rehabilitated backyard ecology. Landscape by Prandium Studio supports biodiversity and a sense of wildness, reinterpreting suburban gardens as habitats. Importantly, Niwa House re-establishes connection to the street and local community. Its transparent thresholds and reactivated verandah create a gentle dialogue between public and private spaces, reasserting the social function of the home within its neighbourhood context. This is a project of disciplined modesty and poetic clarity – architecture that honours tradition, climate and community through quiet spatial generosity and a profound respect for place.
Gunn Ridge House | Kennedy Nolan
National Award for Residential Architecture - Houses (Alterations and Additions)
Gunn Ridge House is a distinguished and deeply respectful reimagining of an architecturally significant Merchant Builders residence originally designed by Graeme Gunn for John Ridge. Honouring the legacy of a practice that pioneered a modern Australian vernacular, the project retains the original design’s courtyard planning, material restraint, passive solar principles and integration with landscape, conserving the contributions of original collaborators Janne Faulkner and Ellis Stones.
Through carefully measured interventions, the architects have expanded and clarified the dwelling, responding to the evolving needs of a new family while preserving spatial complexity and historical resonance. New additions, such as a sunken children’s wing, an eccentric timber-clad pavilion and a reconfigured landscape by Fiona Brockhoff, enhance amenity and connection to site. The approach is neither nostalgic nor overwrought; it recognises heritage as a living continuum. Gunn Ridge House exemplifies how architectural conservation, when aligned with considered adaptation, can yield a home that is at once reverent, reinvigorated and unmistakably contemporary.
The Stopover | Taylor Buchtmann Architecture
National Award for Residential Architecture - Houses (Alterations and Additions)
The Stopover by Taylor Buchtmann Architecture is an exemplary adaptive reuse project that transforms a disused grain store on a remote South Australian sheep station into a refined and resilient rural home. Through the insertion of two timber-lined living “capsules” and minimal intervention to the existing stone envelope, the project preserves material heritage while creating a thermally protected, contemplative interior suited to the region’s harsh climatic conditions. Reclaimed and local materials – timber, stone, brass and hand-seeded river stones – reinforce a philosophy of environmental care and embodied energy reduction.
Beyond its architectural refinement, The Stopover plays a vital community-building role, serving as a welcoming accommodation hub for extended family, seasonal workers and guests. It fosters social continuity in an isolated context, reinvigorating an unused structure with renewed civic purpose. The project demonstrates how modest, contextually embedded interventions can nurture shared memory, ecological stewardship and meaningful human connection within Australia’s evolving rural architectural landscape.
Cloaked House | TRIAS
National Commendation for Residential Architecture - Houses (Alterations and Additions)
Cloaked House is a rigorous and poetic reimagining of a derelict mid-century dwelling that embraces both embodied carbon and embodied history as design catalysts. Perched on a steep bush site, the project carefully retains the original structure’s slabs, walls and beams, preserving more than 20,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent while honouring its Sydney School lineage. New interventions – an atrium, reoriented rooms, re-clad facades – are seamlessly stitched into the original fabric using recycled and low-carbon materials. The result is a layered, performative envelope that enhances thermal performance and ecological sensitivity. Cloaked House exemplifies how architectural ambition can be allied with resourcefulness in response to climate and memory.
Shadow House | GROTTO STUDIO
National Commendation for Residential Architecture - Houses (Alterations and Additions)
Shadow House is a finely calibrated response to domestic reuse, foregrounding restraint, spatial nuance and user experience. Rather than dominate its 120-year-old timber cottage context, the 90-square-metre addition recedes – both formally and materially – through charred timber cladding and secondary massing. Named for its choreographed relationship with light, Shadow House orchestrates shifting volumes and apertures that filter, frame and temper natural light, enriching the daily rhythms of its inhabitants. Flexible internal arrangements balance seclusion and openness, while deep window reveals and courtyards extend the modest footprint. This project exemplifies how adaptation, not erasure, can yield deeply contextual, enduring and liveable architecture.
Carlton Cottage | Lovell Burton Architecture
National Commendation for Residential Architecture - Houses (Alterations and Additions)
Carlton Cottage is an exemplary exercise in adaptive reuse, working resourcefully within the tight footprint of a weathered terrace to reimagine domestic life in inner-urban Melbourne. Responding to the layered character of Canning Street – its revegetated urban forest, working-class grain and industrial remnants – the project integrates landscape, light and program through subtle spatial sequencing. A new skillion roof, stepped floor levels and a central courtyard transform the original fabric without erasure, enabling passive climate response and flexible family use. Through material up-cycling and quiet architectural clarity, Carlton Cottage demonstrates how modest interventions can sensitively repair and enrich the urban domestic condition.
Residential - Houses (New)
Hedge and Arbour House | Studio Bright
The Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (New)
One of the most exciting themes in this year’s awards is the way architects and clients are exploring new approaches to living. Hedge and Arbour House by Studio Bright is a standout example. Guided by the client’s wish to foster a closer connection to nature, the house is designed to be almost entirely enveloped by the landscape.
Conceptually, it draws the bushland at the rear of the block forward. From the street, a formal hedge conceals the unexpectedly wild landscape beyond. This sharp contrast underscores the house’s radical rethinking of how we might live. The entry sequence through walled gardens makes the choice explicit – offering visitors two scenarios, and in doing so, prompting reflection on how we want to inhabit our world. It is rare for a house to so directly challenge us in this way.
The house itself is wrapped in a galvanised steel-mesh arbour, a simplifying element that also allows the landscape to subsume the house almost entirely. Where openings exist, they are robust, but the thoughtful details and composition of openings and external spaces elevate the house aesthetically. Once inside, the spaces provide a calming refuge in constant connection to the views of the bush landscape beyond. The architects have found just the right balance between living well and modestly. Leaving this house, moving from the wild landscape through the manicured hedge, feels like we have been given a glimpse of a glorious future.
Mapleton House | Atelier Chen Hung
National Award for Residential Architecture - Houses (New)
Mapleton House by Atelier Chen Hung is a restrained and poetic response to site, climate, and the minimalist values of its occupants. Positioned on Gubbi Gubbi Country atop the Blackall Range, the project engages with the layered histories of place – honouring enduring First Nations connections to land through a design that treads lightly, preserves view corridors and foregrounds ecological sensitivity. Two zinc-clad pavilions are embedded into the ridgeline, forming an “inhabited terrain” that balances privacy and openness while maintaining public sightlines to Mount Ninderry and Mount Coolum. A pared-back material palette of zinc, native timber, and sandstone aligns with the occupants’ ethos of simplicity and durability. Internally, stepped floor levels and landscaped voids choreograph domestic rituals around light, weather, and topography. Affectionately likened by locals to a “Zincalume banana-packing shed,” the project resonates with both regional vernacular and a broader cultural respect, offering a model for architecture grounded in humility, memory, and place.
New Castle | ANTHONY ST JOHN PARSONS
NATIONAL AWARD FOR RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE – HOUSES (NEW)
New Castle by Anthony St John Parsons is a profound meditation on domesticity, enclosure and the enduring allure of the garden. Conceived as a contemporary garden of delight – evoking echoes of the Garden of Eden – the residence is entirely contained within a thick limestone perimeter wall that conceals a lush, cultivated interior world. Carefully orchestrated apertures offer momentary glimpses into this secret landscape, heightening the drama of arrival and the intimacy of occupation. The house unfolds as a sequence of narrow, sinuous volumes that wrap around courtyards and gardens, with each level engaging a different register of the landscape – shade and moisture below, canopy and horizon above. This spatial choreography is matched by an unwavering dedication to detail: every junction, material and threshold meticulously considered across hundreds of drawings. Referencing architectural traditions of walled sanctuaries, New Castle is a rare and poetic reimagining of suburban life as a deeply immersive and enduring garden experience.
Lagoon House | Peter Stutchbury Architecture
NATIONAL AWARD FOR RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE – HOUSES (NEW)
Modest from the street, Lagoon House unfolds internally as a masterful sequence of layered spaces moderated with light and air. The client sought a home that would endure, prompting Peter Stutchbury Architecture to embrace a new direction – one heavily grounded in place and material longevity. Off-form concrete walls anchor the house, complemented by a restrained palette of precisely detailed timber, copper and brass finishes.
On its compact block, hemmed in by neighbours, the house’s ingenuity drives its design. A central courtyard with operable gills captures sea breezes, transforming the home into a serene sanctuary. A finely crafted timber stair leads through interwoven levels, culminating in a rooftop terrace accessed via a sliding hatch. Along the way, ceilings dissolve into sawtooth skylights, shaping a dynamic journey of shifting light. Traditional windows give way to solid, movable panels, allowing the occupants to calibrate privacy, openness, and connection with the outside world.
Henville Street House | Philip Stejskal Architecture
NATIONAL COMMEDATION FOR RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE – HOUSES (NEW)
The Henville House is surprising for the quality of living it achieves on a modest budget. Designed as a family home on a landlocked suburban site in Perth, it successfully captures the essence of the Western Australian lifestyle – big skies, indoor–outdoor living, and a strong connection to nature. The L-shaped plan and carefully considered volumes draw the garden deep into the living spaces, making the house feel more expansive while also softening the impact of the often-harsh climate. Materially and operationally, the house prioritises both sustainability and robustness.
Residential - Multiple Housing
Blok Three Sisters | Blok Modular in collaboration with Vokes & Peters
The Frederick Romberg Award for Residential Architecture - Multiple Housing
Stradbroke Island is a special place, and this is a very special little building. Blok Three Sisters is the perfect collaboration between the prefabricated construction expertise of Blok Modular and the eloquent South-East Queensland design sensibilities of Vokes and Peters. As the name suggests, the project is accommodation for three sisters and their extended families in the form of three coastal “townhouses” that replace a single-family beach shack on the site that had been enjoyed by the sisters since childhood. This project is about nostalgia manifest in an architecture that facilitates intergenerational living, and the importance of passing on knowledge of place, community, ways of living at the beach and how to be on holiday. The dexterity of its modular construction process provides a clear blueprint of how quality strategic prefabrication can be translated into new modes of construction process in Australia.
The townhouses are a sequence of efficient spaces that breathe with the landscape and open at the rear to embrace the ocean in a double-height-volume terrace. Inherent flexibility is built into the plan and allows for personalised configuration by each resident within a consistent envelope. The detail is delightfully “beachy”: decking floors can accommodate sandy feet, operable walls and panels allow air to move through space as breezes are captured, and the wonderfully practical front “shed” is offset by the wilful kick in the roof form to embrace the canopy of adjacent trees. The robust simplicity of these classic terrace forms is beguiling; they draw on the past but are very clearly aspiring to the future.
Shiel Street North Melbourne, Community Housing Project | Clare Cousins Architects
NATIONAL AWARD FOR RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE - MULTIPLE HOUSING
Shiel Street is a community housing project of 78 apartments across eight floors in the inner suburb of North Melbourne. Clare Cousins Architects has delivered an outstanding piece of community infrastructure whilst working under highly pressured time constraints to facilitate government funding. The project, developed by housing provider Housing Choices Australia, sits in a precinct featuring historic social housing schemes, and makes a valuable contribution to this lineage. Sheil Street demonstrates the impact that experienced architects with a residential focus can make when presented with the opportunity to transfer their skills into community housing. Here, market-rate amenities are provided in a robust palette of materials with generous access to light and clever utilisation of space and colour. Deep consideration is made of durability, safety, access and inclusion concerns, all prevalent in this building typology but here executed with care and intent. The apparent simplicity of the resolution hides the significant skill required by architect and developer to make the fundamentals of the site work. This is exceptional community housing that sets a clear precedent for honest, well designed affordable homes that provide transformational support for those who need them the most.
Indi Sydney | Bates Smart
NATIONAL AWARD FOR RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE - MULTIPLE HOUSING
Indi Sydney is a benchmark project in the emerging build–to-rent market in Australia. This nascent typology has been relatively slow in its investment trajectory and has rarely engaged high–calibre architects in its delivery until now. At Indi Sydney, Bates Smart has brought decades of experience in multi-residential work to execute a sophisticated and highly sustainable outcome on a tight city site with all the added complexity of a Sydney Metro over-station development. Acknowledging the “premium product” bracket that has been achieved here, the results are outstanding, beautifully planned apartments with generous light and outdoor space, complemented by spacious shared areas and communal terraces. The deep grid of the facade offers environmental performance while subtle shifts in colour tone create a polychromatic texture that changes in the Sydney light. This is an architecture that acknowledges commercial realities but seeks to promote design quality and excellent amenity in a progressive model of collective housing.
Sirius Redevelopment | BVN
NATIONAL COMMENDATION FOR RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE - MULTIPLE HOUSING
Small Project Architecture
Geelong Laneways: Malop Arcade | NMBW Architecture Studio with ASPECT Studios
NATIONAL AWARD FOR SMALL PROJECT ARCHITECTURE
Geelong Laneways: Malop Arcade is a compelling example of small-scale urban intervention that reverently reclaims private commercial space as connective public infrastructure. As the first realised component of a broader laneway network in central Geelong, the project transforms a two-storey shop into a green pedestrian passage, forging vital links between cultural institutions, university precincts and the waterfront. Rooted in deep consultation – including First Nations engagement, archaeological investigation and heritage collaboration – the design honours the layered histories of the site while proposing an emergent civic identity. Demolition was undertaken with precision and care, salvaging and reusing materials to retain memory within the urban fabric. Brick and timber fragments become tactile expressions of past use; steel bracing, necessary for structural integrity, has been integrated as spatial gesture. Activated through plantings, rainwater choreography and resting spaces, Malop Arcade reconceptualises buildings as permeable, regenerative pathways. It demonstrates how reverent dismantling and creative reuse can yield meaningful, inclusive and ecologically attuned public space.
Denman Village Park Amenities | Carter Williamson Architects
National Award for Small Project Architecture
The Denman Village Park Amenities project exemplifies the capacity of small-scale architecture to achieve outsized civic and emotional impact through thoughtful, joyful design. Within a modest footprint and utilitarian brief, Carter Williamson Architects has created a spirited public pavilion that delights in its playfulness and cares deeply for its users. The expressive upturned concrete roofs, bright–blue steel framing and whimsical circular openings transform a basic amenity into a memorable and uplifting landmark. Careful detailing, tactile materiality and accessible spatial planning signal an uncommon generosity of intent, making space not just for function, but for joy, inclusivity and community interaction. The architecture invites curiosity and encourages unstructured play and gathering, regardless of age or ability. In doing so, the project challenges assumptions about what small civic infrastructure can be. It sets a benchmark for how architecture, even at the smallest scale, can bring delight, dignity and enduring public value.
Sofia Bistro | Sans-Arc Studio
National COMMENDATION for Small Project Architecture
Sofia Bistro is a nuanced commercial activation that transforms the underutilised ground floor of a 1980s office building into a socially rich and materially inventive gathering space. Realised through a close collaboration between the client and architect, the project is defined by its expressive use of concrete – planters, counters and terrazzo elements – all poured in situ as an experimental extension of the client’s material expertise. Lightweight construction, modular furniture and eco-conscious detailing support a low-impact build with maximal civic effect. Curved geometries and corrugated motifs unify the architecture, establishing a warm and memorable identity that draws people into Adelaide’s evolving urban fringe.
Sustainable Architecture
First Building - Bradfield City Centre | Hassell
The David Oppenheim Award for Sustainable Architecture
The First Building at Bradfield City Centre exemplifies a culturally grounded, environmentally responsive approach to contemporary civic architecture. Designed by Hassell in collaboration with First Nations cultural design and research practice Djinjama, the project represents a paradigm shift in integrating Country-centred knowledge systems with modern architectural processes.
Informed by Djinjama’s methodologies, the project is situated on Wianamatta (Mother Place), land of profound significance to the Dharug people. This engagement shaped a spatial language rooted in care, water and ecological regeneration, articulated through a permeable site strategy, ephemeral hydrological expressions and native plantings. Hassell’s architectural response materialises these insights into a pavilion of civic generosity and ecological sensitivity.
Environmental performance is embedded at every scale. The building integrates rainwater harvesting, natural ventilation, solar energy generation, low-carbon concrete, rammed-earth walls and a biodiverse green roof. A reduction of embodied carbon by 50 percent, and targeted 6-Star Green Star and Living Building Challenge certifications, affirm the project’s sustainability credentials.
Equally significant is the deployment of modern methods of construction: a prefabricated timber “kit-of-parts” enables disassembly, relocation and reconfiguration, aligning with circular economy principles and ensuring long-term adaptability.
As the inaugural structure within Australia’s newest city, the First Building articulates a regenerative model of development – one that centres First Nations knowledge, embraces sustainable innovation and positions architecture as an agent of transformation.
METRONET Morley-Ellenbrook Line Project | Woods Bagot with TRCB, TCL and UDLA
National Award for Sustainable Architecture
The Metronet Morley–Ellenbrook Line Project represents a benchmark in sustainable, inclusive transit-oriented development. Designed by Woods Bagot with TRCB, TCL and UDLA, the project employs a modular, prefabricated construction methodology that reduces embodied carbon, limits construction waste and enhances long-term adaptability. Station precincts are shaped by passive environmental strategies, maximising natural daylight, ventilation, thermal massing and solar orientation to minimise operational energy demand.
A strong sustainability ethos is evident in the integration of water-sensitive urban design, green infrastructure and climate-responsive materials suited to Western Australia’s Swan Coastal Plain. Landscaping strategies prioritise biodiversity, native vegetation and shade provision, reducing urban heat island effects while fostering ecological connectivity.
Through Metronet’s Gnarla Biddi Strategy, the project integrates Noongar knowledge systems through place-making, landscape design and land access management. Tangible outcomes include more than $53 million in Indigenous procurement, engagement of 52 Aboriginal businesses, and permanent public artworks by six Noongar artists, ensuring enduring cultural presence across all station precincts.
Canberra Hospital Expansion | BVN
National COMMENDATION for Sustainable Architecture
The Canberra Hospital Expansion by BVN sets a national benchmark for sustainable and community-centred healthcare design. As Australia’s first fully electric hospital, it operates entirely on renewable energy, eliminating fossil fuel use and reducing carbon emissions by approximately 1,886 tonnes annually. Integrated water harvesting, heat-pump systems and high-performance facades underscore its environmental rigour. Equally, the design reflects deep engagement with staff, patients and First Nations communities, resulting in healing-oriented spaces that prioritise daylight, cultural expression and intuitive navigation. This project exemplifies how major public infrastructure can unite environmental performance with inclusivity, cultural respect and long-term adaptability.
Flinders Chase Visitors Centre | Troppo Architects
National COMMENDATION for Sustainable Architecture
The Flinders Chase Visitors Centre represents a paradigmatic example of environmentally responsive and contextually attuned architecture. The project emerged from the aftermath of the Black Summer bushfires, and Troppo Architects has produced a design of remarkable clarity, sensitivity and ecological intelligence. The pavilion-like composition utilises a restrained material palette – rammed earth, sustainably sourced timbers and minimal concrete and steel – to articulate a low-impact footprint that is grounded in place. Passive environmental strategies and autonomous energy and water systems affirm the project’s commitment to long-term resilience and self-sufficiency. Beyond its technical proficiency, the centre performs an important cultural and civic function, supporting visitation, research and park management. Through a careful synthesis of environmental stewardship, architectural integrity and community relevance, this project exemplifies best practice in regional public architecture. It stands as a benchmark for post-disaster reconstruction in vulnerable ecosystems.
Urban Design
Sydney Metro City Stations | Sydney Metro
The Walter Burley Griffin Award for Urban Design
The Sydney Metro City Stations project is a strategic, financial and urban design triumph. Tackling a wickedly complex, multifaceted challenge, this Metro project has had a dramatic effect on mobility through Sydney’s inner corridor.
The six new stations and two enhanced stations unlock billions of dollars of economic opportunity in their creation of people-friendly precincts, underpinned by public transportation, value capture and public–private development of a scale never witnessed in Australia. This is a collaboration of intricate detail that has delivered outstanding results from an engineering perspective, but the stations are also exceptional in that each has its own urban character and spatial/material quality. It is difficult to pick a favourite – each station understands its role in the network and is grounded by the logistics, wayfinding and systems of the Metro project, but in each case the architecture is committed to celebrating the unique qualities of place and the delight of ascending from station to footpath.
The integration of Indigenous Knowledges and public art is highly successful, telling stories of Country and imagining other worlds as people embark on their journey. The urban impacts to each precinct are immediate – revitalising streetscape, provoking commerce, driving capital investment. The Sydney Metro team has understood implicitly that people thrive in well-designed, generous public space and that this forms the foundation of the long process of making good cities great.
National Partners
