NSW Country Division
Architecture Awards

The Bathurst Rail Museum by Integrated Design Group took out the prestigious James Barnet Award and the award for Public Architecture. The museum successfully delivers on the promise of recording, rediscovering and reinvigorating the continuing social and railway history of Bathurst, Australia’s oldest inland European settlement. The design skilfully combines the preserving and enhancement of a heritage building with the successful addition of new buildings and insertions into the engaging precinct, adding a new built history to the existing. The contrasting form, colour and materiality of the contemporary buildings clearly defines old and new.

Across this year’s awards program, Integrated Design Group took out four awards. The honours also included the award for Heritage Architecture for dAIRY CReATivE and the award for Residential Architecture – Affordable Housing (Under $400,000) for Mum’s House. dAIRY CReATivE offers a great collaborative workspace and preserves and reveals materials, trade and technology through the adaptive re-use of a 115-year-old brick ‘shed’. Mum’s House, in collaboration with Jennifer Price Landscape Design, epitomises true sustainability, delivering a sophisticated ‘shed’ with strong reference to the Australian farm vernacular.

Multi-award winning DJF Architects were recognised for three projects including: Easy Street, recipient of the Sustainable Architecture award and award for Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing; Neal and Shirley’s awarded Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions); and Coolamon House awarded for Residential Architecture – Houses (New.) Easy Street in Byron Bay delivers uncompromisingly designed, compact, low-cost apartments creating an affordable, flourishing community for key workers. Neal and Shirley’s modest mid-century bones warranted preservation, and reconfiguring the beachfront pavilion into an efficient two-person home that better engages with its unique dune system setting saved the much loved 1957 Tweed Coast home. Coolamon House perches on an exposed escarpment. By conceiving the home around a central oasis courtyard set within a transparent outer shell, the architecture affords protected immersion in the expansive landscape while capturing internal views through the house itself.

Pearl Beach House by Buckwell & Partners Architects took out awards for Residential Architecture – Houses (New) and Timber. Using thoughtfully resolved, recycled materials this passive solar house hugs the site and celebrates the natural beauty of its surroundings.

Harley Graham Architects received the Commercial Architecture award for the Stone and Wood Brewery. A steel and timber structure that deconstructs as it opens to the north where the courtyard defines the entry and greenery climbs the vertical timber screen, it creates a spiritual home for the team.

The award for Educational Architecture went to Q Block by GPG Architecture and Design with Mark G Golden and Associates. Here internal learning areas connect seamlessly with covered outdoor zones to create transitional learning environments that serve as natural backdrops to the energetic days of the occupants.

The Vision Award was won by Takt Studio for the Conjola Connected Communities masterplan to assist future development following the catastrophic bushfires of 2019/2020. It is a vision of a community that becomes more resilient, more inclusive and more sustainable than it ever has been.

ANZAC Walk by PELLE Architects received the award for Small Project Architecture. The Batemans Bay Soldiers Club ‘ANZAC Walk’ is a sensitive and respectful tribute to past servicemen and women, creating a contemplative and reflective arrival sequence and using undulating geometry to create compression and relief when transitioning through the space shaping the sculpted displays.

In addition to the 15 jury awards and ten commendations, Pearl Beach House by Buckwell & Partners Architects also won the People’s Choice award by popular vote. Supporters were no doubt impressed by the state-of-the-art passive solar home that generates electricity, uses thoughtfully recycled materials and celebrates the natural beauty of the environment around it.