Ross Slip Shipwright School
Interventions into the urban fabric of our cities that respect the past and also anticipate the future are rare yet increasingly necessary. Keith Westbrookâs modest yet decisive project, set around a deep cutting and remnants of the Ross Patent Slip, provides an exemplar in its sensitive interpretation and engaging design quality. Read more >
The Nook House - Hybrid Housing Solutions
The jury felt that the project was a very good example of dispersed infill architecture, where micro architectural moves provided overall macro possibilities for change. This approach is a legitimate antidote to the obsession with monumental responses especially in the age of climate change. Interventions following particular patterns are almost ephemeral in appearance, but are executed with a high level of detail and consideration to local conditions and existing urban grain. Read more >
NorthBank
The project is a clear demonstration of the rehabilitative capacity of architecture. Using hybrid building typologies in interstitial spaces of major urban infrastructure, the project makes strategic, topographically specific and highly nuanced urban moves to reframe the relationship between land, water and existing infrastructure. The result convincingly produces new typologies of habitable spaces and socially rich functional programs, while redefining what was a lost edge of the city. Read more >
Newcastle Abattoir + Beef Market
The jury admires this project for its provocative intervention into the social and built fabric of a city. Deliberately abstract in content, and located somewhere between the excesses of the slaughter, and the overwhelming despair in the architecture for dying, the abattoir design forces the city to face the by-products of its consumerism. The communication of the project is reminiscent of the work of Italian Rationalists who used typology as social commentary, and French Enlightenment architects such as Boullee and Ledoux, who used monumentality to induce awe towards social change. Read more >
Sensory Architecture Hepburn Bathhouse Redevelopment
The jury was initially attracted to the sensory focus of the bath house extension. In particular, juxtaposition between the body and architecture, and the evocative atmosphere of the landscape, underpins the methodology. Whether the atmosphere envisaged could be achieved in reality without further detail is uncertain. Read more >
A Guide Book to Whimsical Development in Paddington
The intentions of the project are commendable. Developers and the public need this reference for adventurous and rich intervening forms, which either challenge or illuminate land use planning legislation. The jury detected a dichotomy between strategies to be applied in similar places and an architectural style that is specific yet appears not to acknowledge the existing fabric of Paddington. The provocative juxtaposition of some uses will excite much public debate. Read more >
Reconstructing the Zoo
The written and graphic communication of the poetic narrative and theatricality of this project is well articulated and engaging. In particular, the ways in which the form captures the pre-existing zoo structures to challenge the notion of architecture as field versus object was particularly effective. However, a lack of clarity of the primary form and construction, particularly in the main section, were unconvincing but overall a very bold and thought-provoking scheme. Read more >
Institute of Marine & Antarctic Studies
This is a strong, vigorous architectural statement both in its dominant scale and character. The bulk relates to the size of contemporary cruise ships, but while their presence is temporal, the IMAS will always overshadow Battery Point. At close range the buildings do offer a welcome shelter and amenity and ground level, and a higher engagement with the waterfront. There is a clarity to the presentation which both explains the structure and forms, but also indicates some unresolved detailed planning. Read more >
Living Tower
The project demonstrates the possibilities of a current predilection for new digital technologies in architectural design that rely heavily on the appropriation of biology. The jury was impressed by the adventurous nature of the project to illustrate the relationship between structural resolution and parametric design in the first stage of the competition. Ironically, further work for the second stage weakened the scheme owing to a literal and simplistic adoption of biological references. Read more >
Requiem of a Dream in Melbourne
An effective narrative based methodology led to the retention and reuse of the existing urban fabric as a framing device for these lost city spaces. In addition, clever use of collage enabled these otherwise difficult atmospheres to be captured successfully. In doing so, a nostalgic sense of the past was created through surprise and intrigue at the revelation of these unique interior volumes. Read more >
