Ingenious design that adds value beyond the aesthetic and practical was a feature of many projects awarded Australia’s highest architecture accolades this year.
Winners include a home that helps its disabled owner connect to the universe, and the renovation of a 1940’s worker’s cottage into a family home
The 40th anniversary of Australia’s prestigious, peer-reviewed architecture awards has highlighted the immense value architects add to their communities through exceptional design.
Winner of the Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (New), Peter Stutchbury Architecture’s ‘Night Sky’ is a prime example. Flexibly planned for its handicapped owner, this self-sufficient home presents a managed efficiency, long-term adaptability and sensible restraint as an exemplar of the way we might consider future home models.
Initially considered by the jury to be ‘naive and even under-considered’, the project impressed for its depth of skill in being able to deliver to a ‘singular priority that is about the subject of the work, the desires of a disabled person to connect to the universe and galaxy’.
Taking into account their clients’ love of the war-time coastal bunkers in Europe and Australia, and desire for climatic benefit derived from integration with the landscape, James Stockwell Architect delivered ‘Bunkeren’, the winner of the National Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (New).
Half-buried for climatic stability, bushfire protection and increased habitat and biodiversity, the house has hovering platforms of earth and planting, under which to shelter.
Also celebrating the extraordinary results from a powerful synergy between architect and client, ‘Beaconsfield House’ by Simon Pendal Architect won this year’s Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions). The 1940’s worker’s cottage has been given new life and extended – stripped-back to its timber frame, jarrah floor and front verandah. Only subtle changes in plan were made to the cottage so that its integrity was maintained.
The National Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions) went to LineBurgWang for ‘Beck Street’. On a compromised site susceptible to flood and overland flow, the project is a balance of contrasts, defined by conditions below and above council’s Minimum Habitable Floor Level.
Kennedy Nolan’s work on ‘The Lothian’ won The Frederick Romberg Award for Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing.
The 2021 National Architecture Award Winners were announced via a special livestream event for the second year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They were selected from a shortlist of 57 finalists drawn from an original field of 807 entries.
