The jury for the 2025 Houses Awards has been revealed, comprising a group of award-winning architecture and design professionals, all with extensive experience in residential architecture.
This year’s program comprises 10 awards categories, including Australian House of the Year, New House under 200 m², New House over 200 m², House Alteration and Addition under 200 m², House Alteration and Addition over 200 m², Apartment or Unit, Sustainability, House in a Heritage Context, Emerging Architecture Practice, and the newly introduced Small Projects category.
John Ellway is an architect and the founder of the Brisbane-based firm, John Ellway Architect. He has built a remarkable portfolio of award-winning homes, including the Terrarium House, which received the Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award from the Australian Institute of Architects at the 2019 National Architecture Awards, the Elina Mottram Award at state level and the House Alteration and Addition under 200 m2 category at the 2018 Houses Awards. His project Three House was honoured as the Australian House of the Year at the 2021 Houses Awards. In 2022, his practice won another Houses Award in the House Alteration and Addition under 200 m2 category for the project Cascade House.
Polly Harbison is the principal of Polly Harbison Design, a Sydney-based practice founded in 2003. Harbison’s firm has garnered significant acclaim in various awards and has been widely featured both internationally and locally. Notably, her project Pearl Beach House received the Australian Institute of Architects National Award and the NSW Wilkinson Award in 2021. Balmoral House, a collaborative project between Harbison and architect Clinton Murray, won the award for Residential – Houses (New) at the Australian Institute of Architects 2015 National Architecture Awards. In addition to her practice, Harbison has been on several architectural awards juries, including the Australian Institute of Architects 2022 NSW Architecture Awards.
Dimmity Walker is a director of Spaceagency Architects. Walker is skilled at managing client interface and delivery across a diverse range of complex architectural projects, resulting in an extensive portfolio of state and national award-winning projects. An active and engaged member of the profession, Dimmity has served on numerous design juries for state architecture awards and various national architectural design prizes. In 2023, she was named a fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects.
John Wardle is an internationally recognised architect and the founding partner of Wardle. He has developed a design process that incorporates and expands upon the ideas and themes present in a site’s topography, landscape, history and context. The work of Wardle has been celebrated in the publication of two monographs: Volume – John Wardle Architects (2008) and This Building Likes Me (2016), both published by Thames and Hudson. The practice has won coveted national and international awards for education, residential, public and civic design. John was honoured in 2020 with the Gold Medal, the Australian Institute of Architects’ highest individual distinction.
Chairing the jury will be Alexa Kempton who is the editor of Houses magazine. She has more than 20 years’ experience in architecture and design media, and has been part of the editorial team at Architecture Media for 10 years. Alexa is a former editor of ArchitectureAu and managing editor of Architecture Australia.
Pippa Soccio, the senior research scientist in building monitoring at CSIRO, will be the sustainability advisor while Louise Honman, an architect and built heritage specialist, will be the heritage advisor.
Entries close 14 March 2025. To enter, visit the Houses Awards website.
Houses Awards are organised by Architecture Media, supported by Artedomus, Blum, Brickworks, James Hardie, Roca, Fulgor Milano, Architectural Window Systems, The Heritage Council of Victoria and Latitude.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
