Individuals and practices who have made significant strides in improving the built environment for the betterment of society have been recognized at three separate state honours announcements made by the Australian Institute of Architects.
The Institute’s NSW, Victorian and Tasmanian chapters have each announced a suite of awards, with each award highlighting the remarkable work being undertaken across the nation.
In NSW, 30 practitioners and organizations were presented with Prizes and Honours Awards. Three Prizes for Reconciliation were each awarded to the La Perouse Aboriginal Community social enterprise Gujaga Foundation, architect and educator Dr Michael Mossman, and the Heritage NSW and Heritage Council of NSW.
The NSW Land and Housing Corporation and the Blacktown City Council jointly received President’s Prizes, with the NSW Land and Housing Corporation lauded for delivering high-quality social housing, and Blacktown City Council for advancing their community through the facilitation of projects such as Woodcroft Neighbourhood Centre by Carter Williamson Architects and Blacktown Animal Rehoming Centre (BARC) by Sam Crawford Architects.
The David Lindner Prize for graduate and emerging architects was received by Isabella Reynolds for her research proposal on how the built environment can better respond to issues faced by individuals suffering from invisible chronic pain and illness.
The Christopher Procter Prize was presented to emerging architect Andrea Lam for her project that sought to rethink and reimagine Australia’s urban Chinatowns through a study trip to San Francisco’s Chinatown, one of the oldest in the western world.
Catherine Lassen, senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, won the Marion Mahony Griffin Prize for her unwavering and passionate commitment to not only advancing the field but mentoring and educating others.
In Tasmania, the 2023 Barry McNeill Graduate Prize was presented to graduating student of the University of Tasmania’s Master of Architecture program, Jessie-Anne Pankiw.
In awarding Pankiw, the jury commented that she is a “committed and highly competent designer,” whose “enthusiasm and desire to consider challenging concepts will continue to inform her future in architecture.”
Pankiw’s accomplishments include serving as the president of the DArchside Student Society, as well as contributing to organization the 2024 Ground Matters Australasian Architecture Student Congress.
Her graduate project, “Procession” challenged the human inclination toward frailty when confronted with death, through the proposal of a quarry as the site for funerary functions.
“The selection of a functioning quarry to house a funerary operation is a macabre choice, the committal process enabling site rehabilitation through the use of decomposing bodies to fertilise the landscape. Precariously placed upon a series of slender columns, the primary building is an exquisite, captivating study in the power of subtractive tectonics, the mass carefully carved to let the play of light animate the subterranean incised spaces within,” the jury said.
“The operation is analogous to the way the quarry empties material from the earth, also amplifying the insecurity of the quarrying process. While the tension between the architecture and the terraced ground can be further explored, the project successfully establishes an unsettling dialogue with these diverse extractive processes, across scales.”
Students shortlisted for the 2023 Barry McNeill Graduate Prize include Taj Allen, Jing Xian (Jax) Cheng, Dylan Gardner, Mellisa Lee Hue Lau, and Steph Papastavrou.
In Victoria, senior associate and lead Indigenous advisor at Jackson Clements Burrows Architects, Sarah Lynn Rees was honoured with the President’s Prize, while Simon Robinson was the recipient of Robert Caulfield Graduate Research Scholarship.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
