Artist Troy Emery and Cox Architecture have been awarded first prize in the Tapestry Design Prize (TDP), presented by the Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW).
This year’s prize focuses on one of Australia’s most significant modern homes – Boyd House II / Walsh Street designed by Robin Boyd. Since its inception in 2015, the TDP has been a celebration of the meeting point between architecture, design and contemporary textile art – a space where creative disciplines entwine and reimagine how tapestry can transform built environments.
This year’s iteration invited designers and architects to respond to the intimate domestic spaces of Boyd’s Walsh Street residence. From over 150 applications, five finalists were selected, each interpreting a different room within the house. Their proposals were handwoven by ATW’s master weavers, translating digital sketches and architectural concepts into rich, tactile surfaces of wool and cotton.
The resulting works — five distinct tapestries, totalling 1,487 hours of weaving and over 39 kilometres of yarn — were unveiled during a special exhibition at Walsh Street on 14–16 November 2025.
Troy Emery and Cox Architecture’s tapestry Longing (Camilla) is a two-dimensional
interpretation of Emery’s 2024 sculpture Lupa, an amorphous animal-like companion. In the domestic site of Walsh Street, Camilla echoes Boyd’s family life with their pet cat of the same name. The excess tendrils of yarn drip down out of the plane of the woven surface towards the floor, stretching the silhouette of the animal figure and evoking emotion and memory.
Commenting on the winner’s work, the jury – consisting of Kennedy Nolan principal Patrick Kennedy, Nexus Designs director Sally Evans and InteriorsAu editor Cassie Hansen – said the piece was selected for it “authentic innovation and deep resonance with Robin Boyd’s Walsh Street house.”
“The work reimagines the potential of tapestry as an art form: its materiality, tactility and artistic nature. The result is a piece that could only exist as tapestry, not painting or print. Thoughtfully positioned within Walsh Street’s living room, its location, scale and textures harmonise with its architectural context, engaging with the materials and tones of Boyd’s design. Evoking the domestic intimacy of the site, the work draws inspiration from the home’s former resident cat, Camilla. Distinctive, conceptually rich and masterfully realised by weaver Saffron Gordon, this tapestry represents a significant and contemporary evolution of the medium,” said the jury.
The winning team received $5,000, while all finalists receive $1,000, along with a People’s Choice Award to be decided by public vote.
The 2025 finalists were:
Jack MacRae, Wilson Architects
Troy Emery and Cox Architecture
N’arwee’t Professor Carolyn Briggs AM and Greenshoot
Yvette Coppersmith and Anouska Milstein, A.mi
Mouriya Senthilkumar and Ian Tsui
Source: Architecture - architectureau
