Evelyn Reynolds

A collaborative design alliance has unveiled a speculative proposal that reimagines Brisbane’s Northshore as a lively new precinct that accommodates housing, recreation and a sports and entertainment stadium for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The scheme, named Northshore Vision 2050, is a timely response to the conclusion of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, which wrapped up less than a fortnight ago. The proposal was conceived by the Brisbane Design Alliance, a collaborative team of architecture, planning and engineering firms that comprises Buchan, HKS, NRA Collaborative, Aurecon and Nikken Sekkei.
The proposed Northshore Vision features a 60,000-seat stadium with an adjacent aquatic centre, a wave pool and retail and hospitality zone. The scheme includes pedestrian promenades that would maximise access to the Brisbane River and create a waterfront tourism destination.
HKS director Andrew Colling said the proposed design transforms underutilised industrial land, as well as leverages the potential of the Brisbane River as a prominent feature. He explained that the scheme responds to projected population growth in the next 25 years through a mixed-use precinct located on the shores of the Brisbane River.
Colling added that the scheme addresses the challenges of the city’s existing sports infrastructure. “We love the Gabba and its history, but its potential will always be constrained by its narrow site,” he said. “A new, world-class stadium at Northshore can be purpose-built for cricket and Aussie Rules while creating a unique Brisbane 2032 Olympics experience and venue to be proud of. Having direct connection to the river and views from inside the stadium back to the CBD will showcase our city’s natural beauty, river setting and sub-tropical climate to the world.”

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The proposed project would be delivered in stages, said Buchan principal Phil Schoutrop.
“Stage one would establish a sports and entertainment precinct that accommodates the 2032 Olympics. It includes the stadium, warm-up facilities, and a 2,500 apartment athletes’ village, alongside hotel, restaurant and leisure amenities,” Schoutrop said.
The ensuing stages would occur over 15 years. These stages would see the establishment of an additional 12,000 residential apartments and townhouses; enterprise, innovation and cultural zones; a specialist high performance sports science and sports medicine zone, and a central park with public open spaces. An elevated, landscaped walkway or highline would later connect the precinct to Doomben Station, while a green pedestrian bridge over the river would link the site to the suburb of Bulimba.

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Schoutrop highlighted the success of the Olympic and Paralympic Games at Stratford in the UK.
“London used the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to turn industrial land in the city’s east into a precinct that is now a thriving place to live and work, with enviable sports and wellness facilities. We can do the same in Brisbane. Our design-led scheme optimises land use and investment to make the most of this exciting period of growth and opportunity.”
The alliance has proposed the scheme could be brought to life through a private finance model, minimising costs to the state.
To view the scheme, visit the Brisbane Design Alliance website. More

The newly opened Sydney Metro Waterloo Station, designed by John McAslan and Partners, features a design that celebrates the diverse history of Waterloo, including its First Nations and industrial heritage.
The three-storey station, which opened on Monday 19 August 2024, is part of the Sydney Metro City line. It will service high-frequency, driverless trains that will arrive at the station every four minutes during peak times.
Director of John McAslan and Partners (JMP) Troy Uleman said the design emphasises a connection to place. At the platform level of the station, the design nods to ancient heritage, while at street level, it reflects Waterloo in its post-colonialist condition.
“Waterloo is a dynamic, multicultural community with a rich Indigenous, social and industrial history,” Uleman said. “Through consultation with Indigenous advisors, Yerrabingin, we learnt the phrase ‘the past is in the earth and the future is in the sky.’ That became the conceptual framework for our design, which takes passengers on a journey shaped by Waterloo’s layered heritage.”

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Upon entering the station’s concourse, rail passengers are greeted by a 9.7-metre image of a young local Indigenous dancer named Roscoe. This artwork, created by Indigenous Australian artist Nicole Monks, celebrates First Nations living and thriving culture. Also on the concourse level is perforated panelling with a depiction of the endemic banksia scrub.
The southern station box connects to place with a perforated aluminium facade that has been overlaid with an image derived from early maps of Waterloo when it was marshland. At the subterranean platform level, rust-colored wall linings reveal abstracted imagery of a stone blade fragment, in reference to a fragment that was discovered on site during archaeological excavation.
“In collaboration with artists and design consultants, the incorporation of Indigenous themes grounds the station in the area’s deep history while symbolising a robust future for the nation’s first people,” said Uleman. “I cannot imagine Waterloo without Roscoe, that great, smiling, friendly boy, telling us the future is bright.”
In the street-level entrance hall, materials and textures pay homage to the suburb’s built history. This space features a coffered aluminium ceiling and granite flooring. More

The Australian Institute of Architects and the First Nations Advisory Committee have unveiled a new online resource that supports built environment professionals to deepen their knowledge on First Nations design considerations.
The First Nations Resource Hub aims to improve practitioners’ knowledge on culturally respectful and appropriate design for Indigenous Australians. The resource hub considers more than just aesthetics, but also provides insight on acknowledging the history and Traditional Custodians of the land, as well as how to interact with and learn from First Nations communities.

The platform includes educational materials that cover the cultural heritage of and current challenges faced by First Nations communities. It also provides architectural guidelines for creating spaces that honour and reflect First Nations cultures, along with strategies to ensure designs are culturally appropriate. Additionally, cultural protocols are included to outline respectful protocols for engaging with First Nations communities.
Outstanding projects that have incorporated best practice in First Nations design are showcased in the resource hub as examples of what can be accomplished through respectful engagement.
The new resource hub can be accessed via the Institute’s website. More

Curated by Clare Kennedy and John Ellway, The Architecture Symposium: Out of Office will explore the design possibilities that can emerge from being on site.
The two-day symposium, to be held on 11 and 12 October, will delve into collaborative prototyping, sketching and open conversation on site that can lead to greater design outcomes, inspiration and project relationships.
Twelve speakers from Australia and abroad will share stories from site, their work with builders, and their hands-on models of practice and education. Featured speakers include Tomoaki Uno of Tomoaki Uno Architects, Scott Burchell of Comb Construction, Lucinda McLean of NMBW, Yolandé Vorster of Architectus Conrad Gargett, Claire Markwick-Smith of Claire Markwick-Smith, Kim Baber of Baber Studio, Sascha Solar-March of Saha, Laurens Bekemans of BC Architects and Studies, Sarah Lynn Rees of Jackson Clements Burrows Architects, Daniel Burnett of Blok Modular, and Chloe Naughton of BVN.
The Architecture Symposium is a Design Speaks program organised by Architecture Media, supported by premium partners Planned Cover and Bondor, supporting partner Moddex, and hotel partner Ovolo.
To find more about Architecture Symposium: Out of Office, visit here. More

The ongoing NSW pattern book design competition open to Australian and international architects has attracted hundreds of entries, with the NSW government describing the response to the competition as “exceeding expectations.”
The competition seeks to increase the supply of quality and improve the diversity of low- and mid-rise housing through designs that can easily be replicated. The endorsed designs will be contained within a pattern book and will qualify for expedited development approval.
The competition has received 212 expressions of interests, 176 from Australia and 36 from Europe, the UK, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. This is only 18 entries less than the Sydney Opera House international design competition, which attracted 230 entries.
Among the expressions of interest were 171 submitted by professional architects and 41 from architecture students. With the expression of interest phase now complete, the next stage will involve selecting 15 professional practices and six students to progress to stage two.
Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully said Sydney and NSW need affordable, quality and sustainable homes.
“We have had a record turn-out from our Australian architects but I am also pleased to see entries from Spain, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, UK, US, Canada, Colombia, South Africa, India and Iran,” Scully said. “The pattern book will be a useful resource for industry, architects, planners, councils and the community for years to come.”
He added that the designs which respond to climate and are sustainable, as well as improve energy, thermal and water efficicency will be looked upon favourably.
Shortlisted nominees will be announced in early September 2024, with final designs to be submitted by 11 October 2024. To find out more about the competition, visit the website. More

Carter Williamson Architects with Land and Form have won a design excellence competition for a mixed-used apartment building in Sydney. The successful scheme has embraced a material palette inspired by the angophora tree that the building will eventually envelop.
The building, fittingly named the Angophora, will be built on Cammeray Country in Chatswood.
The jury commended the design, variety, and size of the proposed residences, as well as the intention to create a community of homes rather than repetitive apartment modules.
Influenced by its context, the project encapsulates a series of strategic moves that define the landscape, building forms, and public areas while optimising natural light and solar access, cross-ventilation, district views, and lush green communal spaces.
At the streel level, retail and commercial spaces seek to activate the public domain, while above, the structure emerges as two towers splitting from a singular, united podium. This split allows for natural light and cross-ventilation throughout the building core. Additionally, landscaped communal spaces are located on the podium, surrounding the towers.

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“We’re delighted to have our design recognised by the jury, and I would like to congratulate our design partners: Land and Form, Prism Facades, and Choirender,” said Shaun Carter, principal at Carter Williamson Architects.
Drawing on the colours and textures of the angophora tree around which the design unfurls, the architecture practice describes the building’s material palette as “rich, robust, and refined.”
Ben Peake, principal at Carter Williamson Architects, explained, “the podium design draws on the character of the adjacent heritage conservation area. It is composed of brick to form a robust and texturally rich podium that is striking from afar but also works at a fine grain scale when experienced by the public up close.”
In collaboration with Land and Form, designing with Country was a priority from the outset, as was the activation of streets and open spaces with public art. Landscape design was approached as a complete ecology to support all living things, with a focus on native planting and the maximisation of deep soil, tree canopy, and landscape coverage. The design incorporates a series of green communal spaces to achieve this design intention.

The design excellence competition was coordinated by Mecone and endorsed by the NSW Government Architect and Willoughby Council.

The winning team is comprised of Carter Williamson Architects, Land and Form, Prism Facades, and Choirender. More

Shortlisted schemes from the 1921 competition to design Victoria’s Shrine of Remembrance have been revealed to the public in a new exhibition, which commemorates the memorial’s ninetieth anniversary.
Eighty-three proposals were submitted in the competition to design a place where Victorians could gather and pay respects to casualties of what is now called the First World War. The competition was open to Australasians and British subjects living in Australia, and it ran in two stages: a call for entries, and a six-project shortlist.
Designing Remembrance: Alternate visions for Victoria’s war memorial provides a glimpse into what the memorial might have looked like if Phillip Hudson and James Wardrop’s design had not been the winning scheme.

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The development of the exhibition involved a collaborative effort between Shrine of Remembrance curator Neil Sharkey and historians Katti William and Laura Carroll, with consultation from University of Melbourne School of Design professor and chair of architecture Philip Goad.
Through extensive searches of historical competition records in Melbourne and Canberra, submissions and design statements, the team managed to track down approximately 16 entries. And while the exhibition primarily revolves around the six finalists, it is supplemented by some of these entries: those that represent unique interpretations of the brief.
Acquiring the records proved to be quite challenging, as a fire at the Melbourne Town Hall destroyed many entries. Despite this setback, the exhibition team successfully dug out a published article from Art in Australia, which featured at least one image of each shortlisted scheme. The team then extracted the depictions from the article for the exhibition.
Sharkey said the display offers insight into the collective mind of a post-war community grappling with how to appropriately honour a legacy of service and sacrifice. “The hand-drawn plans, rendered in pencil and watercolour, are remarkable, showing the plazas, pylons and sculptures that could have stood where the Shrine now stands,” he said.
Most of the submissions were either in a Classical or Classical Revivalist architectural style, drawing inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman architecture.
Among the entries was a distinct design by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin with Australian architect Eric Nicholls. The submitted design was in the Prairie School style of architecture, common in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The building form, which Sharkey likened to a “Hindu shrine or temple,” featured a facade with layered modules, which could be reduced or added to depending on budget. Despite being a fascinating response to the brief, the scheme was not shortlisted.
The exhibition prompts visitors to question whether a war memorial should be grand and noticeable or restrained and private. It encourages attendees to consider the delicacy and sensitivity of the events that call for the creation of such a place, along with the varied requirements that such a space should fulfil.

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The shrine that was built was influenced by the design of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in Turkey. The interior was designed to be a private, contemplative space for reflection and the laying of the wreath. In contrast, William Lucas’s design, which came in second place, was underpinned by an entirely different ideology. Lucas’s scheme features a large, open ampitheatre, as he felt strongly that the wreath-laying ceremony should be visible to all.
“When Lucas didn’t win, he really tore into the design of the shrine,” explained Sharkey. “He accused the winning architects of plagiarising the mausoleum. […] Because he had made this accusation, he was brought before the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects in a sort of disciplinary hearing and he was expelled from their organisation.
“For the exhibition, we actually have the documents from this disciplinary hearing on display.”
Designing Remembrance: Alternate visions for Victoria’s war memorial will take place from 13 August 2024 until July 2025 at the Shrine of Remembrance in Kings Domain, Melbourne. More