Evelyn Reynolds

Australia’s peak architecture, planning, and landscape institutes have met with the Parliamentary Friends for Australian Urban Design at Parliament House in Canberra to promote the value of good design and planning, and present shared priorities for national policy action.
The Parliamentary Friends of Australian Urban Design – a bipartisan group of federal parliamentarians that advocates for the value of good design in shaping Australia’s cities and regions – first launched at the 2024 Australian Urban Design Awards ceremony held at Parliament House.
On 5 November 2025, the Parliamentary Friends for Australian Urban Design co-chairs – Elizabeth Watson-Brown MP, Cameron Caldwell MP and Lisa Chesters MP – met with the Speaker of the House Milton Dick and the presidents of Australia’s three peak design and planning bodies: Adam Haddow of the Australian Institute of Architects; Heath Gledhill of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects; and Emma Riley of the Planning Institute of Australia.
The event was an opportunity for the three bodies to discuss their shared priorities for federal action, identifying areas where national leadership could drive meaningful change. According to a communique from the Australian Institute of Architects, these include:

“A stronger national urban policy: championing a coordinated, spatially informed national vision for cities, regions and communities
Leadership in ‘Density Done Well’: supporting more diverse, affordable and sustainable housing through design excellence
Investment in sustainable, well-designed communities: driving federal leadership and place-based investment to create climate-resilient, liveable communities.”

The Parliamentary Friends of Australian Urban Design will reconvene at the Australian Urban Design Awards on 24 March 2026, for which entries are now open until 30 January 2026.
The group has also committed to hosting a mid-year forum that explores case studies on “Density Done Well,” and a November event that will examine design-led responses to climate change, and pathways to net zero across precincts, housing and infrastructure. More

A project to create a next-generation thermal comfort index that recognises individual differences and supports fairer workplaces has been launched by the University of Sydney in partnership with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Waseda University in Japan and the Technical University of Denmark.
According to a media release from the University of Sydney, “The collaboration will combine large-scale field studies, human-subject experiments, and advanced data modelling to move beyond the outdated ‘average person’ model that underpins today’s comfort standards. The goal: a modern, inclusive index that reflects how people feel in real offices, [aimed at] improving comfort, wellbeing and productivity while cutting energy waste.”
“For forty years, buildings have been tuned to suit an average person who doesn’t really exist,” said professor emeritus Richard de Dear from the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. “This collaboration is about measuring real people, in real workplaces, and building an index that recognises individual differences. It’s good for people and good for the planet.”
The communique notes that the new index is intended to provide an evidence-based standard that champions fairness among diverse individuals, integrating physical conditions, such as temperature, humidity and airflow, with personal factors, including clothing, activity and physiology, to predict how individuals behave in a space.
Research lead at the University of Sydney’s Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Lab Dr Thomas Parkinson said that rather than hard-coding separate temperature targets for men and women, the team is striving for an inclusive system.
“Our goal is a single, adaptive index that learns from context – what the person is doing, what the room is doing – and predicts how they’ll feel. That’s how we make comfort fairer and smarter at scale,” he said.
The result is intended to promote personal environmental control through fittings such as desk fans, foot-warmers, task chairs with local conditioning and small radiant panels, as well as smart zoning to create cooler and warmer micro-areas, and flexible clothing norms.
The project aims to deliver a globally consistent model, with shared criteria for multinational organisations; clear rules for certification and compliance; and energy efficiency, with less wasted energy. The index is intended to be adopted by designers, engineers and regulators worldwide.
Over time, feedback data is intended to refine predictions to enhance comfort and efficiency. According to the communique, the research period will be extended annually as required by the study design and international standards process. More

Plans for a $1.6 billion redevelopment the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre (PCEC) have been shelved by the Western Australian government, who have instead decided to divert $1.5 billion into a new Building Hospitals Fund.
The current PCEC building, designed by Cox Architecture, dates from 2004. A concept proposal for the redevelopment, which planned to expand the building’s event capacity and open it up to the Swan River, was lodged by the property’s leaseholders, Wyllie Group and Brookfield Properties, in January last year.
At that time, Premier Roger Cook commented that the “proposal would deliver an iconic new precinct that opens up major tourism and hospitality opportunities for WA, helping to diversify our economy and create local jobs.”
“Our city deserves better than a shed on the river,” he said.

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Now, the state government has said that “the significant investment decision cannot be justified at this time.” They have reasoned that more than $500 million in road and rail infrastructure works would be needed before construction on the building redevelopment could commence, and that the total project cost would come in higher than the anticipated $1.6 billion, “with the state government likely to carry the entire cost on its balance sheet.”
They also cited the “negative impact [that would result from] the disruption of [the PCEC’s future] events” as a contributor to the decision. In a media statement, Cook commented, “We want to expand our major conference capacity, but it needs to occur in a way that delivers value for taxpayers and doesn’t interrupt the impressive forward program of business events activity,” he said.
The government has so far invested $35 million in design, engineering, geotechnical and business case works. According to their media communique, “The results of this work will be available to the government into the future, as it looks to work with both the leaseholders and the broader business events and tourism sectors on a new path forward.”

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Cook commented, “Our existing business events and tourism program is an important part of our government’s strategy to diversify the economy and ensure it remains the strongest in the nation. This is an important focus for my government; however, I refuse to compromise on major projects that will deliver better health outcomes for Western Australians.”
The $1.5 billion Building Hospitals Fund newly pledged by the WA government is in addition to $3.2 billion already committed under the state’s existing health infrastructure program.
Development approval has been recently granted to two projects benefiting from this fund: a six-storey new building at Royal Perth Hospital, and a new hospital on a greenfield site, replacing the Peel Health Campus adjacent. The WA government has also newly purchased the St John of God Mount Lawley hospital, with future plans to expand the hospital and aged care facilities.
Construction is also currently underway on the $1.8 billion Women and Babies Hospital, designed by Hassell, and the $471.5 million Bunbury Health Campus redevelopment, managed by Multiplex and Perkins. More

A proposal to build Australia’s tallest building in Southport on the Gold Coast has received approval from the City of Gold Coast.
Named One Park Lane, the project comprises a 101-storey, 197-apartment residential tower that is set to reach nearly 400 metres in height and a neighbouring 60-storey commercial office tower with more than 11,600 square metres of office space.
The initial concept design for One Park Lane was prepared in 2022 by BKK Architects and further developed by Cottee Parker for a development application lodged in June 2025. Landscape architecture practice TCL undertook the landscape design for the project.
The towers rise from an elevated, splayed podium, supported by root-like columns inspired by the Moreton Bay fig tree. A landscaped forecourt beneath the podium canopy will provide public amenity and link the ground-floor entry atriums of both buildings.
The towers will also be linked via a fully glazed skybridge on the twenty-second floor. The bridge is proposed to contain within it a hospitality offering, landscaped areas, seating and 360-degree views of the city. Inside the skybridge and residential amenity levels, sculptural columns echo the organic form of the external root-like columns rising from the ground plane.
Described on the One Park Lane website as “harmonious in colour,” the towers are set to be clad in high-performance glazing in a dark shade of grey. Transparent glass wrapping the communal areas of the residential tower and the skybridge punctuates the facade, creating a delineation between public and private spaces.
Construction on the project is anticipated to commence in early 2026. More

In a recently released report, the Grattan Institute has recommended that three-storey townhouses and apartments should be permitted on all residential-zoned land in all capital cities, and that housing developments of six storeys or more should be allowed as-of-right near major transit hubs and commercial centres.
According to a communique from the Grattan Institute, the report, titled More homes, better cities: Letting more people live where they want, argues for these changes as part of “a concerted policy assault on Australia’s housing crisis.”
The report found that housing in Australia’s capital cities is among the least affordable in the world as a result of “restrictive” planning controls limiting supply. According to the media communique, about 80 percent of all residential land within 30 kilometres of Sydney’s centre, and 87 percent in Melbourne, is zoned for housing of three storeys or fewer, and three quarters or more of residential land in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide is zoned for two storeys or fewer.
The Grattan Institute’s media release states, “We have a housing affordability crisis that is dividing families and communities and robbing young Australians of their best chance in life. The key problem is that state and territory land-use planning systems say ‘no’ to new housing by default, and ‘yes’ only by exception.”
“Allowing more housing in established suburbs would mean cheaper housing in all suburbs,” the release reads.
According to modelling from the Grattan Institute, the proposed reforms could enable the construction of 67,000 new homes across Australia every year, which, over the course of a decade, would cut rents by 12 percent and reduce the cost of a median-priced home by $100,000.
The Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) has responded to the report with concern, noting in a communique that while the country needs more well-located homes and faster approvals, “the Grattan Institute’s proposal for blanket upzoning is the wrong tool for the job, [as] it risks more congestion, stretched services and less liveable cities.”
“Simply rezoning more land won’t deliver more homes if the construction industry can’t build them and if the infrastructure isn’t in place,” PIA CEO Matt Collins said. “Simpler processes and better planning systems are essential, but weakening planning just adds pressure to infrastructure, increases congestion, and makes communities worse off.”
The PIA supports greater housing density in well-located areas, but argues that sequenced planning is key to directing growth to areas with capacity to support it, making housing delivery sustainable, more efficient and cost-effective for both developers and government.
“If we upzone everywhere, we create infrastructure pressures everywhere,” the PIA’s release reads. “Governments can’t upgrade roads, schools and pipes in every suburb all at once. Communities will wait longer for the services that make neighbourhoods liveable.”
Collins cautioned that, in his opinion, “the real challenge to housing production is the construction sector’s ability to deliver.”
“Our construction sector is stretched and builders are struggling to deliver existing approvals, with labour shortages, material delays and cost pressures,” he said. “Adding another 67,000 homes a year on top of that isn’t realistic without serious investment in workforce, supply chains and infrastructure coordination.”
According to the PIA, close to 100,000 lots in Queensland held active planning approvals but had not been developed as of December 2024. In Victoria, the number of undeveloped approved dwellings, including houses, townhouses and units, was just shy of 120,000 in 2023.
“Good planning enables more housing and creates predictability, transparency and confidence for the community, developers and governments alike. The Grattan Institute’s approach risks doing the opposite,” Collins said.
The Grattan Institute’s report can be accessed online. More

Seventeen distinguished residential projects received either an award or a commendation, out of a total of 46 recognised architecture projects at the 2025 National Architecture Awards.
Among the top honours, Hedge and Arbour House by Studio Bright in Melbourne was awarded the prestigious Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (New), while Niwa House by John Ellway in Brisbane received the acclaimed Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions).
New Castle by Anthony St John Parsons was the only residential project to receive more than one award, winning both the National Award for Interior Architecture and the National Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (New).
Jury chair and immediate past national president of the Institute Jane Cassidy commented that the celebrated projects demonstrate a transition “to sustainable low-operational and embodied carbon; to passive-first, all-electric principles; to local and ethical sourcing; to caring for Country; to regenerative practice and embedded biodiversity, social inclusion and connectedness; to waste minimisation and adaptive reuse and recycling; and away from the excesses of the past.”
“The projects we encountered this year are more than structures: they are systems of care, of connection, of transformation,” she said. “This year we have seen a body of work that is unafraid to ask difficult questions – about equity, climate and care.”
Alongside Cassidy, the 2025 jury comprised Ninotschka Titchkosky, architectural innovator; Yang Yang Lee, architect at Lee Yang Yang Architect; Martyn Hook, professor at RMIT University and founding director at Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects; and Kavita Gonsalves, associate principal and sustainability design lead Asia-Pacific at Populous. You can read the jury chair’s overview here.
The residential winners are:
Interior Architecture
The Emil Sodersten Award
Babylon House – Casey Brown Architecture
National Awards
New Castle – Anthony St John Parsons
Residential Architecture – Houses (New)
The Robin Boyd Award
Hedge and Arbour House – Studio Bright

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National Awards
Lagoon House – Peter Stutchbury Architecture
Mapleton House – Atelier Chen Hung
New Castle – Anthony St John Parsons
National Commendation
Henville Street House – Philip Stejskal Architecture
Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions)
The Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award
Niwa House – John Ellway

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National Awards
Gunn Ridge House – Kennedy Nolan
The Stopover – Taylor Buchtmann Architecture
National Commendations
Carlton Cottage – Lovell Burton Architecture
Cloaked House – Trias
Shadow House – Grotto Studio
Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing
The Frederick Romberg Award
Blok Three Sisters – Blok Modular in collaboration with Vokes and Peters

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National Awards
Indi Sydney – Bates Smart
Shiel Street North Melbourne, Community Housing Project – Clare Cousins Architects
National Commendation
Sirius Redevelopment – BVN More

The winners of the Australian Institute of Architects 2025 National Architecture Awards have been revealed at a ceremony held at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.
Forty-six distinguished projects have earned an award or commendation from a pool of 77 shortlisted entries.
Jury chair and immediate past national president of the Institute Jane Cassidy commented that the celebrated projects demonstrate a transition “to sustainable low-operational and embodied carbon; to passive-first, all-electric principles; to local and ethical sourcing; to caring for Country; to regenerative practice and embedded biodiversity, social inclusion and connectedness; to waste minimisation and adaptive reuse and recycling; and away from the excesses of the past.”
“The projects we encountered this year are more than structures: they are systems of care, of connection, of transformation,” she said. “This year we have seen a body of work that is unafraid to ask difficult questions – about equity, climate and care.”
“In an era defined by climate urgency, digital disruption and social fragmentation, the national awards provide more than recognition – they offer a compass. They help us navigate toward a built environment that is generous, grounded and just. They remind us that architecture is not just about what we build, but how we build, and for whom,” Cassidy added.
Alongside Cassidy, the 2025 jury comprised Ninotschka Titchkosky FRAIA, architectural innovator; Yang Yang Lee RAIA, architect at Lee Yang Yang Architect; Martyn Hook RAIA, professor at RMIT University and founding director at Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects; and Kavita Gonsalves, associate principal and sustainability design lead Asia-Pacific at Populous. You can read the jury chair’s overview here.
The winners are:
Public Architecture
The Sir Zelman Cowen Award
Yarrila Place – BVN

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National Awards
Eva and Marc Besen Centre – Kerstin Thompson Architects
Truganina Community Centre – Jasmax (Canvas Projects)
National Commendations
Allan Border Oval Pavilion – Archer Office
Paula Fox Melanoma and Cancer Centre – Lyons
Educational Architecture
The Daryl Jackson Award
James Cook University Engineering and Innovation Place – Kirk with I4 Architecture and Charles Wright Architects

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National Awards
St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School Rosebery – Neeson Murcutt Neille
The Shed, University of Tasmania – Wardle
National Commendation
Pascoe Vale Primary School – Kosloff Architecture
Commercial Architecture
The Harry Seidler Award
Northern Memorial Park Depot – Searle x Waldron Architecture

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National Award
Everlane Cremorne – Fieldwork
National Commendations
39 Martin Place – Tzannes (lead architect) and Lendlease Integrated Solutions (executive architect)
Melbourne Place – Kennedy Nolan
The St Lukes Building – Terroir
Interior Architecture
The Emil Sodersten Award
Babylon House – Casey Brown Architecture

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National Awards
Melbourne Place – Kennedy Nolan
New Castle – Anthony St John Parsons
National Commendation
Boot Factory and Mill Hill Centre Precinct – Archer Office
Residential Architecture – Houses (New)
The Robin Boyd Award
Hedge and Arbour House – Studio Bright

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National Awards
Lagoon House – Peter Stutchbury Architecture
Mapleton House – Atelier Chen Hung
New Castle – Anthony St John Parsons
National Commendation
Henville Street House – Philip Stejskal Architecture
Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions)
The Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award
Niwa House – John Ellway

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National Awards
Gunn Ridge House – Kennedy Nolan
The Stopover – Taylor Buchtmann Architecture
National Commendations
Carlton Cottage – Lovell Burton Architecture
Cloaked House – Trias
Shadow House – Grotto Studio
Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing
The Frederick Romberg Award
Blok Three Sisters – Blok Modular in collaboration with Vokes and Peters

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National Awards
Indi Sydney – Bates Smart
Shiel Street North Melbourne, Community Housing Project – Clare Cousins Architects
National Commendation
Sirius Redevelopment – BVN
Sustainable Architecture
The David Oppenheim Award
First Building – Bradfield City Centre – Hassell

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National Award
Metronet Morley-Ellenbrook Line Project – Woods Bagot with TRCB, TCL and UDLA
National Commendations
Canberra Hospital Expansion – BVN
Flinders Chase Visitors Centre – Troppo Architects
Heritage Architecture
The Lachlan Macquarie Award
Parliament of NSW Restoration – Tonkin Zulaikha Greer and Purcell Architecture

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National Award
The Australian War Memorial New Entrance and Parade Ground – Studio SC
Urban Design
The Walter Burley Griffin Award
Sydney Metro City Stations – Sydney Metro
International Architecture
Australian Award
Reuben College – FJC Studio

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Small Project Architecture
National Awards
Denman Village Park Amenities – Carter Williamson Architects
Geelong Laneways: Malop Arcade – NMBW Architecture Studio with Aspect Studios
National Commendation
Sofia Bistro – Sans-Arc Studio
Colorbond Award for Steel Architecture
Flinders Chase Visitors Centre – Troppo Architects
Enduring Architecture
Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa Cultural Centre – Gregory Burgess
National Emerging Architect Prize
Kali Marnane More

The winners and finalists of the 2025 Victorian School Design Awards have been announced, celebrating the state government’s “world-class learning spaces” across the state.
The awards program was open to architects and principal designers of Victorian government school projects or Victorian government-funded kindergartens or early learning facilities, completed between June 2023 and June 2025. According to a government media communique, this year’s awards received a record number of entries across schools, early childhood, and First Nations design categories.
The winners are:
Best new kindergarten or early learning facility
JFK Design for St Kilda and Balaclava Kindergarten
Best school project – below $5 million
WHDA for Swan Hill Specialist School
Best school project – between $5 million and $15 million
BSPN Architecture for Moonee Ponds West Primary School
Best school project – above $15 million
Kerstin Thompson Architects for Northcote High School
Best project – First Nations design
ARM Architecture for the Munarra Centre for Regional Excellence
Minister’s Award
Perkins Architects for Footscray City Primary School

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Deputy Premier and Minister for Education Ben Carroll offered his congratulations to all the winners and finalists, describing them as “an integral part of [the state’s] nation-leading education construction boom.”
Minister for Children Lizzie Blandthorn added, “These outstanding designs show how we’re creating inspiring spaces where every Victorian child can thrive from the very start.”
The full list of winners and finalists can be accessed online. More