Evelyn Reynolds

AJC Architects has received approval for its redevelopment of a retail town centre in northern Sydney. According to a release from the practice, the design “reimagines the Eastwood Centre with a new eat street, fresh food market and retail offering … topped by residential apartments encircling a landscaped ‘big backyard.’”
Located next to Eastwood Station on a 1.2-hectare site, the approved scheme replaces the current 12,500-square-metre retail offering, which includes a Woolworths supermarket, and 2,400 square metres of commercial floor space. The redevelopment will deliver 41,421 square metres of residential floor area, and 21,587 square metres of commercial and retail space shared between five restaurants, 65 retail tenancies, four commercial tenancies, three mini-major tenancies and two supermarkets.
The firm’s communique notes that the design has been “inspired by Eastwood’s strong cultural ties with the Asian community” and “guided by the holistic concept of Jiefang – loosely translating to ‘authentic’ or ‘neighbourhood feel.’”
AJC says that this principle has informed the design of the landscaping and built form, which includes a key pedestrian link connecting The Avenue, Rowe Street and Rutledge Street. This new laneway, labelled “eat street,” will provide covered outdoor dining.
Internally, a network of arcades lined with shops on the Rowe Street level is intended to create a finer-grained urban experience. The lower ground level is centred on a fresh food market supported by smaller food stalls, speciality retail and mid-sized to large-format supermarkets. On the first floor, a series of restaurants with indoor-outdoor terraces face onto Rowe Street Mall.

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Above the retail, a 3,200-square-metre landscaped communal space for residents is designed to create a “sunny, secluded garden for relaxation and play – bringing nature into the heart of this urban development,” AJC notes.
The project consists of 411 apartments ranging from one to four bedrooms in size. Five affordable dwellings were secured through a previous planning agreement, which also includes public domain upgrades to the mall.
Senior project lead for design at AJC Kaustav Gupta commented, “The new centre is poised to reimagine urban living, where vibrant streets with an eclectic mix of food and retail overlap with lush green spaces – celebrating Eastwood’s heritage and diverse community.” More

Twenty winners have been named in the 2025 National Trust (NSW) Heritage Awards in recognition of their excellence in the conservation of Aboriginal, built, natural and cultural heritage across the state.
Awards were presented in ten categories, along with the President’s Prize, the Judges’ Choice Award, the inaugural People’s Choice Award and four prizes for individuals. Reflecting on this year’s celebrated projects, CEO of the National Trust (NSW) Debbie Mills commented, “The geographical spread of winners is very impressive – from Port Macquarie to Bega, Sydney to Broken Hill.”
Heritage Council of NSW chair Sally Barnes added, “I’m impressed by the sheer diversity of projects. It’s wonderful to celebrate the role of heritage in creating beautiful and much-loved places in our modern world.”
The 2025 jury comprised Matthew Devine (chair), Ann Toy, Barrina South, David Burdon, Caitlin Allen, Libby Gallagher, Kathryn Pitkin, Peter John Cantrill and Sophie Canaris. They awarded the Judges’ Choice Award to the Old Bega Hospital revival, which was entered by a team including Design 5 Architects. The project involved the extensive repair and rebuild of an 1888 building after fire ravaged the site in 2004. The jury described the works as “sensitive, elegantly resolved and a project that sets the standard for heritage conservation.”
The Architecture category was won by Neeson Murcutt Neille for the Former Workmen’s Dwellings Lower Fort Street, an adaptive re-use of a row of former social housing buildings in The Rocks conservation precinct.
Minister for Heritage Penny Sharpe applauded the winners for their outstanding efforts in safeguarding and promoting NSW’s heritage, noting that “these projects play a crucial role in ensuring our unique places and stories are celebrated and conserved for future generations.”
The winners are:
Architecture
Former Workmen’s Dwellings Lower Fort Street, Dawes Point – entered by Neeson Murcutt Neille
Built Conservation
Old Bega Hospital, Bega – entered by Design 5 Architects, Old Bega Hospital Reserve Land Manager, NSW Public Works, Leser Build
Interiors and Objects
Interiors
Parliament of NSW Rum Hospital Project, Sydney – entered by Department of Parliamentary Services
Objects
Conservation of the Barangaroo Boat, Sydney – entered by Sydney Metro with Silentworld Foundation and York Archaeological Trust
Landscape
Nepean River Trail, Camden – entered by Camden Council
See the full list of winners for the National Trust (NSW) Heritage Awards on the National Trust’s website. More

Australia and the Netherlands are both facing housing crises, but for opposite reasons. In Australia, urban sprawl is a key challenge, while in the Netherlands, the issue comes down to a shortage of available land. Despite these contrasting conditions, both countries share a need for urban densification. This common priority became clear to the recipients of the Australian Institute of Architects Dulux Study Tour 2025, who observed striking parallels between two nations dealing with very different circumstances.
A cycling tour around Overhoeks in Amsterdam-Noord uncovered vast stretches of new housing, transforming what was once an industrial area. The site now features everything from floating homes to apartment buildings offering a mix of private and social housing units. These projects are part of a broader effort to maintain 35 percent social housing in the Netherlands – a stark contrast to the 4.1 percent that social housing represents in Australia, as recorded in 2023. Each building in Overhoeks has its own distinct character, with little apparent effort to create a cohesive architectural identity between them, apart from a unifying sea of brick that runs prominently throughout the area.

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Marni Reti, one of the five Dulux Study Tour recipients, felt that the aesthetic diversity between buildings reflected an appreciation for architecture in all its guises, likening the assortment of styles to a “collage.” The tour participants discovered that this appreciation may stem from the Netherlands’ use of aesthetic control committees. These committees, typically composed of experts in architecture and spatial planning, are established to review the visual impact of all proposed developments to ensure that they are aesthetically appropriate and contribute to the overall quality of the built environment.
For tour participant Nicholas Souksamrane, one surprising observation about the housing developments was that people in Amsterdam seemed “to have a very different threshold for privacy compared to what we’re used to in Australia.” He offered the example of a visit to a woman living in an apartment on the waterfront, whose living room window was highly visible from the outside – “something that would generally be considered unacceptable in Australia.” Souksamrane reflected, “I think there’s a lot we can learn in that respect because it’s about sharing through surveillance.”

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Meanwhile, Kate Shepherd, another of the tour’s participants, was particularly impressed by the “consistent build quality” of these housing developments. “There were more layers of materials, texture and variety. Every handrail was beautifully detailed in steel. It feels like there is a lot of craftsmanship, which I think is somewhat missing in Australia, where there’s a growing reliance on prefabricated elements that are often completely stripped bare of any texture or any sense of labor quality.”
Study tour participant Jimmy Carter offered a different perspective, stating that the buildings weren’t necessarily a celebration of craftsmanship, given their use of prefabricated components. He suggested that instead it seemed like the emphasis was on the longevity of materials, as seen in details such as the steel balustrades and the selection of high-quality bricks.
While all tour participants agreed that the build quality was higher than most new apartment buildings in Australia, Reti questioned whether the social and private housing would result in an inclusive space for everyone, as the brief intended.
“I’m really interested to know how successful the mixed social and private housing model has been. Integrating different housing offerings is a really nice idea in principle, but they’ve tried similar approaches in New South Wales and it hasn’t always been effective from a social point of view. Rather than fostering integration, it’s sometimes led to a strange division [between demographics],” Reti said.
During the Netherlands portion of the tour, urban density was repeatedly highlighted as a key solution to the country’s housing crisis, much like it is in Australia. A visit to MVRDV’s practice revealed that raising awareness about the value of urban density is a top priority for the firm.

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Didden Village (2006), the practice’s first realised building in its hometown of Rotterdam, was an experiment in housing density. This bright blue rooftop extension crowns a historic house and is arranged as a cluster of small buildings that together form a miniature village. A parapet wall with windows encloses the space, while trees, benches, tables and open-air showers support an outdoor lifestyle. Jammy Zhu, an associate at the firm, explained at the visit that the addition serves almost as a prototype for MVRDV’s ongoing exploration of densification in the city. In 2022, the firm sought to further demonstrate the value of density to the broader public through projects beyond housing. One such initiative was a temporary walk in Rotterdam that connected several buildings via an aerial bridge 30 metres above ground. Erected for one month, the Rotterdam Rooftop Walk installation invited visitors to experience the untapped potential of rooftops, raising public awareness of how these spaces could contribute to a more liveable city.
A visit to the Borneo and Sporenburg area, a residential district masterplanned by urban planning and landscape architecture firm West 8, once again highlighted the value of density through the transformation of two harbour docks: Borneo and Sporenburg. The district, which was developed between 1993 and 2000, stretches across a six-kilometre waterfront and comprises more than 2,500 predominantly low-rise dwellings with a high density of 100 units per hectare. Creative director at West 8 Daniel Vasini explained during a walking tour that part of the firm’s role in the project involved overseeing the work of more than 100 emerging and established architects who they tasked with reimagining the traditional Dutch canal house within a flexible design framework. The masterplan, with its open space designated for markets, pocket parks and a dynamic mix of facades, was regarded by the tour participants as an excellent example of dense yet liveable design.

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Souksamrane observed, “I think in Sydney and Melbourne, especially, there’s a big push for densification right now. However, when densification is discussed, it’s often linked to mega towers – like 20-storey buildings – rather than the more moderate density seen in cities like Copenhagen or Amsterdam, where buildings are typically four or five storeys. This scale feels more approachable, allowing for street-level engagement rather than towering up into another world. In Australia, it feels like we’re currently focused on either low-rise or high-density options. There needs to be a middle ground, which I think we’re all cognizant of, but doing density well is something we haven’t quite mastered yet.”
Shepherd noted that the general population in the Netherlands appeared more open to embracing density as a viable option, whereas in Australia, it often remains a tough sell to communicate the value of density over sprawl to the public.
“I think in Australia, we’ve been sold the dream that everybody gets a quarter acre block – you get land, a house, independence and privacy. And because we have so much land, it just feels like everybody thinks they deserve or are entitled to that. Whereas in the Netherlands, they kept talking about this idea of protecting the [green] ring around the city because the natural landscape is quite rare and precious. It sounded like people are happy to avoid pushing the city further out in order to preserve those areas and I think that is a mindset in Australia that we don’t have,” Shepherd said.
The question of how to densify Australian cities is not just about the need for more or better housing, but also about “a shift in attitude,” commented Carter. He pointed out that many Australians seem to be very unclear on what density actually means, in part due to limited public education and a lack of exposure to well-executed density projects. “This is where greater communication is really quite crucial, but it needs to be supported by good examples of built work that the public can broadly agree are successful.”
Adair Winder is travelling with the 2025 Dulux Study Tour. Follow #2025DuluxStudyTour on social media and the blog. More

The Powerhouse has launched its call for applications for the 2025 Carl Nielsen Design Accelerator, inviting early to mid-career Australian industrial designers to submit bold, sustainability-focused projects for the chance to receive $25,000 in funding.
The initiative supports a single standout designer working on a project that places sustainability at its core. The program is made possible through a bequest from the late Australian industrial designer Carl Nielsen and his wife Judy, aiming to carry on their legacy by nurturing innovation in sustainable industrial design.

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The selected designer will be partnered with leading industry professionals to further develop their project or bring an existing concept to market. Powerhouse will provide ongoing support including mentorship, production assistance, research resources, and promotional opportunities to enhance the project’s impact and visibility.
Renowned Sydney-based designer and founder of Industrial Design eXchange (IDX), Ed Ko, will lead the eight-month development program tailored to the chosen designer’s needs. The 2025 selection panel includes Powerhouse Collection curator Angelique Hutchison, Nielsen Design director Adam Laws, and Ko himself.
Last year’s recipient, Caity Duffus, was recognised for Mycelia House, a visionary design that introduces mushroom cultivation into Australian households, promoting fungi as a sustainable and accessible food source.
The Carl Nielsen Design Accelerator forms part of the Powerhouse’s broader sustainability mission across its exhibitions, programs, and collection. Applications for the 2025 round are now open, with designers encouraged to submit proposals that push boundaries in sustainable industrial design.
Nielsen Design director Adam Laws said, “Carl Nielsen was a giant in the industry when the industrial design profession was establishing itself in Australia. The challenges we currently face in industrial design are more global than local, but the need for promotion and support continues to be important. The Carl Nielsen Design Accelerator has been developed to continue his legacy of helping designers achieve their full potential.”
Applications will close 5pm, 20 June 2025. The recipient will be announced at the Sydney Design Week opening event in September 2025. More

The City of Sydney has approved an accelerated proposal for, and committed $150 million towards, a new public square opposite the city’s Town Hall. Construction on the new square is set to start in 2028.
In a media release, the City of Sydney argues that “the square is central to the City of Sydney’s long-term vision of a city centre with plenty of space for people and public life.”
Framed by George, Pitt and Park Streets, the new Town Hall Square is envisioned by Lord Mayor Clover Moore as the “city’s living room, […] the heart of the city.”
“With ample trees and seats, it will be a place to sit on a weekday lunch break, home to large-scale events and gatherings like festivals, markets, celebrations and protests, and a meeting spot as iconic as the Town Hall steps,” she said.
Moore noted that plans for a square outside Town Hall have been underway for more than 40 years, in what has been one of the biggest projects ever initiated by the City of Sydney.
“For more than three decades, the City of Sydney has been progressively acquiring properties opposite Town Hall to create space for a future Town Hall Square and we’re excited to be in a position to deliver this incredible community asset,” she said.
The site is currently occupied by an assortment of commercial buildings. Council has acquired six of the seven lots and has voted to pursue compulsory acquisition of the remaining building at 542-544 George Street in order to accelerate the plan.
The proposal for the new Town Hall Square builds upon the transformation of George Street into a pedestrianised precinct, which was initiated by the Lord Mayor following a vision from Danish urbanist Jan Gehl. “The extra public space along George Street has transformed the city centre and this square will take our work creating a city for people even further,” Moore said.
The City of Sydney envisions the new square as part of a broader transformation of the CBD, which includes two other squares – one at Circular Quay and another at Central Station – all linked together by George Street.
Council notes in their communique that, as part of a revitalisation of the Town Hall precinct, they are also planning a paving, furniture and lighting upgrade of the area between St Andrew’s Cathedral and the Sydney Town Hall in 2027, the scope of which will be determined later this month.
The design for the square will be developed over the next year, with the opportunity for the community to provide feedback on a draft concept in 2026. More

Designs for a 35-storey student accommodation tower in Adelaide’s CBD have been lodged for planning approval by local planning and property firm Intro. According to a statement from the firm, the “design aims to create a vibrant living space that fosters community, supports academic success and integrates seamlessly with the urban environment.”
Situated on Pulteney Street in Adelaide’s CBD, the project is envisioned by the designers as an extension of the adjacent Hindmarsh Square through its inclusion of landscaped garden terraces throughout the podium, communal areas across the ground plane and direct views to the square from circulation corridors.

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Intro says that while it was once a hub for industry, manufacturing and craftsmanship, the site’s historical significance “has faded amidst modern developments, leaving a cultural disconnect.” The statement notes that the design approach has been to reinvigorate the identity of the site, “using it as a framework to inform architectural decisions that recontextualise its legacy within a contemporary urban fabric.”
The project includes demolition of a creative precinct known as The Block, which currently houses several retail and hospitality venues. In its place, the proposal includes ground floor retail outlets and a student reception area. Above, the tower is designed to accommodate 488 student accommodation beds, which, according to The Advertiser, are located across 405 individual and shared apartments.
In its massing, the proposed tower is designed with a central core positioned at the rear of the site to maximise views on three sides. Intro notes that it has looked to reduce the overall scale and bulk of the building through the articulation of key amenity levels across the facade.

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The firm’s design statement also notes that the architectural language of the proposal “draws on familiar inherited materials, forms, and rhythms – most notably the use of brick, vaulted soffits and archways – evoking the robust, utilitarian character of the site’s past.”
“By actively reintroducing historical narratives through built form and spatial expression, the project seeks to bridge past and present – restoring a sense of place and enriching the city’s shared memory,” the communique reads.
The project will be assessed by the South Australian State Planning Commission. More

When it comes to contemporary architecture in Copenhagen, everything starts and ends with the city as an instrument for a better quality of life. During the first leg of the Dulux Study Tour 2025, discussion between the winners consistently circled back to the very Danish idea that architecture must return to the public what it takes, offering value in exchange for space and presence.
Any conversation about Copenhagen would be incomplete without acknowledging Jan Gehl, a Danish architect whose influence on the city’s urban planning has been profound. His written works, Life Between Buildings (1971) and Cities for People (2010), have significantly shaped a contemporary Copenhagen that prioritises pedestrians and cyclists over cars, along with opportunities for social interaction through the provision of public space. In 1962, his theory that vehicles were dehumanising the city and fostering social isolation was put to the test when the city’s main street, Strøget, was pedestrianised as an experiment. The outcome was deemed a success after data demonstrated a significant increase in foot traffic, leading to the explosion of people-centric projects that we see today.

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During a visit to Lundgaard and Tranberg Arkitekter’s practice, architect and CEO Peter Thorsen shared that at their firm, there is an emphasis on thinking beyond the building program to create architecture that contributes to broader society. Reflecting on the Royal Danish Playhouse project, he explained, “Far more people will pass by the playhouse than purchase a ticket to attend a performance. And that is why the public space element is the most important part of the project.” Consequently, their approach for the project was to include a waterfront promenade that could serve as both an everyday space and, when necessary, as an outdoor event venue. Publicly-oriented thinking also shaped their design for the circular Tietgen Dormitory, where private rooms are arranged on the perimeter and shared common spaces face toward a central courtyard. Though the two projects differ greatly in scale, both emphasise the role of architecture in enhancing social connection.
One of the five tour winners, Gumji Kang, stated that her favourite project from the Copenhagen tour was the city itself: “just the whole orchestration of how everyone [in the industry] inputs into the overall growth and the development of the city. It really goes back to this idea of humble architecture. Everyone’s a bit unfussy and it seems like they are saying, yes, we could make really beautiful buildings, but we also don’t need to have really fussy, beautiful buildings; they can just be quietly beautiful. As long as they’re doing well at the street level,” said Kang.

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While Copenhagen is frequently held up as the global benchmark for urban planning, it’s clear that no city has all the answers when it comes to the most successful architectural outcomes, and Australia, in its own way, offers many advantages that Copenhagen doesn’t, proving that context matters.
Tour recipients Marni Reti and Nicholas Souksamrane observed that, in the portion of Copenhagen they explored, there appeared to be a lack of multicultural representation in the architectural landscape, especially when compared to cities like Sydney and Melbourne, where entire neighbourhoods reflect diverse cultural identities. They both acknowledged, however, that this observation was based on only a small glimpse of the city.
“That’s not to say that multiculturalism doesn’t exist here, because it does and we’ve seen signs of it. But it does seem that multicultural evidence is largely absent from the architecture and in the built environment,” said Reti. “There’s nothing wrong with that, and maybe that’s how Copenhagen wants it, but there is a cohesiveness to the city. And something that came across in the practice visits, to me, was that there is a Danish architectural setting or character that people seem to be trying to hold on to.”
Souksamrane echoed these sentiments, noting that Copenhagen’s architecture seemed to reflect a more culturally unified architectural identity in contrast to Australia, which wears its cultural layers more openly. “In Australia, you can see the grit and the mix of culture, and sometimes it is quite a beautiful thing to see, whereas over here [in Copenhagen], everything blends in perfectly,” he said.

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In conversation with one another, tour participants also remarked that while the contemporary buildings they had visited made a strong and positive contribution at street level – thanks to plazas, harbourfront promenades and other external spaces – the buildings themselves often didn’t always stand out in terms of aesthetics or functionality. In some instances, the internal spaces felt underwhelming in comparison to the attention given to the external environment.
Certainly, architectural beauty and magnificence still exist, as exemplified in Grundtvigs Kirke, a sacred space that was completed in 1921 and took 19 years to construct from a single, handmade material: pale yellow Danish clay bricks. Legend has it that every detail was carefully inspected by the architect P. V. Jensen-Klint, who designed the church, and later by his son Kaare Klint, following P. V. Jensen-Klint’s passing. The tour participants unanimously expressed their admiration for the project’s impeccable attention to detail. While the building may not be particularly old in the context of Denmark, it predates many of the sites visited by the tour, most of which were built in the 2000s–2010s. The admiration the tour participants felt for this particular project, compared to some of the newer projects, may highlight a broader shift in society and the times from fine craftsmanship and aesthetic detail toward sustainability and public benefit.

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Sustainability is inevitably part of any conversation about Copenhagen. Kang shared how impressed she was by the way material considerations underpin every stage of design thinking, not only in emerging studios but also among well-established practices. Across the board, architects spoke about working consciously with materials, whether by preserving and reusing what already exists, sourcing locally, or investing resources in research for the development of new materials. A standout example was Thoravej 29 by Pihlmann Architects, a former factory now serving as an arts space. The project repurposed more than 90 percent of the materials found on site, setting a high bar for adaptive reuse.

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Kang reflected on the frequent justification that Denmark’s small population makes systemic change more achievable. “I know that everyone keeps saying that ‘Denmark is a small country and there aren’t that many of them’ and that’s why they can make these changes when it comes to materials and sustainability,” she said. “But Australia doesn’t have a huge population either – it’s just that we’re geographically dispersed. I feel like we need to stop making excuses and just do it.”
Tour participant Kate Shepherd pointed out that Denmark’s success isn’t due to unlimited resources either. “They were able to source the manufacturing of materials locally,” she said. “It’s not like they have an abundance of trees or an abundance of people to make this happen. They’ve found companies within Denmark that can recycle and reuse materials.”
Adair Winder is travelling with the 2025 Dulux Study Tour. Follow #2025DuluxStudyTour on social media and the blog. More

The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) has broken ground on Harkness Memorial Park in Melton, 50 kilometres north-west of Melbourne’s CBD. According to a release from GMCT, the project is the largest cemetery to be developed in Victoria in over 100 years.
The project has been developed by a consortium, with Aspect Studios as primary design consultant, Architectus as architect and WSP leading engineering and services. A masterplan for the 128-hectare site was developed by Architectus, Aurecon, McGregor Coxall and Greenshoot Consulting in 2023 after they won an international design competition for the project in 2021.
Chair of GMCT Michael Doery reflected, “It’s the realisation of a vision that has been many years in the making. This moment represents the foundation of something much bigger.”
“This is not a one-off project or infrastructure build, it’s a legacy in the making,” he said. “We’re proud to be creating this place not just for the community—but with the community.” More