Architecture

Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Arata Isozaki has passed away at his home on the prefecture of Okinawa, aged 91.
Isozaki died on 28 December 2022 of “natural causes,” a statement from his office read. A private funeral service was held for close relatives only.
Isozaki was born in Oita, Japan, in 1931, and studied architecture and engineering at the University of Tokyo, graduating in 1954 before completing his doctoral program at the same university in 1961. He maintained that his path to architecture was deeply influenced by the destruction he witnessed in the Hiroshima bombings during World War II, when he was just 14 years old.
“My first experience of architecture was the void of architecture, and I began to consider how people might rebuild their homes and cities,” Isozaki said during his Pritzker Prize acceptance speech in 2019. The 46th recipient of the prestigious prize, Isozaki was also awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1986 and the Leone d’Oro at the Venice Architectural Biennale in 1996.
Isozaki leaves behind a six-decade career in architecture, with more than 100 buildings to his name across Asia, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australia, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (1986), Kitakyushu Central Library in Fukuoka (1974), and Ark Nova with artist Anish Kapoor (2013).
His style “defies categorization,” the Pritzker jury said, embracing the avant-garde and frequently challenging the status quo. His buildings, written works, exhibitions and lectures have had a notable impact on the industry across both the East and the West, and he is often cited as the first Japanese architect to forge a deep and lasting relationship between the two cultures.
The 2019 jury described Isozaki as “a versatile, influential, and truly international architect.” More

Em Be Ce has won the invited design excellence competition for a 27-storey mixed-use development on Sydney’s Lower North Shore. To be located at 3–5 Help Street in Chatswood, the project will form the southern edge of a cluster of towers in the area. A two-storey podium will accommodate 2,000 square metres of commercial and […] More

The former Brompton Gasworks in Adelaide’s inner-west is set to be redeveloped into a new “village”, with the adaptive reuse of the old gasworks structures.
Melbourne and Adelaide-based practice Forum is the architect and urban design consultant leading the project, which will create a “vibrant, inner-city destination that mixes the past with the future, blending history, sustainability and community,” said Forum director Ed Mitchell.
The site, 5.81 hectares of long-dormant gasworks, will eventually accommodate 1,200 residents across 800 new homes (200 townhouses and 600 apartments), 15 percent of which will be affordable housing delivered through not-for-profit housing providers.
The former gasworks structures including a chimney stack and heritage quarter, will be transfromed into new bars, restaurants, cafes, commercial office space, and a 120-room hotel.

The village will provide around 1.5 hectares of publicly accessible open space for recreation and entertainment opportunities, covering more than 25 percent of the total area of the site.
South Australian housing minister Nick Champion said the project would unlock much-needed housing supply for Adelaide’s western suburbs.
Successful tenderer MAB will invest close to half a billion dollars over the life of the project to deliver the vision for the gasworks site, expected to take 12 years to complete.
The Brompton Gasworks previously received a bid from Adelaide Football Club as the site of its new headquarters, which was rejected in favour of the masterplanned village proposed by MAB.
According to an Aecom consulting appraisal, MAB’s proposal “more closely aligns” with the planning and design code, creating the greatest diversity for housing product and the best response to existing heritage structures.
The new precinct will be gas free, with all-electric homes powered by 100 percent renewable energy. Brompton Gasworks is targeting a 6-star Green Star rating, representing global leadership in environmentally sustainable practices. Remedial works to the site is expected to begin in 2023. More

The City of Sydney has approved a development application for a podium extension of an existing office tower in Sydney’s CBD after a proposal was submitted for an addition designed by FJMT. The vision for the existing modernist tower – fronting Elizabeth, Park and Castlereagh streets in the city centre and opposite Hyde Park – […] More

The National Gallery of Australia is launching a book, celebrating one of the nation’s “most remarkable buildings”.
Published in the year of the NGAs 40th anniversary, Vision: Art, Architecture and the National Gallery of Australia is an examination of the gallery building, which is a “bold combination of the sculptural and the functional”.
Designed by architect Col Madigan of Edwards Madigan Torzillo and Briggs, the NGA was completed in 1981 before it was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1982.
The large Brutalist edifice, with sweeping brush-hammered concrete surfaces and soaring cathedral-style ceilings, it is one of Australia’s most recognisable buildings today.
Vision includes essays by architectural historian Philip Goad, alongside previously unseen images from the gallery’s photographic archive.
“Understanding the complex evolution of this now heritage‑listed building reveals its unique place in Australian architecture, and among art galleries both in Australia and internationally,” said Goad.

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Perspective drawing of the original entry sequence to the National Gallery. National Gallery Research Library and Archives, artist: Davis Bité. Image:

Courtesy of EMTB Architects

“Now is the time to recognise the building for what it is, and celebrate the ambition of its creation, dare to uncover its bones and revel in its concrete presence and retrieve its vision.”
Photos include works of Australian photographers David Moore and Max Dupain, interspersed with drawings and plans, that chart the conception of the building – its design, construction and aftermath – from 1970s until present day.
National Gallery director Nick Mitzevich said the book is “a celebration of this significant building in the history of Australian architecture”, exploring the building in its entirety, from its founding on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country to its status today as a world-renowned gallery.
Vision is published by Black Inc. and designed by John Warwiccker, and features an introduction by Bruce Johnson McLean, with reflections from National Gallery curators Lucina Ward and Simeran Maxwell.
The book follows the 2012 publication of Falls the Shadow: From Idea to Reality, The National Gallery of Australia by Uro Publications. More

Melbourne street artist Rone has taken over the iconic Flinders Street Station in a new, immersive installation.
On until 23 April 2023, the ambitious building takeover called “Time” sees eleven rooms across the hidden upper levels and ballroom of Flinders Street Station transformed into a mid-century time capsule.
Time honours the blue-collar workers of industrial post-WWII-era Melbourne, who passed through the station each day to work in nearby factories, offices and shops throughout the city. Rone used photo references from across the decades to piece together a vision for each room – a typing pool, a library, an art room, classroom and more.
“There is so much detail in each room you could never see it all in one visit,” said Rone. “The aim is for audiences to be unsure where the artwork ends and where the original building starts. I like the idea that someone could walk in here and think, ‘He’s just done a painting on a wall,’ and that everything else they see is a legitimate, original part of the building. And perhaps they’ll think it’s kind of disrespectful that I’ve done that, that I’ve disturbed this space,” he continued.
“For me, that’s the ultimate end-goal – it means it has worked.”

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The Newsagency, Time exhibition, Flinders Street Station. Image: Rone

Rone worked with sound composer Nick Batterham, set builder director Callum Preston, set decorator Carly Spooner as well as a team of more than 120 people to bring the exhibition to life.
Rone also worked with Godrey Hirst and GH Commercial on the flooring selection seen within the exhibition. Rone and GH Commercial had previously worked together on Rone in Geelong (2021) and GH Commercial did not hesitate to collaborate again on this huge project. Using GH Commercial’s Designer Jet technology, Rone was able to achieve the pattern, colour and texture desired to represent the spirit of Melbourne’s industrial past.
“For literally years we were working on this project in secret. I did want to reach out to Godfrey Hirst but I was too scared to promise anything, because I knew as soon as I started telling anyone, it’s going to fall over. And so slowly and slowly, we kept persisting on this project and it eventually came to life,” Rone said.
“We’re so grateful to have had their support for this project. We somewhat destroyed some of their brand new product so that it felt authentic and part of the building – and they were very good about it.” More

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) has announced the category winners for the 2022 awards for architectural drawing, which included some submissions from students of architecture at Australian universities.
The Architecture Drawing prize was established in 2017 to celebrate the art and skill of architectural drawing, awarding prizes in three categories: hand-drawn, hybrid and digital. This year, the prize attracted 138 entries, with submissions received from architects, designers and students around the world.
The winner of The Architecture Drawing Prize 2022 hybrid category was “Fitzroy Food Institute” – a collaboration between Samuel Wen and Mike Ren, students at the Melbourne School of Design. The hybrid design details a dumpling institute that “deviates from the traditional orientalist attitude towards Chinese culture, while also examining ideas of globalisation and automation,” the statement read.
Juror Ken Shuttleworth, founder of Make Architects and one of the eight judges for the prize, said the subission was a “conceptually original and genuinely delightful entry”.
“Fitzroy Food Institute stands out for its well-considered and subtle use of colour,” said Shuttleworth on behalf of the jury. “It’s a very accessible drawing looking over a shared meal at a table; yet it is full of architectural interest featuring not only a plan, but sections and elevations as well as detail.”

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“Mnemosyne”, 2523 mm x 1189 mm, Rhino and Photoshop. On exhibition at the World Architecture Festival, Lisbon. Image:

Meichen Duan, Shirley Ziyun Guo and Ionna Petropoulou

“Mnemosyne” by students at the University of Melbourne Meichen Duan, Shirley Ziyun Guo and Ionna Petropoulou, was also shortlisted for the Architectural Drawing Prize in the digital category. Created using Rhino and Photoshop, Mnemosyne is a “dramatic art institute” situated at the former Cable Tram Engine House.
Shortlisted drawings will be exhibited at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London from 8 February to 7 May 2023 and the overall winner for 2022 will be announced at the Museum’s Architecture Drawing Prize exhibition preview. More