Architecture

A plant research facility with expressive brickwork and an expanded interwar brick bungalow have claimed top honours at the 2025 Think Brick Awards.
From a pool of 146 entrants, six projects have won awards and five have received high commendations across six categories. The awards jury comprised Michael Heenan of AJC Architects, Laura McConaghy of Studio Bright, Elizabeth Carpenter of FJC Studio, Tone Wheeler of Environa Studio and Cathy Inglis of Think Brick Australia.
“During the judging process, it was remarkable to witness the quality of submissions across the board. The innovation was undeniable, but more than that, we sensed a shift – a quiet evolution in how projects are conceived and delivered. Year by year, we’re seeing concrete masonry, bricks, pavers and roof tiles being used with greater intent and sophistication. This isn’t just a credit to architects; it reflects a growing collaboration with the manufacturing industry, which is increasingly investing in research, testing and design support,” commented head juror Michael Heenan.
“The awarded projects represent more than just design excellence – they signal an enduring commitment to building with integrity, care and creativity. They remind us that continuity is not about repetition, but about relevance – the ability of a material and a profession to stay meaningful through change.”
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Think Brick Awards program.
Horbury Hunt Commercial Award
Plant Futures Facility – The University of Queensland – M3 Architecture (PGH Bricks and Pavers, Austral Bricks, Bowral Bricks and Leviat)
High Commendations
Tan Tat – SJB (Robertson’s Building Products)
Yarrila Place – BVN (Austral Bricks)
Crows Nest Sydney Metro Station – Woods Bagot (Namoi Valley Bricks, PGH Bricks and Pavers, Robertson’s Building Products)
Horbury Hunt Residential Award
Hotham – Austin Maynard Architects (Krause Bricks)

View gallery

High Commendation
Clique – Wowowa Architecture (Bowral Bricks)
Kevin Borland Masonry Award
Bondi Breeze – Panov Scott (Austral Masonry)

View gallery

Bruce Mackenzie Landscape Award
Kalgoorlie City Centre Redevelopment – Aspect Studios (Urbanstone)
Robin Dods Roof Tiles Award
Clubbe Hall – First Class Slate Roofing and TKD Architects (Bristile Roofing)
High Commendation
Green House – R Architecture (Bristile Roofing)

View gallery

New Entrant Award
Truganina Community Centre – Jasmax (Daniel Robertson) More

A proposal for a student accommodation tower that would see the demolition of a creative precinct in Adelaide’s city centre, known as The Block, has been approved by the South Australian State Planning Commission.
The local planning and property firm leading the project, Intro, states that while the site was once a hub for industry, manufacturing and craftsmanship, its historical significance “has faded amidst modern developments, leaving a cultural disconnect.”
The 35-storey proposal is set to house 480 student beds above a ground-floor shop and cafe, and mezzanine student library space. The building’s design, which will feature landscaped gardens throughout the podium and ground-floor communal areas, takes cues from Hindmarsh Square opposite.
In its materiality and form, Intro has said 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.”

View gallery

While the project was under review from the Office for Design and Architecture SA in July, planning officer Joanne Reid offered her support for the proposal, however, expressed some concerns with “the use of unauthentic and simulated materials” across the building’s envelope.
“I am of the view that the use of simulated materials does not reflect the intent for a high-quality design outcome,” she said. “I recommend consideration of high-quality authentic materials that are compatible with the intended form and function.”
Reid also recommended the resolution of the envelope with operable windows and the mitigation of wind impacts on communal outdoor spaces during the next phases of Intro’s design development.
The proposal is among several student housing towers recently approved for Adelaide’s CBD, including a 33-storey student housing tower on the site of the Duke of York Hotel, designed by Telha Clarke, and a $400 million, 33-storey tower sited on the carpark of the city’s oldest church, designed by Brown Falconer. More

A Melbourne-based architect has been shortlisted within the top 100 entries in a global design competition to reimagine Dubai’s public spaces.
Organised by RTA and Buildner, the Dubai Urban Elements competition brief tasked entrants with developing unique designs for small-scale urban infrastructure, such as pedestrian and cycle bridges, street furniture, shading structures, wayfinding systems, lighting and other amenity elements, across the city’s seven zones.
A registered architect practising at Cox Architecture, Hamza Khan’s proposal aligns itself with the city’s 2040 vision, which prioritises liveability, wellbeing and reduced car dependency. His scheme is centred upon the transformation of the Dubai’s 14-lane highway, the Sheikh Zayed Road, into a “green artery lined with palm trees, flowing water and thriving public spaces.”

View gallery

With the highway repositioned underground, the proposal reimagines the city “as a dynamic urban tapestry,” with a central canal providing a new public transport corridor. Alongside the canal, water-fed shading structures are designed to turn canal water into cooling mist for pedestrian walkways, while enclosed expressways elevated above the ground provide passage for electric bikes and scooters. A series of new plazas along the canal corridor are intended to act as social and cultural hubs.
According to Khan, the “vision [is] rooted in small-scale tactical urbanism – cities that are not just seen, but felt.”
The final results of the competition are due to be announced on 4 November, with the winner awarded €250,000. More

Campbelltown City Council in New South Wales has announced the appointment of FJC Studio as principal design consultant on the $85 million expansion of its arts centre, originally opened in 2005 to a design by Tanner Kibble Denton (TKD) Architects.
A media release from the council notes that the firm’s approach will involve extensive stakeholder engagement to inform the concept designs, which will look to the local landscape and culture to strengthen the site’s visual and physical interaction with its surrounds.
“FJC Studio’s vision for Campbelltown Arts Centre expansion will draw inspiration from the Dharawal landscape and culture, with a design that will seek to deepen connection to Country through spaces that foster cultural exchange, storytelling, and shared understanding,” the council’s release notes. “This approach aims to enrich the visitor journey, shaping how people move through and experience the space.”
According to the council’s communique, the redevelopment reflects their vision to secure “Campbelltown Arts Centre’s position as a strong leader in the Western Sydney arts ecology.”
Mayor of Campbelltown Darcy Lound said that the centre’s expansion “will bring a modernised facility that provides more spaces to meet our city’s growing needs, including more space for workshops, exhibitions, performances, and events,” and in doing so, will serve as “a destination to attract new visitors to our city.”

View gallery

Adopting an approach toward the adaptive reuse of the existing floor plan and repurposing of existing infrastructure to maximise sustainability, FJC’s design is set to deliver a new theatre space, additional workshop spaces, artwork storage, new and renovated gallery spaces, artist studios, an expanded cafe, function and conference spaces, and improved accessibility.
Design director at FJC Studio Richard Francis-Jones commented, “This project will be more than a sum of its parts – gallery, theatre, conference and workshops. It will be the Campbelltown community’s cultural place, open to everyone to spend time, create and connect.”
“We feel privileged to be appointed as architects for this project, knowing that it has been a place that many people have held dear for decades,” Francis-Jones added. “We will be working with the council and the community to develop a place that instils pride and a true sense of belonging.”
Concept designs are expected to be released later this year, and the project completed in 2029. More

The Australian Fair Work Commission (FWC) has announced that it is undertaking a review of the Architects Award in order to determine whether architects, and other professionals, are underpaid.
According to a release from the FWC, the review is “on work value grounds to remedy potential undervaluation.”
The awards under consideration are those that necessitate, at a minimum, an undergraduate university degree, and which are not aligned with the minimum weekly rate of pay, described as the C1(a) benchmark rate. Alongside the Architects Award 2020, these include awards for higher education staff, such as academics and people working in local government.
The FWC’s decision to conduct the review is based on the findings of their 2025 Annual Wage Review on 3 June, which revealed that these classifications may be undervalued, particularly on gender-based grounds.
In their Annual Wage Review, the FWC states, “Professional occupations, considered as a whole, are majority female (55.4 percent). However, a much higher proportion — 69.7 percent — of modern award-reliant professionals are female. This … makes clear that the detriment of non-alignment with the C1(a) benchmark rate principally accrues to female professionals.”
In response to the review of professional awards, the Association of Consulting Architects (ACA) – the industry’s “peak employer association” – submitted concerns that gender undervaluation was not, in itself, reason to review the Architects Award.
“The architecture industry and occupation has never been a female-dominated workforce, either historically or at present,” the ACA’s submission noted, adding that “there is no evidence of historic gender undervaluation through the award system.”
According to the ACA, “The rates of pay under the Architects Award have consistently been aligned with comparable technical and professional awards (such as engineers and scientists).”
“While gender equity challenges exist in the profession, particularly in retention and progression, these issues are structural and cultural, not the product of award wage setting. They are being addressed through workplace and industry initiatives, rather than through the modern award framework,” the ACA added.
The FWC’s review is based on an accepted benchmark where females make up 60 percent of the industry’s population. However, the ACA argued that according to Australian 2021 Census data reported by advocacy group Parlour, women architectural graduates make up less than 50 percent.
In a social media post, Parlour welcomed the review as a “chance for structural change.”
Parlour co-founder and director Justine Clark said, “Architects constantly complain about no one values their work, data points to architects being among the lowest paid in the industry, and people are moving on in droves to better paid roles elsewhere. The award is part of this systemic undervaluing.”
“The review is an excellent opportunity to benchmark against other industries and clearly articulate the value of architects,” Clark added, noting that while “many practices are facing tough economic times right now … keeping the most vulnerable people on wages below the benchmark is not a viable long-term sustainable solution to the profession’s problems.” More

A development application proposing the establishment of a 10-storey residential building in Adelaide’s CBD has been lodged with the South Australian Planning Commission.
Planning documents note the proposed building would occupy a 1,241-square-metre lot on Hutt Street. The building would accommodate 45 apartments – 15 percent of which are affordable housing – as well as a residential lobby and retail offerings at street level. A two-level basement car park is also included within the proposal.
Plans state that while building height in the proposed locality is predominantly low-rise, several buildings ranging from three to eight storeys are present in the area.
Designed by DKO, the building features a podium and tower massing, with setbacks that gradually increase on the upper levels. According to the application, the ground level and podium have been “designed to promote a human-scale” at both Hutt Street and Allan Place, through the use of fine-grain materials and active shop fronts.

View gallery

The site is currently occupied by a two-storey office building, a single-storey building and a canopy structure formerly used as a service station. The lot sits adjacent to a row of eight two-storey terrace shops fronting Hutt Street, which are connected and listed collectively as a single State Heritage Place.
Dash Architects was engaged to prepare a Heritage Impact Assessment detailing how the project’s design responds to these neighbouring buildings. Their report concluded that careful scale and setbacks have ensured the proposal does “not dominate, encroach upon or unduly impact … the adjacent State Heritage Place.”

View gallery

The project will target a 5-Star Green Star rating and a 7-Star NatHERS rating. According to the application, the building will be fully electric and will include 300 square metres of roof-mounted solar panels to help meet these targets.
The proposal is on exhibition until 15 September. More

A new report has found that only about half the workforce delivering Australia’s $213 billion, five-year Major Public Infrastructure Pipeline is currently contributing to net-zero outcomes.
Released in August 2025, the Delivering Net Zero Infrastructure: Workforce Report outlines a national strategy to address workforce skill shortages in the built environment that are limiting Australia’s ability to decarbonise its infrastructure projects. The report was developed by Infrastructure Net Zero, a coalition of industry and government bodies formed in 2023 to guide and accelerate the decarbonisation of Australia’s infrastructure sector. Some of these bodies include Infrastructure Australia, the Green Building Council of Australia, the Infrastructure Sustainability Council and the Department of Infrastructure, among others.
The report defines and quantifies the current net-zero infrastructure workforce – workers whose responsibilities include reducing project emissions – and provides recommendations for growing this workforce. According to the report, buildings and infrastructure “are responsible for almost a third of Australia’s emissions and indirectly responsible for over half.”
Infrastructure Australia CEO Adam Copp said the success of reducing these emissions will depend on the strength of the infrastructure net-zero workforce, which currently stands at 130,000 workers across 36 occupations, including construction managers, engineers, architects and tradespeople. While this represents just over half of those working on Australia’s Major Public Infrastructure Pipeline, Copp noted that “more can be done to engage the rest of the workforce” across all stages of the project lifecycle to support net zero targets.
The report’s main recommendation is that governments, industry and educators develop a new, industry-wide training program to promote a consistent national approach for decarbonising projects in the built environment.
Infrastructure Net Zero chair Jonathan Cartledge stated that the race to net-zero infrastructure is also a race for skills. “For the first time, we have a clear picture of the workforce it will take, and this report sets out a pathway for industry and government to ensure we have the people to design and build that net zero future,” said Cartledge.
Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council CEO Alison Scotland stated that reaching Australia’s net-zero objective “demands more than policy and investment,” it requires a skilled workforce capable of designing and implementing net-zero infrastructure at scale.
The full report, along with its recommendations, can be accessed online. More

Australian architecture practice Billard Leece Partnership (BLP) has announced the launch of BLP Asia, with a new studio in Singapore.
The Singapore hub is intended to serve as a dedicated centre for BLP’s operations in Asia, building on their portfolio of projects in the region, including the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital and North District Hospital, Hong Kong.
The practice, which this year celebrates 30 years, currently has studios in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The launch of BLP’s Singapore studio marks a pivot from the practice’s Hong Kong studio, which is no longer operational.

View gallery

According to a communique from BLP, the new studio “will extend [the firm’s] expertise to meet the region’s evolving challenges from ageing populations to sustainable health outcomes, while creating a platform for knowledge exchange between Australia and Asia.”
BLP’s managing director Tara Veldman said, “Singapore is a natural gateway for our growth in Asia. We are excited to share our expertise for the incredible opportunities that lie ahead, confident that …we will continue to set new benchmarks for our clients in health architecture across Asia.”
Principal and BLP Asia lead Dev Bagga added that the region “is fast becoming a global hub for innovation and transformation,” and that “BLP Asia will be committed to drive this growth alongside like-minded partners through design excellence in healthcare and social infrastructure.” More