Architecture

The Design Institute of Australia has announced the winners for its inaugural Designers Australia Awards.
In an industry first, the awards dispense with tradition design disciplines such as industrial, interior, graphic, digital, product, environmental, textile, fashion, and others.
Instead, the awards emphasize the best design thinking and processes applied across projects, which are divided into three-cross disciplinary categories: Place, representing the places we live, work and play; Use, which describe the things we use; and Interact, which depict who and what we interact with.
Bates Smart was awarded winner of the Place category for the Gandel Wing at Melbourne’s Cabrini Hospital. “The new Gandel Wing’s natural finishes, rounded edges and neutral palette illustrate the power of buildings that can heal us,” said judges Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano. “The comforting interiors have been so thoughtfully reimagined that we thought it was a sustainable hotel concept — now that’s somewhere one should check-in! It’s time that hospital and hospitality go hand in hand.”
In the Use category, Design by Them took the top prize for DL Range by Gibson Karlo and Dion Lee. Juror Tuba Kocaturk said the range “presents a timeless process of experimentation with form and materials which brings together functional and purposeful production techniques from fashion and industrial design, translated into an innovative marriage of comfort and inspirational design.”
And finally Monash University XYX Lab was named winner of the Interact category for their HyperSext City exhibition. The judges found it “a testament to the changing role and position of design, moving from the traditional concept of a tangible product through to orchestration of new interactions and experiences,” Kocaturk said.
The judging panel comprised local and international design leaders including Alessandra Baldereschil, Susanna Bilardo, Lisa Cahill, Gavin Campbell, Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano, Marcus Fairs, John Gertsakis, Rafael Gomez, Peta Heffernan, Fenella Kernebone, Tuba Kocaturk, Scott Mayson, Nicole Monks, Lorenzo Palmeri, and Quan Payne.
The winners are:
Place
Winner
Bates Smart for Gandel Wing, Cabrini
Awards of Merit
Billard Leece Partnership for Susan Wakil Health Building
Cox Architecture for Parmelia Hilton Hotel, Sydney Coliseum Theatre (West HQ),
Cox Architecture and Neeson Murcutt and Neille for Australian Museum Project Discovery
Danielle Brustman for Brighton Street Early Learning
DesiginInc Adelaide for DesiginInc Adelaide Studio
Elenberg Fraser for Market Lane
Latitude for SBB
Mata Design Studio for Applecross Residence
Mycelium Studios for Mycelium Studios

Naomi Milgrom Foundation and Glenn Murcutt for MPavilion 2019

Phillips Pilkington Architects for Gunditj Mirring Keeping Place
Russell and George for Sarah and Sebastian
Skeehan Studio for Canberra Glassworks Shop
Studio-Gram for The Guardsman

Walter Brooke and Associates and Genesin Studio for ITL
Walter Brooke and Associates and Hecker Guthrie for EOS

Woods Bagot for Central Park Tower Refurbishment
Zwei Interiors Architecture for body of work
Use
Winner
Design By Them for DL Range by Gibson Karlo and Dion Lee
Awards of Merit
Cobalt Design for Keep Cup Thermal Cup and Press Fit Lid
Design By Them for August Lounges by Gibson Karlo
Hare and Klein for Bridge Table
Jam Factory for Solute Pendant Light
JDT Design for LEGO 3D printed Spinner

Naomi Milgrom Foundation and Board Grove Architects for MPavilion 2020 Stool Dolly

Skeehan Studio for Rou House, and Nave Collection
Yellow Goat Design for H2O
Interact
Winner
Monash University XYX Lab for HyperSext City
Ian Wong for 100 Objects and I-conic
United Studio for Markr
President’s Award
Edward Linacre for contritution to the profession More

Diller Scofidio and Renfro and Woods Bagot’s design for the Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre (AACC) at the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site on Kaurna land has been submitted for planning assessment.
Concept designs for the Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre depicting a series of basket-like forms were released in early 2021 and have been refined for the planning application.
Diller Scofidio and Renfro partner Charles Renfro said a deeper and wider engagement with the Aboriginal Reference Group had allowed them to embrace Aboriginal shared values and reference forms found in Aboriginal art and cultures.
“Wholly connected to the landscape, the design embeds the lower ground level into the site and includes an outdoor gallery cantilevered over the terraced landscape,” he said.
Refinements to the design aimed at creating a stronger connection to Country include making the feature gallery completely outdoors, and designing the building to “more decisively originate from the earth with columns that appear to grow from out of the ground.”

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The Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre by Diller Scofidio and Renfro and Woods Bagot.

Oculus is the landscape architect for the project that will see a significant proportion of the site established with a combination of plants and vegetation, paving, walls, terracing, seating and a range of water features.
Interconnected pathways will wind around the building and flow into smaller, quiet spaces throughout the site to enable visitors to take time out from the city environment and immerse themselves in the landscape.
Woods Bagot principal Rosina Di Maria said the architects had felt a profound responsibility with this project.
“This project is a path to reconciliation, an important moment in setting the future for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people,” she said.
“We’re designing a vessel to hold – to nurture and care for – the stories of the world’s oldest and resilient, continuous culture on earth. The design must speak to the whole nation and especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia.”
Di Maria stressed the importance of collaboration with the Aboriginal Reference Group.
Led by AACC ambassador and community leader David Rathman, the reference group brings together people from a range of institutions and backgrounds. Its members include Jack Buckskin and Jessica Davies-Huynh, representing Kaurna people through the Kaurna Yerta  Aboriginal Corporation; Karl Telfer, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute; Sandy Miller, SA Museum Aboriginal Advisory Committee; Cara Kirkwood, Art Gallery of South Australia; Craig Ritchie, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies; and Kirstie Parker, Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Department of the Premier and Cabinet.
“The design team’s role has always been to listen to and translate the aspirations and ambitions of the ARG into a design response,” said Di Maria. “The architecture evokes a sense of welcome to all visitors – particularly First Nations peoples – and a connection to culture offered through the human experience.”
Diller Scofidio and Renfro and Woods Bagot initially won the Adelaide Contemporary design competition for an art gallery at the same site before a change in government saw the gallery proposal scrapped and replaced with a proposal for an Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre. More

Brisbane City Council has finalized its design for the $67 million Breakfast Creek pedestrian and cycle bridge that will link Newstead to Albion in the city’s inner-east and connect to an extended Lores Bonney Riverwalk. Engineering firm SMEC is behind the 80-metre arch bridge design, now submitted for development approval. “The colouring has been chosen […] More

Artists and architects are putting the final touches on their designs for the 19th edition of the Swell Sculpture Festival, the annual exhibition that sees dozens of large-scale sculptures erected along Currumbin Beach on the Gold Coast.
For the third year in a row, architect Hooman Jaffar and architecture graduate Taylah Jardine of Real Space Creative are presenting a sculpture at the festival, where most works are produced by artists, both local and international.
Their sculpture this year, titled #Lifetime and produced with carpenter Owen Thompson, is an exploration of time featuring a series of timber beams buried in the sand and rising up in a circle formation.

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A concept image of #Lifetime by architect Hooman Jaffar, architecture graduate Taylah Jardine and carpenter Owen Thompson.

“You’ll going to feel like you’re in a forest,” said Hooman. “The most joy is watching children interact with the pieces – whether they’ll run through it or use it as a playground.”
Their sculpture will be one of around 70 Australian and international sculptural artworks created by more than 145 artists at this year’s festival, which is running from 10 to 19 September.
The main exhibition along Currumbin Beach will be accompanied by Swell Kids Elements, an interactive sculpture park for families to enjoy, where there will be performance art, outdoor cinema, sculpture workshops and masterclasses, outdoor kids’ library, guided sculpture walks and artists talks and panels.
Swell Sculpture Festival co-founder and artistic director Natasha Edwards said the festival was a unique opportunity to present temporary artwork. “While its presence is short lived it leaves a lasting impression through the reverberations of the artist’s voices and the echoes of memories and shared conversations,” she said.
“Each sculpture tells its story, and collectively these stories emanate the essence of Swell.” More

Sydney practice Chrofi is spearheading a grassroots movement to see the heritage-listed Manly Town Hall adapted into a performing arts venue.
The town hall will soon be vacant following the amalgamation of Manly council with neighbouing Pittwater and Wahringah councils to form the Northern Beaches Council in 2016.
Chrofi was approached by local resident and renowned glass artist Warren Langley to explore ideas for the adaptive re-use of the building in late 2019. The practice’s office overlooks the Town Hall on the opposite side of the street.
“The site is very well serviced by public transport and has convenient parking nearby,” Chrofi architect Joshua Zoeller said. “It is therefore important that when council vacates this site, the building is re-used for a civic or public function; anything else will be a loss.”
The architects developed a proposal for a performing arts venue using scale comparisons with existing performing arts venues across Sydney and around the world, such as parts of the Sydney Opera House, the Eternity Playhouse, Carriageworks, Belvoir Theatre, the Old Vic in Bristol and St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.

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Manly Town Hall Image:

Courtesy Chrofi

“The building design lends itself to re-interpretation as a facility for performance. Its footprint is large enough to comfortably accommodate a number of facilities and functions,” Zoeller said. These include a 350-seat major theatre, a minor theatre, theatrette or cinema, an intimate music venue, a restaurant, bar and café, and community rooms.
“[The building] naturally accommodates a large, flexible performance space at its core bookended by the two storey front of house foyers and back of house facilities,” Zoeller said. “At the centre of the building is a double height space of no heritage significance and it could be redesigned to facilitate a new use.
“A civic forecourt at the front and a laneway at the rear provide opportunities for the building program to engage with the public domain.”
The group presented the idea to the Northern Beaches Council in August 2020, and in a subsequent council meeting, councillors resolved to begin community consultation on the future use of the Manly Town Hall, which took place in January 2021. A performing arts venue was a popular response from the 272 contributions from the public.
The idea has the backing of members of the local music industry, with Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst and Australian Chamber Orchestra artistic director Richard Tognetti each penning letters of support, along with the local state MP James Griffin and federal MP Zali Steggall.
It caught broader public attention when deputy mayor Candy Bingham named it as a primary policy platform for her re-election campaign.
If the idea was to be realized, it would be “a game changer for the culture of the arts in the community,” Zoeller said.
“For too long, the Northern Beaches has suffered from a dearth of venues and opportunities for the community to experience the best of music, theatre, dance and cinema,” Richard Tognetti wrote in his letter of support.
“Manly Town Hall could be the jewel in the crown as a cultural gateway for the peninsula with the potential to draw audiences from far and wide.” More

The Alastair Swayn Foundation has opened round two of its grants program for 2021, which supports research projects in the field of architecture and design. Two levels of grants are on offer. There’s the $2,000 Alastair Swayn Research Grants, open to any research proposal in the disciplines of architecture; landscape architecture; industrial design; heritage preservation/ […] More

A 42-metre-high viewing platform being constructed over the roof of Perth’s Optus Stadium will create a new way to experience the playing field below. Nicknamed the “ring pull” for its resemblance to the mechanism at the top of aluminium cans, the platform is designed by Hassell, who also designed the stadium in collaboration with Cox […] More

A new reptile and amphibian conservation centre will be built at Taronga Zoo in Sydney to replace the existing Reptile World exhibit. Designed by DWP (Design Worldwide Partnership) with landscape architecture by Context Landscape Architecture, the new project will deliver a “world-class” reptile and amphibian exhibition and animal care facility. Taronga Zoo says it will […] More