Architecture

GHD Woodhead will design three new railway stations along the Gold Coast’s “glitter strip,” the Queensland government has announced.
The architecture firm, together with its parent engineering consultant company GHD, has been awarded the design contract for Pimpama, Merrimac and Helensvale North stations, which are being delivered in conjunction with Cross River Rail.
The state government allocated $120 million for the stations in 2019. As GHD Woodhead moves forward with detailed design, the government has released a concept image of the new Pimpama train station.

“GHD will refine the existing concept designs for each station, producing detailed designs, documentation and approvals ready for construction,” said transport minister Mark Bailey.
“As part of the detailed design phase, additional studies will be undertaken including construction methodology, noise modelling, flood modelling and flora and fauna studies.

“Community feedback and input is being considered as part of the detailed design phase and there will be another opportunity for public consultation on the updated designs later this year, with nearby communities to be notified well in advance.”
The stations are expected to be operational in time for Cross River Rail’s opening in 2025.

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Construction is underway for a 20-storey office tower designed by Woods Bagot that proponents say will help rejuvenate Adelaide’s Pirie Street.
Located on the corner of Pirie Street and Freemasons Lane, the tower will deliver around 30,000 square metres of commercial office space, along with outdoor terraces on the rooftop, a wellness centre, and end-of-trip facilities plus retail and hospitality tenancies on the ground floor.
Woods Bagot’s design sees the podium divided into three “blocks,” with each block’s scale and materiality informed by the streetscape and adjacent buildings. In particular, the design seeks to respond to the architectural language of the “People’s Palace” at 87–95 Pirie Street, a French Renaissance-style building designed by G. R. Johnson in 1878 for the local German Club, which served as Salvation Army accommodation until 1979.

“The building’s bold form has been broken down and articulated through close analysis of existing site conditions and analysis of adjacent buildings,” states the architect.

“A transparent facade, generous ground-level setback, outdoor dining and landscaping provides opportunities for public to dwell. Through transparency and continuity of finishes, [the] public are invited to enter the building via Pirie street and Freemasons lane.”
Aspect Studios is the project’s landscape architect.

Above the podium, the tower rises as a seamless glass block. According to the architect, “A purposeful and restrained approach has informed the design of the tower component, with repetition of angled glass panels creating an elegant and sophisticated design aesthetic.”
The site of the tower, at 83 Pirie Street, was once home to the Planet Nightclub, which stood empty for 16 years before its demolition. South Australia’s Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure is expected to lease 18,500 square metres of office space in the tower, taking up the majority of the floors. More

Houses magazine is excited to introduce the jury for the 2021 Houses Awards.
First up is Sydney architect Anita Panov, who established her practice Panov Scott Architects with partner Andrew Scott in 2012. The practice’s work is widely recognized locally and internationally, including winning several Houses Awards. Their work has been published a number of times in Houses.
Louise Wright hails from Melbourne and is director of Barraco and Wright Architects. She was a creative director of Australia’s exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and is also involved in teaching and research with a particular interest in historical, cultural and ecological relationship between the built and unbuilt environment.

Phil Harris is a founding director of Troppo. In 2014, he and fellow director Adrian Welke were awarded the Australian Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal, the highest honour for individual architectural achievement. The practice has received more than 40 awards for residential architecture from the Institute.

Finally Sydney architect Will Fung cofounded Co-ap Architects with interior designer Tina Engelen in 2007. The practice has won a number of awards for its projects, including houses and apartments. The team particularly enjoy tackling tricky sites, complex briefs and negotiating strict planning controls.

These four jurors will join Katelin Butler, editorial director of Architecture Media (publisher of Houses and ArchitectureAu), who will act as jury chair. The jury will also be complemented by two advisors: Dominique Hes from the Melbourne School of Design, as sustainability advisor; and Helen Lardner, director of HLCD, as heritage advisor.
Entries to the Houses Awards have been extended until 12 March.
The 2021 Houses Awards is supported by Cult, Artedomus, Blum, Bosch, Brickworks, the Heritage Council of Victoria, Sussex, Taubmans, Latitude and the Australian Institute of Horticulture. More

The NSW government is planning to roll its two state environment planning policies into one in an effort to “reduce complexity without reducing rigour.”
The 20-year-old SEPP 65, which provides guidelines the design quality of apartment buildings, and 2004 SEPP BASIX (Building Sustainability Index), would be folded into a new Design and Place SEPP. The combined policy is now on exhibition for public comment.
A focus of the new policy, according to the government, will be to encourage good design across neighbourhoods and throughout public spaces, in comparison to the current policies that are more focused on outcomes for individual buildings.

“The proposed policy helps shift our thinking away from only designing beautiful buildings to designing beautiful neighbourhoods,” planning minister Rob Stokes said.
“Under the proposal, new developments will now have to show how they respond and contribute to the surrounding area. We want to create places that have beauty and character; that are green, liveable and bring people together with access to open space and active transport connections.”

The explanation of intended effect for the policy lays out a number of other aims behind the move, including facilitating ecologically sustainable development and establishing Country as a foundation for design and planning.

A number of specific proposals are put forward, including new targets to retain or increase the provision and diversity of public space across NSW and a baseline residential density target in urban areas.
The Design and Place SEPP also proposes that a registered architect would be required for all buildings with three or more storeys and for all multiresidential buildings with four or more dwellings. A registered landscape architect would be required for all open spaces of more than 1,000 square metres.

NSW Government Architect Abbie Galvin is overseeing development of the policy.
“This will guide us all to design and prioritize healthy places for people, community and country,” she said.
“Design is about people, our shared history and our future. This policy will help integrate the things we value about the design of our local communities and our cities.
“It is about including considerations like character, heritage, quality public spaces, thriving local areas that we can access easily, tree-lined walkable streets, parks, environmentally sensitive buildings and spaces into policy that’s easily understood.”
The explanation of intended effect is on exhibition until 31 March. More

It’s been a pipe dream for more than 150 years, but a bridge linking Kangaroo Point and Brisbane CBD will finally be a reality.
Brisbane City Council has lodged a development application for the bridge, with Cox Architecture and Arup behind the design.
Expected to be completed as early as 2023, the single-mast cable-stay structure will run from the corner of Alice and Edward streets in the city to Scott Street at Kangaroo Point.
Measuring 470 metres long and 6.8 metres wide, the bridge will include dedicated cycle and pedestrian paths and “high-quality bridge landings, transitions and public realm.” There will be shading across the full length of the bridge, along with nodes and viewing platforms to engage with the river and green spaces.

In planning documents, Cox Architecture states, “The bridge landings touch lightly on the river’s edge and protect and integrate adjacent green spaces including the City Botanic Gardens as well as the rich history and heritage of the Gardens, Brisbane City Centre and Kangaroo Point.

“The bridge celebrates Brisbane’s identity; its sub-tropical environment, and river city image.”

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Kangaroo Point Green bridge by Cox Architects and Arup.

A bridge across this section of the Brisbane River was first proposed in the 1860s and a design was even developed by 1890. But economic recession and the devastation of the 1893 floods meant the idea stayed on the drawing board. Council announced it would progress with the project in March 2019 as part of its $550 million plan to build five new “green” bridges over 10 years.
A preliminary business case was released in September 2019 and a range of different structural forms and design options were developed for consideration before a draft reference design was put out for public consultation. The design was largely popular, with 71% of respondents registering their support.
Construction will begin on Kangaroo Point green bridge will begin this year, as will construction of a smaller green bridge at Breakfast Creek.
Community consultation will continue on the proposed bridges from West End to St Lucia and West End to Toowong. The council is looking for a new location for the fifth bridge after the initial plan to build it between Belbowrie and Wacol proved unpopular, according to the ABC. More

Olympic swimmers could be racing in a new pool above Brisbane’s Roma Street railway station in 2032, according to planning documents released this February and comments by Queensland’s premier.
The $2 billion Brisbane Live entertainment centre, which was a market-led proposals that first emerged in 2016. In discussing the long-mooted proposal, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told local media, “Brisbane Live is one of those infrastructure projects that could be used for a 2032 Olympics as well. It could be used possibly for the swimming.”

The International Olympic Committee announced on 25 February that Brisbane is the prefered host for the 2032 games.
Architecture firms Archipelago, Woods Bagot and Populous have prepared a concept design for the Roma Station precinct, included in a proposed development scheme document published by the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority.

The proposal outlines how the development of a major sport, recreation and entertainment facility would besome a centrepiece for the wider precinct that would create an attractive and human-scale interface with Roma Street and Albert Street.

The design team note in a statement, “Our design response creatively unites the disparate topographies of these key CBD destinations in providing an Emma Miller Place design as the arrival forecourt for Brisbane Live and a civic gathering destination with its own distinctive but complementary identity.
“In emphasizing its current and historic importance as a workers gathering place the design integrates equitable and cycle access and hostile vehicle management throughout the precinct whilst concurrently delivering rich subtropical shade and catering for event activation, security screening and crowd management.”
The government has not said how long negotiations with the proponent are likely to go for.

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The Victorian government and the National Gallery of Victoria have announced four new jurors for the competition to design the NGV Contemporary gallery.
The new jury members, who hail from across the globe, will join NGV director Tony Ellwood, Victorian Government Architect Jill Garner, and NGV trustee, architect and jury chair Corbett Lyon. The new jurors include three architects and an Indigenous artist and curator.
Dutch architect Francine Houben is founding partner of multi-disciplinary practice Mecanoo, which she established in 1984. The practice has an extensive portfolio of award-winning buildings. Houben was named Woman Architect of the Year by the Architects’ Journal in 2014 and in 2015, she received the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Prize from Queen Máxima of the Netherlands for her career achievements.

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Xu Tiantian.

Xu Tiantian is founding principal of DnA Architecture in Beijing. She studied architecture and urban design at Harvard University and worked as a senior architect at OMA in Rotterdam. She was awarded the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture in 2019 by The Architects’ Journal and Architectural Review and has also received the Young Architects Award from The Architectural League New York and the WA Award for Chinese Architecture from World Architecture magazine.

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Gerard Reinmuth.
Image: courtesy NGV
Australian architect Gerard Reinmuth is the founding director of Terroir, which has studios in Sydney, Hobart and Copenhagen. Reinmuth was a creative director of the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2009 National Architecture Conference as well as creative director of Australia’s exhibition at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. Terroir’s recent projects include the Penguin Parade Visitor Centre, the Puffing Billy Railway Visitor Centre and the Tornhuset Maritime Museum in Malmö, Sweden, designed with Kim Utzon Architecture.

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Maree Clarke.
Image: Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre
Finally, Maree Clarke is a a Yorta Yorta/ Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung woman and an independent multi-disciplinary artist and curator. She has worked in the contemporary and cultural First Nations arts sector for more than three decades. Her work involves possum skin, kangaroo teeth, echidna quills, glass and photography. She is also a curator of the Koorie Heritage Trust and Wyndham Art Gallery.
The announcement of the new jurors also coincides with the opening of expressions of interest for the design competition. Registrations for the competition close on 9 March.

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Construction is underway for a 14-storey tower that will sit behind the facade of the Sands and McDougall building in central Adelaide, one of the earliest examples of Art Deco architecture in South Australia.
Designed by Cox Architecture, the tower at 60 King William Street will house 40,000 square metres of office space, which will make it one of the biggest office buildings in the city.
The original designs called for the complete demolition of the heritage shop building, but a campaign from heritage advocates and an intervention from environment minister David Speirs to fast-track the listing of the façade forced a redesign. The State Commission Assessment Panel approved the new design in November 2020.

Along with 14 levels of office space, the building will include a rooftop terrace, which the proponents are calling “Adelaide’s first sky lobby.”
A ground floor retail and food precinct will include cafes, restaurants, a supermarket and bar.

The tower will appear as a contemporary glass form emerging behind the heritage façade.
The Art Deco shop-front was a 1933 addition to a 19th century building, likely designed by architects Lionel Gregory Bruer and Norman Fisher in association with Philip Claridge and Russell Ellis, who was in his final year of architectural studies and articled to Bruer at the time.

Its statement heritage statement of significance describes the facade as an outstanding and early example of Art Deco architecture in South Australia.
“The facade is highly intact and demonstrates many of the key attributes of the style, including vertical form; concentration of ornamentation at the top of the building; and stylised decorations made from coloured-pressed Portland cement, copper panels, and metal grilles to the upper storey windows,” the statement reads.
The tower is expected to be completed by 2023 and Services Australia will be the anchor tenant of to the building. More