Architecture

A proposal for twin towers in Parrmatta’s CBD, designed by SJB in collaboration with Land and Form, is currently on exhibition within the NSW government’s major projects planning portal.
Sited on a vacant lot opposite Parramatta’s station and bus interchange at 2 Fitzwilliam Street, the $400 million mixed-use project seeks to deliver high-rise rental housing atop a hotel podium with ground-floor retail.
After securing first-stage development consent in April last year, Urban Property Group selected SJB’s initial design from a design excellence competition between three competitors. At the time, the proposal included one apartment tower and one office tower above an office podium.
Having been selected for the NSW government’s State Significant Rezoning Program – an initiative launched in September 2024 to fast-track the delivery of housing to contribute to the National Housing Accord target – the scheme was revised with the replacement of the original office component with residential accommodation and a hotel.
Across two towers reaching 48-storeys and 40-storeys high, the current project includes more than 700 build-to-rent apartments. The podium, which accommodates a 217-room hotel and ground-floor retail dining spaces, is articulated with a diagonal, cross-block pedestrian link that echoes the break in the towers above and continues the axis of the train station entrance opposite. A five-storey basement for car parking is located below.

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SJB’s website notes, “Our proposal for 2 Fitzwilliam Street introduces a critical piece of urban fabric to Parramatta’s fast-changing CBD, facilitating intuitive connections and public respite with a strong sense of belonging and resilience.”
According to the firm, the design for “the podium responds to natural movement paths through the public domain – people, wind and water – creating an organic form that guides people intuitively, scales to human proportions and adapts to the natural topography of the site.”
The current state significant development application can be viewed online. More

Timothy Hill is the director of architecture studio Partners Hill. In 2025, he was awarded the Australian Institute of Architects Gold Medal in recognition of his exemplary architectural work, as well as his broader contributions to the profession through education, discourse and advocacy.
In this episode of Design Speaks Weekly, Katelin Butler, editorial director at Architecture Media, sits down with Timothy as the national Gold Medal tour gets underway. He reflects on the current state of architectural process, explains his use of the term “little ‘a’ architect” and considers how we might more clearly define the role of the architect.

During the conversation, Hill reflects on the paradox that, despite all the advances in digital tools, architecture hasn’t necessarily become more efficient. He notes that while “architects use QWERTY keyboards to make drawings now,” much of the essential knowledge about how buildings are made still comes from two-dimensional drawings.
“I’m not speaking romantically. It’s just that, for all the 3D-ness of things, you need to know the measurements – and the measurements are forever going to be in two dimensions. So here we are, madly drawing in 3D, but the drawings are still for building contracts. So, um… why are we drawing in 3D again?”
Design Speaks Weekly is presented in partnership with the Australian Institute of Architects and with support from Lysaght. A fresh episode will be delivered every Tuesday. You can listen to it on major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Pocket Casts. More

Brisbane City Council has granted consent for the rezoning of an 86-year-old former paint factory on the city’s southside that would see it transformed into a mixed-use arts precinct. With the site currently designated as low-impact industrial land, the approval paves the way for a two-stage development featuring converted spaces for creative industries and a series of new apartment buildings.
The site at 115 Hyde Road in Yeronga opened as the Taubmans paint manufacturing plant in 1939 and operated for more than 60 years before closing in 2015. It has since served as a temporary creative space for artists such as Richard Bell and Judy Watson, as well as architecture practice Five Mile Radius.
Following council’s approval last week, the factory is now set to evolve into a permanent “arts village” based on plans prepared in 2023 by Wolter Consulting in collaboration with landscape architecture practice Dunn and Moran, and architectural design firm Mode Design.

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The first stage of proposed works includes the reworking of the paint factory to the south of the site, including food and drink outlets, art spaces, a theatre and an escape room, as well as 64 car parks for visitors and staff with up to 200 spaces for events.
According to a media release from the councillor for Central Ward Vicki Howard, the 34,000-square-metre precinct “could also feature markets, health services, a garden centre, a hardware store and hundreds of new homes” in the future.
As part of stage two of the works, a collection of apartment buildings are proposed on the north-side of the site. In respect of the precinct’s approved height, council has endorsed a four-storey-high envelope on the site’s southern edge and up to eight storeys in the site’s centre.

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Submissions made by the public during the consultation period in early 2024 were divided in their response to the proposal, with many local residents favouring the factory’s adaptive reuse but expressing concern with the scale of the proposed mid-rise apartments within the predominantly low-rise suburb.
In 2023, councillor for Tennyson Ward Nicole Johnston noted that while “some aspects of the proposal are innovative and welcome, such as reuse of some the existing buildings for arts purposes … others are concerning, such as the significant number of future high-rise unit blocks and an estimated additional 2000 vehicles per day accessing the site.”
“Finally, some are just plain inadequate, namely the lack of any new infrastructure,” she added.

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Howard’s communique aligns the proposal with the council’s ambition to convert under-utilised commercial and industrial land into lifestyle and housing opportunities to cater for rapid growth, as outlined in Brisbane’s Sustainable Growth Strategy.
Chair of the Lord Mayor’s Better Suburbs Initiative Ross Elliott commented, “Suburban renewal means making the most of what we already have, by repurposing older suburban land uses into contemporary places which meet today’s community needs. The Paint Factory project does just this.
He added, “In the same way that former industrial areas like James Street, New Farm, have over time converted into vibrant mixed-use precincts, the same can happen in other precincts across the city.” More

The City of Sydney is seeking feedback to help shape the planning and design of a multimillion-dollar renewal of the state-heritage-listed Paddington Town Hall on Oxford Street.
Built in 1891 to the design of architect John Edward Kemp, the two-storey town hall is an example of the Victorian Free Classical architectural style and was the result of an international design competition. Its standout features include a 32-metre clock tower, an open colonnade to Oxford Street and rows of Roman-arched windows flanked by corinthian pilasters.
The original building, including furnishings and the clock tower, cost £13,000. However, the clock tower itself was not added to the building until 1905 – to commemorate the coronation of King Edward VII.
According to the NSW State Heritage Inventory, the town hall has historical, aesthetic and social significance. The building was the venue for the first Aboriginal Debutante Ball in Sydney in 1966 and the fourth National Homosexual Conference of 1978, which passed a motion to commemorate the first Mardi Gras.

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It also contains what the heritage inventory describes as “very rare surviving public interior design elements by Walter Burley Griffin,” who designed the interior renovations in the 1930s to make the hall more suitable for dances.
Today, the historic town hall houses a library, a cinema and Stapleton Hall, which is used by arts and cultural organisations, community groups, charities and schools.
According to the council, the upgrades will improve accessibility, functionality and versatility of the building, modernise building services and amenities, repair and protect important historical features, and strengthen the buildings’s role as a cultural and community hub. The existing library will be retained.
Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore said it is the first major upgrade for the building in more than 50 years. “This wonderful building is emblematic of the Victorian free classical architecture of the time,” said Moore. “We’re asking the community to share their stories with us about the building, what their connection is and what memories they have of this historic venue.”
Feedback can be submitted online until 25 September 2025. More

This exhibition, to be held between 4 September and 7 September, examines the humble shed as an enduring architectural typology that challenges dominant ideas of scale, permanence and construction. Modest and often overlooked, the shed sits between the vernacular and the experimental, offering alternative ways to think about architecture outside the mainstream. Koya: Shed Architecture presents a selection of projects by Japanese architects Mio Tsuneyama of Studio Mnm and Fuminori Nousaku of Fuminori Nousaku Architects that reimagine the shed as a new vernacular in contemporary practice. These designs will be presented alongside contributions from architecture students at the University of Melbourne.

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Now in its 29th year, Sydney Design Week returns this 11 September with the theme “Community Design,” spotlighting how design can foster connection, resilience and cultural identity in a changing world. Speakers include Pritzker Prize-winning architect Francis Kéré, co-director of Incidental Architecture Daina Cunningham, Li Hu and Huang Wenjing of Beijing-based studio Open Architecture, acclaimed Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan, Thai landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom, professor Elizabeth Mossop of Living Lab Northern Rivers and Choi Studio director John Choi.

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Making Good: Redesigning the Everyday exhibition explores how designers are reshaping the products and systems that shape our daily lives – transforming them into solutions that are better for people and the planet. From sofas that embrace you to concrete made from coffee grounds, the exhibition features work from more than 50 contemporary designers, studios and brands who are challenging outdated materials, systems and social norms to reduce waste and extend product lifespans. This Melbourne-based exhibition will run until February 2026.

The Regional Architecture Association (RAA)’s third event for 2025 – Mparntwe: When you come to another country — will be held in Alice Springs on Arrernte Country between 11–13 September. The event promises that visitors will gain more than a tourist’s view, coming away with a felt sense of Mparntwe’s layered Country and a deeper reckoning with the intricate, often uneasy entanglements of community, climate, landscape and water in Central Australia. The program features site visits – including to Dunn Hillam’s Desert House – as well as presentations from Trent Woods of Officer Woods Architects, Troy Casey of Blaklash and David Donald of Healthabitat, among others.

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Gold Coast Open House will return on 27 and 28 September 2025. Over this free weekend, the doors will open to some of the Gold Coast’s fascinating residences and buildings, offering an exciting opportunity to discover the rich architectural heritage and innovative design of the ever-evolving Gold Coast landscape. The program is yet to be announced. More

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) in South Brisbane, which opened to the public on 20 April 1985. Designed by local architect Robin Gibson and Partners, the project was appointed following the firm’s success in a two-stage competition for the nearby Queensland Art Gallery in 1973.
Four years after the QPAC’s completion, Gibson was awarded the Australian Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal. Later, in 2010, the QPAC building was recognised with the Institute’s 25 Year Enduring Architecture Award.
Together with The Edge at the State Library of Queensland, the Queensland Art Gallery, the Queensland Museum, and the Cultural Forecourt near the river, QPAC forms part of the Queensland Cultural Precinct, which gained state heritage status in 2015.

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QPAC itself is home to three original theatres – the Lyric Theatre, seating up to 2,000 attendees for ballet and musical theatre; the 1,800-seat Concert Hall for live music and orchestral performances; and a small, 300-seat space called the Cremorne Theatre. A fourth theatre for smaller productions seating 850 guests, called The Playhouse, was opened in 1998. Despite being completed more than a decade later, the addition maintains the architectural language of the original building.
An extract from Light, Space, Place: The Architecture of Robin Gibson, by architecture academic Deborah Van der Plaat, notes that in his design for QPAC, “Gibson sought to capture the drama and excitement of attending the theatre.”
“Recalling Garnier’s Paris Opera (1875), where the grand staircase acted as a podium from which theatregoers could see, and be seen, the circulation spaces at QPAC also encourage patrons to participate in the performance of visiting the theatre,” the extract reads. “Externally, the large expanses of glass rise and fall to mirror the internal staircases creating an attractive, kinetic element to the riverside facade. From the interior, patrons experience expansive views of the river and the city beyond.”

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Reflecting on the project’s milestone, Minister for the Arts John-Paul Langbroek commented that “for 40 years, QPAC has been the beating heart of Queensland’s vibrant arts and cultural scene … deliver[ing] exceptional arts experiences to more than 30 million people since opening its doors.”
To celebrate the milestone, QPAC has announced an open day on Sunday 31 August 2025, inviting the public backstage of each of the complex’s theatres, with the exception of the forthcoming Glasshouse Theatre. Currently under construction, the new $150 million, 1,500-seat addition designed by Blight Rayner and Snøhetta is expected to open in May 2026.
QPAC chief executive Rachel Healy said, the open day would give “hundreds of people the opportunity to see and feel the workings backstage of what is soon to become Australia’s biggest performing arts centre under one roof.”
As part of the free-to-attend open day program, a cultural precinct architecture tour led by former Queensland government architect Malcolm Middleton will give insight into Gibson’s design of the precinct.
Information on the program can be found online. More

In the lead up to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, a newly launched initiative is looking to celebrate Brisbane’s 1959 Centenary Pool, designed by then-city architect James Birrell. The Centenary Pools Project, which is being led by Birrell’s son and director of Place Design Group James Birrell, will bring together public reflections on the pool’s significance in an exhibition and publication.
Created in the wake of Australia’s 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the Centenary Pool complex – home to Brisbane’s first Olympic-standard pool – is now set to become the heart of the forthcoming National Aquatic Centre for the 2032 games.
The heritage-listed pool has been widely recognised as a symbol of Australian modernism and has for decades “played a central role in the city’s social fabric, from swimming lessons to major civic events,” a media communique from the Centenary Pools Project notes.
In response to this context, the project seeks to offer “an opportunity to reflect on the pool’s significance over six decades as a space for learning, competition, recreation and community gatherings” – and to consider its role in the city’s future.

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Submissions are welcome from artists, writers, photographers, architects, historians and community members – the aim being “to contribute … unique perspectives to this collaborative initiative that honours the historical, cultural and architectural legacy of this iconic Brisbane landmark.”
According to the project’s organisers, diverse forms of creative expression that capture the essence of Centenary Pool are encouraged, and may include photography, visual art, personal memoirs and historical accounts.
Public submissions can be made online until 1 December 2025. Once collated, the contributions will be featured in an exhibition and publication, the proceeds of which will support Paralympics Australia. More

The City of Melbourne has released its draft Melbourne 2050 Vision for public comment.
The 25-year vision was shaped by extensive engagement with more than 1,850 community members and stakeholders. It outlines draft principles to guide the city’s future.
Themes that emerged from the engagement process – and which inform the draft vision – reflect a strong desire for a city that is:

Accessible – to affordable housing, services, food systems, transport and education
People-first – prioritising transport and walkability
Country-centred – drawing on First Nations culture, knowledge and systems
Connected and intercultural – fostering inclusive communities
Vibrant and engaging – rich in arts, entertainment and creative opportunities
Full of opportunity – supporting business, innovation and collaboration
Green and environmentally friendly – with strong connections to parks, open spaces and greenery both within buildings and streets
Future-focused – prioritising regeneration and sustainability
Supportive of community health and wellbeing
Safe and welcoming.

In its call for feedback, the City of Melbourne noted that setting a vision for 2050 opens up broader conversations about the city’s future and the planning needed to achieve long-term goals.
“We’re watching what’s changing in the world around us. We know that we must adapt to a changing climate, be ready for rapid digital transformation, keep pushing towards net zero, and improve our economic and social resilience in the years ahead,” said the council.
“When it comes to quality of life today, Melbourne sits in the top five global cities. We feel the world changing around us. We want to make sure that our community and all who have a connection to or an interest in Melbourne can share in the opportunities before us, grow their ideas, work together and be a part of a great future in Melbourne.”
Feedback on the draft documents is being sought until 21 September 2025. Final documents will be presented at a Future Melbourne Committee meeting on 21 October 2025.
To find out more or have your say on the future of Melbourne, visit here. More