Architecture for people over postcards wins the NSW Architecture Awards 2022
Projects that genuinely focus on the needs, comforts, sensory and aesthetic delight of their human users are coming to the fore and were rewarded at the NSW Architecture Awards announced on Friday night.
Concluding the long whittling-down process of selecting, region-by-region and state-by-state, the best architecture of 2022, the judges confirmed the very gratifying trend of fine-grained, people-scaled buildings, or new elements of infrastructure that positively invite interaction.
They are not daunting. Stand back, look up and be awed from a distance by scale. These are places for the people to be in.
The Lord Mayor’s Award went to the Quay Quarter Lanes, a mixed-use development that has given Sydney’s CBD threshold a wonderfully nuanced new neighbourhood to mediate between the openness of Circular Quay and the tall density of the corporate city. It presents pedestrians with some cut-through laneways that compel exploration.
Over two city blocks, five buildings (three new, two refreshed) are now linked by pedestrianised thoroughfares full of eating places, milling squares, retail outlets and, above them, bricky residential apartments that don’t dominate or detract.
It all feels very organic and, like the most interesting places in the most interesting cities, as if it has been evolving for a long time.
It also brought an award for urban design to a small orchestra of different practices who added their different tonal notes to bring the Quay Quarter to life. SJB, Silverster Fuller, Studio Bright, Carter Williamson, Lippman Partnership and ASPECT Studio landscapers shared the spotlight for the wins as a collective.
Further accolades for the precinct picked out two of the studios – SJB for 9-15 Young Street and Studio Bright for 8 Loftus Street – as award winners in the multi-residential category.
During the night’s celebrations, SJB was the name most often repeated for some of the most important awards in the 20 different categories: commercial (52 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills); urban design (Newcastle East End); and multi-residential (Clarion in Alexandria).
The single project that claimed the most awards – including the ultimate NSW Architecture Medallion, an award for public architecture and another for heritage and interiors – was the “masterful” $371 million adaption of the two old Walsh Bay finger wharves into a concentration of arts companies, theatres and concert halls. This crucible of creativity is in an utterly unmatchable location.
The jury particularly said, “the triple-glazed theatre walls afford spectacular views of the Harbour Bridge whilst achieving the acoustic standards for a chamber orchestra performance”. The jurors said that was “just one example of the technical feats achieved”.
Kerstin Thompson Architects’ brilliantly conceived bridge-like structure that is the iconic Bundanon art museum on the NSW south coast, near Nowra, was an anticipated winner. It took out the Sulman Medal for public architecture and the award for sustainable architecture.
But keeping to the theme of people-friendly projects, fjmtstudio and Sissons’ variation on the new-era workplace, The Foundry in South Eveleigh, took out the commercial award and the Colorbond steel architecture award.
From a distance, all that central open space looks so public and casual it could be a shopping centre or a cool university building. And yes, it has been deliberately set up so people are constantly encountering each other and feeling comfortable about exchanging ideas.
Collaboration is so much the way of the workplace future that the big, wide staircase has been dubbed the “lunch and learn stair”.
The new Parramatta Escarpment Boardwalk that hugs the river from the University of Western Sydney to Parramatta Park has given locals and tourists so much enjoyment that it very quickly doubled its projected user numbers.
On Friday night it gave Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects with McGregor Westlake and Jane Irwin Landscape Architecture another award for urban architecture.
Australia’s oldest enclosed public tidal pool, the Dawn Fraser Baths at Balmain has been a people’s recreation place since 1882. The recent project to lift the timber pavilion and sandstone boardwalk so they won’t be inundated by future sea-level rise won TKD Architecture another award for heritage.
2022 NSW Architecture Award winners
The named award in bold is the highest award in each category.
NSW Architecture Medallion
Public Architecture
Educational Architecture
Commercial Architecture
Urban Design
Sustainable Architecture
Residential Architecture – Houses (New)
Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing
Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations & Additions)
Small Project Architecture
Interior Architecture
Heritage
COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture | The Foundry | Lead fjmtstudio, fjmtstudio + Sissons – Architects in Association to DA
EmAGN Project Award | The Great Cobar Museum | Dunn & Hillam Architects
Emerging Architecture Prize | Qianyi Lim
The Blacket Prize | Eden Port Welcome Centre | COX Architecture
Enduring Award | Woolley Hesketh House | Ken Woolley
The Lord Mayor’s Prize | 52 Reservoir Street | SJB
The Lord Mayor’s Prize | Quay Quarter Lanes | SJB, Silvester Fuller, Studio Bright, Carter Williamson, Lippmann Partnership and ASPECT Studios
The Premier’s Prize | Newcastle East End Stage 1 | SJB, Durbach Block Jaggers and Tonkin Zulaikha Greer.
