What an atmosphere at the City Recital Hall in Sydney on Thursday night. It was the NSW Australian Institute of Architects Awards and the place was hopping. Noisy, excited voices that seemed the tangible, cumulative result of what’s no doubt been a year of incredibly hard (and long) work, commitment and challenge.
Think of what we expect architects to deliver: no less than a slice of our future. Where we live, work and play – what these places look like, how they perform, their environmental impact.
The concepts that drive great architecture might seem vague or theoretical to we lay people but how they translate to real life impact is what’s critical about our built environment.
It can influence our internal and social selves but also the way these boundaries interact.
When you enter a beautiful building or approach a fantastic cultural or public space, you might feel an impulse to lift your game a bit – think better, speak better, feel calmer and quieter (which is not always easy!) Or excited.
Last night in the gorgeous City Recital Hall it was pure excitement. How could it be otherwise with more than 1000 people clamouring to see if their name would be mentioned on stage, to see what their peers had created, but generally and probably more importantly you sensed, it was to honour the profession that had clearly captured their hearts and minds and may never let them go.
There were many people we know. Caroline Pidcock first, who took the stage with the rest of the team that delivered an amazing project in regional Taree to win the Milo Dunphy Award for Sustainable Architecture. It was a long, long project, with Pidcock starting it in 2009 and handing it over to Austin McFarland Architects to complete in 2024. That it was a Living Building Challenge projects explains much (See separate story).
The architects paid homage to the builder who gave form to the ideas and concepts to create a building that gives back more than it takes. But also, to the people who now occupy this community building and hopefully take inspiration from its beauty and care to shape their own lives.
Also on stage we were chuffed to see Ali Bounds, co-CEO of BVN who we’d only recently interviewed on the new Green Square Public School and Community Space which she led to two accolades on the night.
The project ticks so many boxes on the wishlist of how we can treat the integration of our young children and community that it must surely set an example for more to follow.
Bounds did say there have been many visitors to the school to see what’s been achieved there. She paid immense regard to the educator Nicole Molloy who is now principal of the school and whose ideas inspired the way these lucky kids will learn and, inevitably, shape their lives.
Director of city planning for Sydney Graham Jahn stood in for Lord Mayor Clover Moore to present the award.
Congratulation to the people who commissioned this project too, the City and the School Infrastructure NSW. Remembering this is a public school receiving the kind of architectural excellence – and build – that usually occurs in lucky private schools.
Also big on the night was the Sydney Fish Market, another personal favourite that reminds us of the grandeur of approach you get at the Mies van der Rohe Neue Nationalgalerie
in Berlin. Just stunning and an architectural icon not normally associated with a fish market. But wonderful juxtaposition!
Also of course the project that took out the very top honours of the night Central Station, which we’ve shamefully only just recently got a glimpse of and were amazed.
It’s an immense project that has the capacity to touch the lives of more than 400,000 people passing through daily and is exactly the kind of architecture that lifts community spirit and lets it fly.
Bah humbug for the politics that comes and goes… this stuff is enduring.
And of course there’s an award for enduring architecture, which on the night was won by Keith Cottier’s first built work, a bespoke theatre for Frensham School.
Of course this criteria should be innate in all the winners on the night and you’d expect no less.
But we can’t end these musings without mentioning the winner that will particularly touch any country soul – the Magenta Outhouse by Atelier Marks Gaal, a simple ablutions block and bath made entirely from recycled bits and pieces from some farm or other.
The winner thanked the jury for trudging through the mud and long grass to take a look
Many people would likely do the same!
