national Urban Design awards<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe St Kilda pier redevelopment was praised for balancing the demands of its many users, including penguins. Photograph: Peter Clarke<\/p>\n
The project has weathered its share of controversy, including an aborted attempt by Parks Victoria to introduce pay-per-view access to the pier\u2019s resident penguin colony. On Friday, the Victorian jury panel praised the project for succeeding in balancing the competing demands of tourists, locals, fishers, ferries, marina users \u2013 and even the penguins.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project demonstrates how complex infrastructure can also become playful, social and deeply civic,\u201d the judges said.<\/p>\n
Building on recent national and New South Wales awards, sustainability, resource efficiency and community-minded public design took centre stage at the Victorian awards.<\/p>\n
Jury chair, architect and academic Simon Knott said this year\u2019s standout projects were defined by their ability to transcend purely utilitarian briefs and prioritise human interaction.<\/p>\n
St Kilda\u2019s summer playground was extended with the suburb\u2019s redesigned pier. Photograph: Peter Clarke<\/p>\n
\u201c[They] feature beloved landmarks that have transcended their function as a piece of infrastructure,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cWe saw multiple community projects that are delightful sites of human congregation where community-centric design has been at the forefront, taking prosaic pieces of existing architecture and making them a place of recreation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even sites with a \u201cgrim history\u201d had been \u201cutterly transformed with deft hands,\u201d Knott said.<\/p>\n
One site from a bygone era is the former Sunbury Lunatic Asylum, built in 1879, renamed the Sunbury Hospital for the Insane in 1905 and again as the Caloola Training Centre in 1985.<\/p>\n
After being part of the Victoria University campus for almost two decades, it has now been transformed into the Sunbury community arts and cultural precinct, a project that won a clutch of gongs, including the John George Knight award for heritage and the award for interior architecture.<\/p>\n
The architects of Sunbury\u2019s art precinct were awarded for their skill at turning an institution that restricted human interaction into a space that fosters it. Photograph: Peter Bennetts<\/p>\n
The judges praised the design by Architecture Associates with Openwork as an adaptive reuse of an institutional complex that had previously been defined by human containment.<\/p>\n
\u201cA fine balance is required when a building designed to restrict and remove persons from society becomes one that celebrates community coming together,\u201d the judges\u2019 statement said.<\/p>\n
\u2018To let the building\u2019s story unfold \u2026 sometimes directly, sometimes by shadowing the past \u2026 is a skill that has many facets. The architects utilise all these skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
The push to convert under utilised urban spaces into functional and flexible workspaces was evident in Fieldwork\u2019s design of 65 Dover Street in Cremorne, which claimed the Sir Osborn McCutcheon award for commercial architecture.<\/p>\n
Fieldwork\u2019s project at 65 Dover Street in Cremorne features a rooftop recreation space for workers. Photograph: Tom Ross<\/p>\n
Fieldwork was commended for its \u201celegant and nuanced\u201d response to the site, which includes a rooftop recreation space for workers with a half-size basketball court.<\/p>\n
\u201c65 Dover St sets a new benchmark for commercial architecture of this scale \u2013 integrous, gracious and refined,\u201d judges said.<\/p>\n
The Henry Bastow award for educational architecture went to Baldasso Cortese\u2019s Edmund Rice centre at Emmanuel College. Clad in Colorbond manor red, the Warrnambool campus learning hub is organised into three learning domains \u2013 wisdom, communication and discovery \u2013 all facing into a central courtyard.<\/p>\n
The Edmund Rice centre at Emmanuel College in Warrnambool won the award for educational architecture. Photograph: Dan Farrar<\/p>\n
In the residential categories, the winners were dominated by sustainable refits of heritage structures over the traditional \u201cknockdown rebuild\u201d strategy.<\/p>\n
Robert Simeoni Architects\u2019 Palmerston Street house in Calrton took out the heritage award and the John and Phyllis Murphy award for alterations and additions.<\/p>\n
Judges admired the architects\u2019 reimagining of Palmerston Street house, a former 1870s hotel in Carlton. Photograph: Trevor Mein<\/p>\n
The architects\u2019 design was admired for its restrained reimagining of the former 1870s hotel, while negotiating rising construction costs and material shortages.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt works directly, honestly and poetically within these limitations to find a spatial and material language that delights in its own economy,\u201d the judges said.<\/p>\n
For new builds, the Harold Desbrowe Annear award went to Edition Offices\u2019 \u201cHouse in a Garden\u201d, a striking, elevated timber form nestled into the canopy of the Birrarung flood plain, giving \u201ca cinematic sense of immersion within a highly choreographed landscape\u201d.<\/p>\n
Edition Offices\u2019 winning \u2018House in a Garden\u2019. Photograph: Australian Institute of Architects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The reimagined St Kilda pier has added more accolades to its burgeoning trophy cabinet, taking out some of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-713602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}