The end of the financial year went off with a bang at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition and Convention Centre, with over 800 guests celebrating the 2017 Victorian Architecture Awards; the first time since 2009 that the Awards have been presented at this venue.
Of the 223 entries, 58 Named Awards, Awards, and Commendations were presented across 16 Awards and Prizes categories, representing the best of Victoria’s architecture.
A full list of the winners can be found here. Projects that received an architecture award or named award will be considered for the National Architecture Awards, to be announced at the Albert Hall, Canberra Thursday 2 November.
Vanessa Bird, Victorian chapter president of the Australian Institute of Architects, said, “ there is a focus on designing healthy, liveable spaces. Living and working in well-designed buildings influences the way we think and feel….The value of good architecture is about creating places for people.”
Libbi Gorr, our esteemed MC for the second year in a row, started the evening with her tongue firmly in cheek toasting the talent in the room, telling us to be the best we can be...so feeling the sense of humour on the room, our table proceeded to play ‘word bingo’….how many times did we hear certain words when describing architecture.
Public………..Robust………...Typology…………...Sympathetic……………….Experimental
Voluminous ……………..considered……………...Periphery………………..Delight
Celebrate…………..Surprise…………..Complex …………..Programme….........Rigour…..
..challenging……….confidence…....BINGO!
So...let the games begin!
The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) by Silver Thomas Hanley, DesignInc and McBride Charles Ryan STHDI and MCR consortium, was the winner of both the Victorian Medal and the William Wardell Award for Public Architecture, no great surprise here.
It takes skill and imagination to deliver such a complex architecture program. With the aid of the architectural consortium, builders, financiers, and government agencies, this complex building makes a convincing statement to the public, about how architecture can add value.
In a first time, the Melbourne Prize was presented equally to two distinctly diverse projects, the Tanderrum Bridge by John Wardle Architects and NADAAA in collaboration, and the 2016 NGV Architecture Commission by M@ Studio Architects.
Both are public – as the former a bridge in Birrarung Marr and the other an iridescent pink car wash that was displayed for six months at the National Gallery of Victoria, Grollo Equiset Garden.
Forty houses were entered into the Residential Architecture – (New) category with Baracco and Wright Architects taking home the Harold Desbrowe-Annear Award for Rose House. Jury Chair, TIm Jackson, cited that through ‘its experimental unravelling of interior spaces … this house challenged our preconceptions of programme…”.
The AWS Sponsored , Sir Osborn McCutcheon Award for Commercial Architecture was awarded to Jackson Clements Burrows Architects for The Coppel & Piekarski Family Disability Respite Centre.
Jury chair, Kristen Green noted in the citation that here”.....the architects have demonstrated both design rigour and social warmth...this challenging brief has been handled with confidence and ease…”.
That my friends is BINGO!
Who won...I hear you say?
The Victorian architecture community won, for its collegiate, collaborative, supportive environment.
Photographer: Nic Granleese more images can be viewed here
Written by: Bernadette Wilson (VIC Event Correspondent for AWS)
Bernadette is the Studio Manager, at Cumulus Studio, Melbourne. She has worked within the profession across various practices, design disciplines, creative industries and peak bodies in Melbourne, New York and Dublin.
