Kangaroo Point Bridge received three awards, including the top honour, the Queensland Architecture Medallion.
“The bridge creates connections between where people live and where people work in a quite beautiful way, by having these moments of experience as you cross the bridge,” Goh said.
A hospital restoring dignity to its patients
Another local project winning multiple awards is the Caboolture Hospital Clinical Services Building.
The $353 million addition to the hospital took out the FDG Stanley Award for Public Architecture as well as the Social Impact Prize and a commendation for Interior Architecture.
“Hospitals are often labyrinths, it can be a really frustrating experience,” Goh says.
“This hospital addresses that. There are generous, welcoming areas, and you don’t feel lost.
Caboolture Hospital Clinical Services Building, where palliative care rooms are well ventilated and look out onto a green open courtyard.Credit: Ashley Bullas
“The architects have worked hard to provide moments of comfort and dignity for people who are in the hospital.”
Jacobs Australia’s Megan Reading said the courtyard was central to the design.
“We oriented the buildings so they looked forwards to the north, because people don’t want to look at roofs. It’s about maximising light, and getting the views across the township of Caboolture.”
Reading came to architecture after being a registered nurse, which she says gives her “real empathy” for the work hospital staff have to perform delivering the care that the community expects.
“It gives me a great thrill to be able to deliver them a really functioning, high-quality environment to work in,” she said.
A less-is-more renovation
Designed by John Ellway, Niwa House in Highgate Hill earned the Elina Mottram Award for Residential Architecture in the Houses (Alterations and Additions) category.
The original Queenslander sat 2.5 metres above the backyard and had no real connection to the outdoors. Ellway added a ground-level kitchen-dining room to the rear joined to the building by an interior garden.
“There are houses that look out. This house creates a world inside,” Goh says.
Rather than gobbling up garden space the extension only adds 30 square metres to the original building.
“Adding a whole heap of area to a house doesn’t make it more liveable if the original bits aren’t configured well,” Ellway says.
‘Niwa’ is Japanese for garden or yard, and the renovation reflects the architect’s Japanese influences and the owners’ fondness for the country.
“Traditional Japanese houses, like our own, are timber, so there are many clues about how to control light and combine with gardens,” Ellway says.
The relevance of architectural awards
Other winners within the Brisbane area include two awards for the Sun Stadium, a public artwork at the University of Queensland in St Lucia.
The Beatrice Hutton Award for Commercial Architecture was won by the redevelopment of the former Piccadilly Arcade in Queen Street.
The National Rugby Training Centre in Herston won an Award for Public Architecture and an Award for Interior Architecture.
St Aidan’s Anglican Girls School Sports Performance Centre in Corinda won awards for Educational Architecture and Steel Architecture.
Gold Creek, a house in bushland in Brookfield co-designed by Steendijk with legendary Australian architect Glenn Murcutt, got an Award for Residential Architecture.
Blok Three Sisters, a trio of joined modular beach houses on North Stradbroke Island built for three siblings, won the Award for Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing.
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Goh praised the latter as an example of architects using their skills to address the housing shortage.
“Those kinds of solutions are doubling the density, but at the same time, making them liveable and beautiful places to be in,” he said.
Goh said the awards were important for reminding people why architecture matters.
“There’s a famous quote by Winston Churchill who said, ‘we shape our buildings, and then they shape us’,” he said.
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