‘Gift to the city’: Sydney’s Quay Quarters wins major architecture award

Sydney’s new Quay Quarter Lanes project at Circular Quay has been described as a “gift to the city”.

It won the Walter Burley Griffin Award for Urban Design on Thursday in the Australian Institute of Architects’ national architecture awards.

Individual projects in the precinct were also celebrated.

The Quay Quarter Lanes project at Circular Quay was honoured at the national architecture awards.Credit: Jessica Hromas

The project, a revitalisation of the area between Loftus and Young Streets, was a partnership between a range of firms, including SJB, Silvester Fuller, Studio Bright, Carter Williamson, Lippman Partnership and ASPECT Studios.

The jury of top architects said it hoped the new quarter would become a benchmark for other city projects.

A new art bridge at Bundanon, the property given to the nation by the late landscape artist Arthur Boyd, by Kerstin Thompson Architect captured the spirit of Australian architecture, the jury said.

It hit the “holy grail” of achievement to win the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture and a National Award for Sustainable Architecture.

The art bridge at Bundanon captured the spirit of Australian architecture, the jury said.

“In what is becoming a reference for the holy grail of Australian architecture, Bundanon adds to the next chapter of the Arthur and Yvonne Boyd estate,” said the jury. “Bundanon is a layered work that has been sensitively handled and respects the original vision for the estate.”

Brisbane-based practice BVN was awarded the Emil Sodersten Award for interior architecture for its own studio and another award for educational architecture. The jury was lyrical about BVN’s own premises: “The design caresses our senses and encourages a more nature-centred approach to life.”

Other projects in Sydney’s Quay Quarter Lanes were also celebrated. Studio Bright’s apartments on Quay Quarter Lanes – 8 Loftus Street won the Frederick Romberg Award for residential architecture – multiple housing.

Tonkin Zulaikha Greer’s work on the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct had transformed the old finger wharves into the “cultural heart for Sydney” while honouring the original design. It won the Lachlan Macquarie Award for heritage.

Lead architect Peter Tonkin, director of Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, at the award-winning Walsh Bay precinct.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Jury chair and immediate past national president Tony Giannone congratulated winners and entrants. He said that “judging inevitably has a subjective lens and, as a national jury, we acknowledge that all the projects listed are already winners in each of their states, and celebrated within their own communities – a huge achievement”.

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