Australian Institute of Architects’ 2019 National Awards: the winners

This is Wish magazine’s ninth year of being a media partner with the Australian Institute of Architects for their National Awards.

Perth’s Yagan Square, by Lyons. Picture: Peter Bennetts

This is Wish magazine’s ninth year of being a media partner with the Australian Institute of Architects for their National Awards.

The gallery below showcases the winners of the awards in every category, giving readers a snapshot of the extraordinary state of architecture in Australia now.

National Awards of the Australian Institute of Architects

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Each year, as the winners of the various awards are revealed to us, there’s one category that, for me at least, is always the most anticipated: the winner of the Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture — Houses (New).

The Robin Boyd award is our most prestigious honour for house design and over the years we’ve been fortunate to experience first hand some astonishing buildings. And this year is no exception. When I looked at the finalists I knew immediately that the Daylesford Longhouse by Partners Hill architects would be a shoo-in. That’s not to take anything away from the other finalists, but there is something about this project that sets it apart not just from this year’s finalists, but from pretty much every other house in Australia.

READ MORE: Step inside The Longhouse

’Utterly extraordinary’: The Longhouse at Daylesford. Click the link above for more photographs and Luke Slattery’s feature story. Picture: Tom Ferguson

The jury for this year’s awards described the project as “utterly extraordinary”. The house — in Daylesford in country Victoria — was 10 years in the making and, as its name suggests, it’s a substantial structure. The house is 110 metres long, with a massive roof that collects rainwater in 340,000 litre tanks to support people, animals and plant produce. It’s a building that immediately calls to mind the famous quote from Le Corbusier that a house is “a machine for living in” — in other words, an efficient tool for providing for the necessities of life and no more (decoration is unnecessary). Under the one roof is a verdant garden, an intimate living space and an operational barn — functions that would normally be housed in separate buildings on a farm.

Writer Luke Slattery and photographer Tom Ferguson both travelled to Daylesford for our feature on the house, and both were utterly charmed by the extraordinary piece of architecture they discovered there.

COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture | National Award | Yagan Square | Lyons in assoc w Iredale Pedersen Hook and landscape architects ASPECT Studios | WA.

Congrats @LyonsArch, IPH and @ASPECTLandscape 👏 👏 👏 #NatAwards19 @COLORBONDsteel @architects_wa
📸 Peter Bennetts pic.twitter.com/PxeQ1uTOAM

— Aus INS Architect (@AusINSArchitect) November 7, 2019