The new Royal Children's Hospital (pictured) picked up three of the major awards at the 2012 Institute of Architects Victorian Architecture Awards on June 29.

Designed by Billard Leece Partnership and Bates Smart, the hospital was awarded the Victorian Architecture Medal, The Melbourne Prize and the William Wardell Award for Public Architecture (New), awards which celebrate architectural excellence in our built environment: respectively in the state of Victoria, the city of Melbourne and the public realm.

In the award citation, Chair of the Victorian Architecture Medal Jury, Shelley Penn, wrote “the Hospital makes a breathtaking contribution to Melbourne’s civic realm. Nature as a way of healing permeates every aspect of the building with organic forms and colour, a variety of visual delights and abundant natural light”.

In total 260 projects were entered in this year’s awards program from across the state and tonight 65 state prizes and commendations were awarded. Winners of the named awards and state awards will now progress to the National Architecture Awards to be held in Perth on November 1. Other key award winners included the Colorbond Award for Steel Architecture, which honours the creative, innovative use of steel in architecture, was awarded to an outstanding project, The Annexe Art Gallery of Ballarat by Searle and Waldron.

The project has been recognised as a skilful study in design with steel which achieves a transformation of the urban environment to create a sophisticated sense of place.

The New Hammond Fellowship Centre in Warrnambool, designed by Harmer Architecture, has taken out this year’s Regional Prize, with the jury describing the project as ‘a new reason to turn to religion’. The building was called an architectural gem, ‘sculpted from the colours, textures and materials of history as it sits elegantly against the historic Anglican Christ Church’.

The Sir Osborn McCutcheon Award for Commercial Architecture once again went to NH Architecture, this year for their Saltwater Coast Lifestyle Centre, a sophisticated and welcoming building that uses materials and forms immediately at home in the coastal landscape of Melbourne’s west.

Continuing the trend of out of town projects winning awards,the 2012 Joseph Reed Award for Urban Design has gone to Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design for their William Buckley Bridge at Barwon Heads. Anew pedestrian and cyclist bridge crossing the mouth of the Barwon River, the project is a beautiful piece of civic architecture, fully considered and skilfully resolved.

Setting new standards in education design at Ormond College Academic Centre has resulted in McGlashan Everist taking home both the 2012Marion Mahony Award for Interior Architecture and the 2012 John George Knight Award for Heritage Architecture.

The project was recognised as an outstanding piece of architecture which improves the already highly valued original 1961 Frederick Romberg octagonal design of the MacFarlane Library.

The architects have ‘incorporated extensive new technologies, services and fabric without compromising the heritage considerations — an excellent example of how tired modern buildings can again become modern classics’.

This year’s top Residential Architecture Award- the Harold Desbrowe-Annear Award - went to a home that pushes the boundaries in the way ahouse can be lived in.

The Queensberry Street House by Robert Simeoni Architects isa comprehensively unique and exciting project that is ‘about privacy and shared spaces; seclusion and connectedness with the city and exploring how light and ventilation can be brought into an inner city courtyard house’.

Well known practice Six Degrees have received multiple awards for their Heller Street Park and Residences.

Taking home both the Best Overend Award for Multiple Residential Architecture and the 2012 Sustainable Architecture Award, the project has regenerated a large previously contaminated site to create a new undulating public landscape. This outstanding design is ‘a breakthrough for design and sustainability — an important local development capable of creating an international level of interest’.

The 2012 Award for Small Project Architecture has gone to Baracco+ Wright Architecture for their Garage + Deck + Landscape project. Aclever and subtle synthesis, this project leaves nothing unconsidered. Baracco+ Wright have worked across multiple issues and scales and used ‘imaginativeproblem solving where potential is fully yet sensitively exploited’.

This year’s Enduring Architecture Award goes to the The National Gallery of Victoria designed by Sir Roy Grounds. Constructed in 1968, it is one of Melbourne’s most significant buildings still commanding a majestic presence as the centerpiece of the Southbank Arts Precinct.

Its feature water wall, arched entry and great hall with stained glass ceiling have created childhood memories common to generations of Melbournians.

Meeting with mixed reactions on its completion, the National Gallery was controversially shunned by the profession in the Victorian Architecture award program the following year, with the 1969 Bronze Medal going to the newly completed Southland Shopping Centre.

The final award for the evening was the Bates Smart Award for Architecture in the Media, which is for contributions in the media by journalists, editors, producers and others reporting on architecture and design. This year the quality of entrants was such that the jury awarded five awards, with two National Awards, the first going to Stuart Harrison for his book Forty Six Square Metres of Land Doesn’t Normally Become a House.

The second National Award was awarded to Stuart Harrison and Simon Knott for their Good, Bad or Ugly TV segments screen on ABC-TV’s Art Nation. They were applauded for successfully translating the mysterious world of architectural concepts into entertaining and accessible language, all delivered with confidence and humour

The State Award for Architecture in the Media went to POST Magazine Editorial Team for their magazine POST, which was deemed to ‘broaden the possibilities of architectural criticism and, simultaneously, open up the idea of what post occupancy evaluation might be’.

Two special awards were also given to individual outstanding projects. Philip Goad and Julie Willis were recognised for their work on the Encyclopaedia of Australian Architecture, and Melbourne Open House 2011 received an award in acknowledgement of the success of this extraordinary community celebration of Melbourne’s architectural heritage.

Architecture & Design Team

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