The Adelaide Oval redevelopment was awarded the 2015 National COLORBOND Award for Steel Architecture at the Australian Institute of Architects' National Architecture Awards in Brisbane. The award-winning redevelopment of the southern and eastern grandstands at the Oval was a joint project involving Cox Architecture, Walter Brooke and Hames Sharley.

BlueScope Steel Group marketing manager - Sales & Marketing, Fiona Robinson commented that the prestigious COLORBOND steel award went to a project with “a delightfully contemporary, scalloped form that is refined in its expression and clearly demonstrates the suitability of steel as a complementary material to enhance heritage fabric". 

BlueScope also congratulated Johnson Pilton Walker Architects for receiving the 2015 National COLORBOND Award for Steel Architecture - Commendation for their work on 50 Martin Place.

Cox Architecture director Patrick Ness said they were delighted to contribute to the transformation of the historic and significant Adelaide Oval, and receiving the 2015 National COLORBOND Award for Steel Architecture for their efforts was a great honour.

Mr Ness noted that the use of steel allowed the design team creative freedom to achieve the dynamic forms that are now synonymous with Adelaide Oval. The architects worked closely with Arup and the fabricators to fully utilise the properties of steel to create beautifully designed details at every connection and node of the Oval structure.

Hames Sharley director Peter McGregor said that the Oval development has changed the face of the Riverbank Precinct and provided the city of Adelaide with a truly world-class venue. Observing that the Adelaide Oval has hosted both cricket and football at the highest level since colonial times, he commented that its iconic and cultural presence required a sensitive response to capture both the modern and historic aspects. This required a considered approach to materials such as steel and sandstone.

The citation for the COLORBOND Award from the Australian Institute of Architects Awards Jury reads:

"Project's innovative use of steel has provided the material and structural means to give shade and shelter at human scale, and to impart a spectacular sense of spatial expression.

"Especially noteworthy is the carefully engineered lightness of the pavilion roofs' steel members. This lightness is accentuated by each pavilion roof sitting well above the uppermost seating plats, which visually and functionally allows the entire stadium to 'breathe'. 

"The jury found the new Southern Stand's roof structure to be particularly breathtaking in its scale. Formed by a single curved shell with a stiffening perimeter truss, it has been engineered to achieve maximum visual lightness. 

"The concept of three pavilions, each framed and roofed in steel and of a different but formally related character, has allowed each different section of the stadium to feel like a special place. The language of the floating, column-free, white diagrid structure common to each pavilion unifies the whole composition."