The winners of the Victorian Chapter of the AIA Awards have been announced, with ARM Architecture taking out four awards - including a sixth Victorian Medal - for the Geelong Library & Heritage Centre. "It has elevated the role of public architecture for both Geelong and the wider regional community," Hamish Lyon, Chair of Juries said.
The state’s longest standing honour, the Sulman Medal, was awarded to the "quintessentially Australian" Kempsey Crescent Head Surf Life Saving Club by Neeson Murcutt Architects, with SJB Architects, Smart Design Studio and WMK Architecture among the other celebrated practices at the AIA NSW Architecture Awards.
"The contemporary church is getting much more sophisticated in marketing their image," says Koos de Keijzer, director of architectural firm, DKO. As the number of non-religious Australians continues to increase, what does this mean for churches – and can the reimagining of the traditional design help attract a new wave of religious followers?
"There is no way that any company that we know of could do what we did, and now there are 1200 people who are safe from the next cyclone," says Nev Hyman. After years of surfing the world's waters, Hyman collaborated with Ken McBride of HASSELL to create cyclone-proof prefab homes for remote villages, constructed from recycled waste plastic.