Top order: cricket shed pads up for national architecture award

In the recent Australian Institute of Architects (Queensland chapter) awards, a small unassuming building at UQ’s St Lucia campus claimed 2 titles for its ‘celebration of cost efficiencies in an exploration of the common grey block’.

Built during 2020–2021, a time of material supply constraints, the UQ Cricket Club Maintenance Shed was lauded for ‘not presenting as an identifiable utility shed, rather as a landscape wall in the field’ and went on to win the state’s highest honour, the Queensland Architecture Medallion, as well as The Hayes and Scott Award for Small Project Architecture.

Commissioned by UQ’s Property and Facilities team, designed by Lineburg Wang with Steve Hunt Architect and built by Xenia Constructions, the building combines form and function, showing off the texture and pattern of basic concrete blocks in an unexpected way. And all for low cost.

The building has since gone on to win the national award for Small Project Architecture. According to the jury citation:

But the Cricket Club shed was not the only UQ building to be honoured at the state awards.

The Elkhorn Building, located at UQ’s Long Pocket precinct, was once an abandoned building but was transformed by m3architecture to become an energy-efficient facility for teaching, research and food innovation within a rejuvenated landscape. It won an Award for Educational Architecture.

According to Professor Neena Mitter FTSE, Director for the Centre for Horticultural Science, whose team is now working in the building, “m3architecture understood our needs, discussed all the problems encountered, and committed to achieving the best result on behalf of the academic team, despite the complexity of the project.”

m3architecture was also responsible for another sensitive construction of a technically complex project: a laboratory completely free of plastic, the Minderoo Centre.

Director, Plastics and Human Health at the Minderoo Foundation, Emerita Professor Sarah Dunlop, said that the ability of the architect to go ‘back to basics’ and test every element of the design and construction, from floor to walls to ceilings to equipment, in order to remove all plastic “shows a commitment to the demands of a tenacious brief for a unique and world-leading research facility”.

The project won an Award for Small Project Architecture.

Both the Elkhorn Building and the Minderoo Centre will also progress to the Australian Institute of Architects’ national awards to be announced on 31 October 2023.

Student Central, designed by Hassell Architects, received a Commendation for Interior Architecture for its successful integration of 3 buildings – Prentice, Physics Annexe and the former Staff Club – that enables visitors to enjoy a ‘bright and welcoming place that normalises student welfare and counselling services’. The project also received an Honourable Mention for its social impact.

And Phorm architecture + design’s Blue Bower received a Commendation for Small Project Architecture.

This conceptual project explores the possibilities of temporary urban shelter and was reconstructed in UQ St Lucia’s Great Court to demonstrate its potential as a piece of urban furniture that serves the public. Working in partnership with UQ School of Architecture academics Dr Silvia Micheli and Associate Professor Antony Moulis, the project engaged undergraduate and postgraduate architecture students, offering new learning and mentorship opportunities translating innovative ideas into built form.

Meanwhile, at the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects’ 2023 Queensland Landscape Architecture Awards, UQ again shone brightly, with the Reconciliation Garden at UQ Herston winning the Health and Education Landscape category prize.

Designed by Saltwater Budawang (Yuin) woman Kaylie Salvatori from Arcadia, in consultation with the local Indigenous community, the garden ‘respectfully balances the site’s colonial heritage and Indigenous knowledge for the physical, mental and cultural wellbeing of both site users and Country’. It features a range of medicinal plants and transformed a back-of-house circulation space into a nurturing and enjoyable retreat for occupants.