Winners announced: 2017 Australian Houses Awards
“Deceptive simplicity,” “an atmospheric palette” and “minimal intervention for maximum outcome” are some of the hallmarks of the winning projects in the 2017 Houses Awards in Australia.
The awards’ top honour, Australian House of the Year, went to a sensitive, yet memorable adaptation of a traditional Queenslander, Auchenflower House by Vokes and Peters, which was also awarded joint winner of the Alteration and Addition under 200m2 category.
“Auchenflower House offers an inventive model for working with traditional housing on suburban blocks and provides an intelligent and poetic paradigm for current practice,” said the jury.
The 2017 Houses Awards celebration took place in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria on Friday 4 August, following the 2017 Housing Futures forum. Each category winner received a $1,000 prize, and the winner of Australian House of the Year was also awarded $5,000.
The winners are:
Australian House of the Year
Auchenflower House – Vokes and Peters
New House under 200 m2
Balnarring Retreat – Branch Studio Architects
New House over 200 m2
Fish Creek House – Edition Office
House Alteration and Addition under 200 m2 – joint winners
Auchenflower House – Vokes and Peters
A Pavilion Between Trees – Branch Studio Architects
House Alteration and Addition over 200 m2
Apartment or Unit
Bobhubski – March Studio
House in a Heritage Context
Jac – Panov Scott
Outdoor
Waterloo House – Anthony Gill Architects with Budwise Garden Design
Sustainability – joint winners
Fish Creek House – Edition Office
Garden Pavilion – BLOXAS
Emerging Architecture Practice
Commendations
Sixteen projects and three emerging practices received commendations across the nine categories.
The Houses Awards is one of Australia’s most sought-after accolades for residential design. This awards program has enjoyed growing entries year on year and 2017 is no exception, with 448 entries, which is up by five per cent on 2016.
Each year the Houses Awards entries are judged by a panel of jurors, who are appointed on the basis of their practical expertise, professional standing and high profile. On the 2017 jury were: Richard Kirk (Kirk), Wendy Lewin (Wendy Lewin Architect), Ian Moore (Ian Moore Architects), Juliet Moore (Edwards Moore) and Katelin Butler (Houses magazine).
Issue 117 of Houses contains a full report with coverage of the award winners, commendations and finalists, and there are even more images in the gallery on the Houses Awards website.
The Houses Awards are presented by Architecture Media, publisher of Houses magazine (Australia) and ArchitectureAU.
Each year the program is supported by a generous group of sponsors who share the values that the awards program represents – excellence and achievement. The Houses Awards thanks its supporters Cult, Artedomus, Think Brick, Asko, Haymes Paint, Maximum, Artemide, Cement Concrete and Aggregates Australia, the Heritage Councils of Victoria and New South Wales and Blum. Special thanks to jury host SC Land.