Estate in the Residential Architecture, Multiple Housing Category

Collins Pennington Architects is awarded for Estate in the Residential Architecture, Multiple Housing category. Collins Pennington Architects has crafted a refined multi-residential contribution to a precinct with unusual neighbours, most notable of which is Parliament House. Located at the corner of London Circuit and Canberra Avenue, the site is squarely in the national view. The planning and architecture reconcile the symbolic and functional issues into an assured composition.

Primary to the success of the site planning is a central open landscaped space, visually connecting Parliament House landscape through the site and adjacent primary school into the suburb of Forrest. The buildings are expressed as different and distinct elements as appropriate to their different contexts. The architecture to Canberra Avenue forms a sinuous and apparently floating, curved wall of white masonry punctuated with dark spandrels and deeply recessed balconies. Importantly, the ground plane is sculpted and landscaped to achieve the requisite formality due to this Griffin-avenue.

In contrast, the development to State Circle speaks to the more residential scale and intimate nature of that locale. Dark in colour, using beautiful face brickwork and a more modular rhythm the composition is both charming and a good neighbour.