Adaptive reuse project wins Australian Urban Design Award

Presented at a ceremony in Brisbane on Wednesday 25 October, the Australian Urban Design Awards “identify and celebrate the finest urban design projects, policies and initiatives across Australia to provide a clear benchmark for built environment professionals to work towards.”

Taking out the Delivered Outcome – Large Scale category was the Tonsley Innovation District by Oxigen, Woods Bagot, Tridente Architects, KBR, WSP and Renewal SA. The project was recognised by the jury for its design excellence and economic potential.

“The retention of the existing building’s raw industrial heritage combined with a range of contemporary design features and focus on achieving high levels of sustainability illustrates a strong desire to unite past, present and future.”

The district has become a major employment and education hub in the city, interspersed with community spaces. In addition to housing Flinders University and TAFE SA campuses and established and emerging businesses, the site will one day house about 1200 residents across 850 homes.

Australian Urban Design Awards chairman Bill Chandler said Tonsley is the type of ambitious exercise in large-scale brownfield development all cities should be looking towards.

“A fundamental issue with development is that often we’re just focused on building just an office, or housing, or commercial spaces, and we do it all separately.”

The awards, initiated by former prime minister Paul Keating’s Urban Design Task Force, recognise contemporary Australian urban design of the highest quality and encourage best practice.

The full list of winners can be seen on the Landscape Australia website.