Woods Bagot’s immersive Melbourne studio for timber manufacturer Sculptform has won the Best Small Workplace award at the prestigious World Architecture Festival Awards.

Completed in 2021, Sculptform Design Studio blurs the lines between workplace and workshop with Woods Bagot moving Sculptform’s back-of-house to the centrepiece of the experience, in a gesture that connects the design community and industry in a process of co-creation.

The design is a celebration of the client’s own product, evoking the bespoke timber battening, craftsmanship and custom detailing that Sculptform is beloved for. The final product is an experience that is sculptural, immersive and has become a gathering space for the architecture industry.

The project was presented to the WAF jury in Lisbon by Woods Bagot CEO Nik Karalis who described a hybrid workplace/workshop that feels like the “interior of timber itself” and creates a new forum for the industry.

In their winner’s announcement the judges commended the project for its “elegant scheme” that expands the traditional procurement model of architecture and brings the forest to the city.