The Forest has been shortlisted for the 2026 Australian Timber Design Awards – the country’s premiere design awards recognising outstanding timber design in the built environment.
The building has been named a finalist in two categories: the Public Building category and the Sustainability category.
As the 27th Australian Timber Award, the program has a demonstrated history of timber advocacy, advancing sustainable design ethos through the promotion of outstanding timber applications across 13 categories.
Timber Design Awards organiser Kylan Low said the calibre of this year’s entrants was exceptionally high. “Every one of these projects represents so much time, dedication, risk in some cases, and passion on behalf of so many teams,” says Low. “There are many entrants this year that could have been overall winners in years gone by. It is going to be a very tight race.”
On the use of new and existing timber on the university building, Low says the judges were taken by the project’s innovative use of materiality and industry-leading carbon reduction strategies.
“The judges were impressed by how central retention was to the sustainability outcome here,” says Low. “Keeping 60 percent of the existing onsite structures delivered a 40 percent reduction in upfront carbon before any new material was even specified, and the new mass timber elements were designed for disassembly and adaptability rather than permanence.”
The brief called for an educational ecosystem of collaboration spaces, quiet study zones and civic meeting places, incorporating adaptive reuse, mass timber, and extensive use of hempcrete.
Oregon beams line the walls of the heritage structures, which have supported the building for more than a century. New materials include Tasmanian hardwood and glue-laminated oak columns and beams through the learning landscape, creating a bright, biophilic interior environment.
“Timber on its third life, salvaged from a century-old Hobart warehouse, sitting alongside Australia’s largest commercial application of hempcrete, is a genuinely compelling sustainability story,” continues Low.
The Timber Design Awards are open to builders, designers, architects, engineers, landscapers, and anyone involved in the design or building of structures featuring timber.
Winners will be announced at a gala dinner on 21 October at the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Rocks, Sydney.
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