Award-winning Kiwi architects announced as keynote speakers for 2025 Australian Architecture Conference

The Australian Institute of Architects has announced reputed Pōneke Wellington architects, Hugh Tennent and Ewan Brown as keynote speakers for the 2025 Australian Architecture Conference, set to take place this May in Sydney.

Tennent and Brown, who formed their eponymous studio, Tennent Brown Architects in 2003, were recently honoured by Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects with the 2024 Gold Medal – the nation’s highest accolade for outstanding contributions to architecture. The architects were lauded for their “radical sustainability” and exploration of “bicultural collaboration”. 

“Hugh Tennent and Ewan Brown have dared to journey along paths more commonly avoided, extending themselves beyond the perimeters of conventional observation and understanding that typically inform the architectural response,” says the jury.

Over the past 22 years, Tennent Brown Architects has built a solid reputation for its values-based architecture across large, complex projects in the housing, education and commercial sectors. In 2018, the practice became a founding member of The Diversity Agenda and was the first in Aotearoa to obtain a JUST label for Social Justice. In 2022, it became the first practice in Aotearoa to achieve B-Corp Certification.

Renowned for their bold, boundary-pushing approach and global perspective, the two architects are well-positioned to engage with this year’s conference theme: Architecture in Action.

“Architecture plays a critical role in shaping identities, building communities and meeting the urgent demands of both the present and our collective futures,” says the 2025 Conference Steering Committee.

“The 2025 Australian Architecture Conference brings together speakers from around Australia and abroad to share stories of Architecture in Action, stories that demonstrate the capacity of design to instigate positive change, regenerate the planet, and chart a sustainable and equitable future for humanity.”

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Image: Ewan Brown (left) and Hugh Tennent | Photographer: Catherine Cattanach