The Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced that Brearley Architects + Urbanists BAU’s design of the Yuandang Bridge (pictured top) in Shanghai, China has won the International Chapter Architecture Medallion at the AIA’s International Chapter Architecture Awards.
The 586m ribbon-esque pedestrian bridge references Chinese sculptural techniques and contemporary mathematics with its geometric curves. The Jury says the structure’s beauty and delightfulness wonderfully connects one shore to another.
“Yuandang Bridge is at once playful, achingly beautiful, and surprisingly, it astutely interweaves the intimate human scale with the vast seascape,” the statement reads.
“There are moments for shared gatherings under the pavilion with its warped metal structure, referencing the wearing of water of the local Suzhou Taihu rocks, along with intimately calibrated moments for individual contemplation and discovery. The pavilion roof structure is detailed to seemingly impossible thinness, almost like a hovering sheet of water fashioned more evocatively by its rippled reflective metal lining.”
The bridge was also awarded the International Chapter Named Award for Urban Design. Brearley Architects + Urbanists BAU was also awarded the Award for Educational Architecture for their design of the Tianyou Experimental School in China (pictured below).
Double-sized windows are seen amongst the classroom blocks to increase natural light, as well as ventilation. A meandering corridor connects the school, while the rooftop sporting field makes the most of the land area.
“The design breaks away from the transitional institutional design by allowing the education space to extend beyond the bounds of a student’s home classroom,” the Jury says.
“Pockets of space are integrated cleverly throughout the internal design, providing different modes of interaction and education.”
Warren and Mahoney with Woods Bagot and NH Architecture were awarded the International Chapter Named Award for Commercial Architecture for their Commercial Bay – Te Toki I te Rangi (pictured below) project in Auckland, New Zealand.
The project spans an entire city block and occupies 97,500sqm. It uses a diagrid structure for the 38-storey tower, with a transparent façade and innovative three-level retail podium design. Maori design principles were integrated from the very genesis of the project.
“Its unprecedented local scale and position has driven its architects to successfully address a plethora of complex, contextual and cultural conditions, whilst setting a world-class standard for major commercial architecture in New Zealand,” the Jury says.
Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Professor of Architecture, Felicity D Scott, was awarded the William J Mitchell Prize in recognition of her contribution to Australian architecture in the international arena.
Scott is the Director of the doctoral program in architectural history and theory, as well as Co-Director of the program in critical, curatorial and conceptual architecture practices. The Jury says her work has become increasingly important in a time when the industry is pivoting to address issues of climate change, colonialism and racial inequality.
Please see the full list of winners below.
International Architecture Medallion, International Chapter Named Award for Urban Design
Yuandang Bridge | Brearley Architects + Urbanists BAU | International Architecture Medallion
Commercial Architecture, International Chapter Named Award for Commercial Architecture
Commercial Bay – Te Toki I te Rangi | Warren and Mahoney, with Woods Bagot and NH Architecture
Award for Educational Architecture
Tianyou Experimental School | Brearley Architects + Urbanists BAU
Public Architecture
Australian Pavilion, Expo 2020 | bureau^proberts
William J Mitchell Prize
Dr Felicity D Scott
The International Chapter Awards seeks to showcase the work of Australian architects working abroad. All winners from the International Chapter now progress to the National Architecture Awards program after they were announced at the Brickworks Design Studio in New York at 10am AEST on July 8.
