A sports centre, bridge, stadium, regional dental school and a community centre have been named winners in Australia’s bi-annual National Steel Design Awards.
The awards are organised by the peak body representing the complete local steel supply chain, the Australian Steel Institute.
The winners included the Milson Island Indoor Sports Stadium (Allen Jack+Cottier Architects), which took top honour in the Buildings - Small Projects category.
Milson Island Sport and Recreation Centre. Photograph courtesy of Nic Bailey.
A totally modular design approach was taken with the multi-purpose building, which accommodates a variety of sporting and social activities on a water-locked NSW site.
The judges were impressed with the way the project took advantage of steel’s ability to be prefabricated in manageable components, allowing the structure to be barged to and readily erected onsite.
According to the Steel Institute, the embrace of weathering steel as a cladding material to suit a naturalistic setting attracted the win in the Steel Clad Structures category for the Fitzgibbon Community Centre, Brisbane (Richard Kirk Architect).
Fitzgibbon Community Centre, Brisbane. Image source: Richard Kirk Architect
The judges said the choice of weathering steels has immediately resolved the aspect of atmospheric corrosion. As a result it becomes fit-for-purpose requiring little future maintenance.
The new School of Dentistry building at the Wagga Wagga campus of Charles Sturt University (Brewster Hjorth Architects) and the redevelopment of Adelaide Oval’s Western Grandstand (Cox Architects and HASSELL) are joint winners in the Buildings – Large Projects category.
The judge’s noted that even though the dental school could easily have been constructed from alternative materials, it is a true steel building conceived as such from day one using steel for multiple facets, not just the frames.
The Western Grandstand work utilised a steel-intensive approach to enlarge the facility whilst respecting heritage elements of the historic cricket ground.
Structural strengthening works that support extra lanes and traffic loads on Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge (Structural Engineers: Sinclair Knight Merz, Flint & Neill) has won in the national Engineering project category.
The judges commented that Australian steel was judiciously applied to enhance the strength of this structure involving some very awkward areas to operate in on the busy working bridge. Extensive modelling ensured design integrity to withstand constant movement and vibration.
Awards convenor, ASI National Marketing Manager, David Ryan said the common thread that links all the placed projects is the ability of steel to provide high strength to weight structures that are frequently both eye catching and highly practical.
