Sustainability Awards: Royal Children's Hospital named Best of the Best in 2012

A building that sets a new benchmark for sustainable design, the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, has taken out top honours at this year's BPN Sustainability Awards.

Billard Leece Partnership and Bates Smart Architects won the Best if the Best Award for the new hospital in Parkville, Melbourne.

The 2012 Sustainability Awards winners were announced at a gala dinner in Sydney last night (November 8, 2012) at Doltone House on Darling Island Wharf-Pyrmont.

Now in its sixth year, the Sustainability Awards recognises the pinnacle of sustainable building practice in Australia.

This year the awards fielded a record number of entrants, the building projects, products and innovations coming from across Australia.

The Royal Children's Hospital

Designers Billard Leece Partnership and Bates Smart Architects were recognised for achieving unprecedented levels of sustainability throughout all aspects of such a major (AUD1 billion plus) healthcare project.

The judges praised the holistic and thoughtful approach the architects had taken to the address the high degree of difficulty and complexity in the New Royal Children's Hospital design.

“The implications of the design success at the New Royal Children's Hospital are major, because, if this level of sustainability can be achieved in such a large and complex healthcare design project, then the rest that follow will have no excuse for failure,” the judges commented.

The full list of winners:

Small Commercial

• The National Hotel by Breathe Architecture

Large Commercial

• Darling Quarter submitted by Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp (fjmt)

Public Building & Urban Design

• The New Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville submitted by Billard Leece Partnership and Bates Smart Architects (BLBS)

Innovation of the Year

• TankPro

Multi - Density Residential

• 58 Stevens Street submitted by Officer Woods Architects

Office Fitout

• GPT Building submitted by Woods Bagot

Landscape Design

• Clifton Hill Rail Project submitted by Jeavons Landscape Architects

Single Dwelling (New)

• Marion House by Positive Footprints

Single Dwelling (Alterations and Extensions)

• House Reduction submitted by MAKE architecture

The 2012 awards jury included Dick Clarke, director of sustainable building consultancy Envirotecture; Jane Toner from ESD consultancy Sustainable Built Environments (SBE) and Kerryn Wilmot from the University of Technology, Sydney’s (UTS) Institute for Sustainable Futures.

The awards are made possible with the support of sponsors: James Hardie – Scyon, Stormtech, Wood Solutions, Ceilector, Zincalume, Design Pine, Vinyl Council Australia, Atlantis and with the support of National Precast Concrete Association of Australia and the inaugural Australian Sustainability conference and exhibition.