Three Australian projects have taken out some of the world’s most prestigious international awards in Barcelona.
Klein Bottle House (pictured above) on the Mornington Peninsula, by Charles McBride Ryan, took the World’s Best Home award.
The judges praised the Klein Bottle House design as: “evoking on every day of the year the enriching playfulness of being on holiday. The house was also celebrated as fitting comfortably within the dramatic Australian landscape.”
The New York Times Square ticket booth won the World’s Best New & Old Building award, with Choi Ropiha honoured as concept architect.
The striking red lacquered ticket booth, situated in one of the busiest and noisiest (both acoustically and visually) intersections in the world. The ticket booth and its steps give new life to the existing square and statue of Father Duffy, so that they become a usable and vibrant venue in the heart of the big apple. The iconic building is also featured Jay Z and Alisha Keys’ ‘New York State of Mind’.
The judges admired how the new building managed to “recapture the public ground” by making use of the roof in a most welcoming way. “It creates a vibrant and welcoming little public stage in the middle of New York´s Theater District, and it does so without compromise, using backlit structural glass for the steps to achieve superb visibility in a very challenging environment of large towers with glaring light boards and often furious traffic,” the judges said.
“Disappearing building” in Berry, a sports hall inspired by the endless Australian sky, has won the sports category.
Designed by Allen Jack+Cottier (AJ+C), the $1.3 million Berry Sports Hall beat off stiff competition from the Wimbledon Centre Court Redevelopment and the Atlantic Health Jets Training Facility.
Reminiscent of a modern farm shed, the building comprises two long sides of precast concrete panels, each pierced by 500 shards of glass in amoeba-like windows, allowing natural light to flood the halls in the day and interior lights to shine through at night, illuminating the building and making it ‘disappear’ into the night sky.
Images below: Klein Bottle House; New York Times Square ticket booth; Berry Sports Hall
