The Tonsley Main Assembly Building and Pods by Woods Bagot and Tridente Architects has taken out a WAN Award in the category of Adaptive Reuse.
The South Australian project triumphed over five international contenders, including Foster and Partners’ Porcelanosa flagship showroom in Manhattan, New York, to take the top gong.
Renewal SA appointed Woods Bagot and Tridente Architects to masterplan the 61-hectare site, which was once the Mitsubishi car factory.
Instead of demolishing the Main Assembly Building, the architects retained the existing structure and created an 80,000-square-metre, mixe-use precinct that features a range of contemporary public spaces and four urban forests.
“The easy option was to follow the typical industrial park approach, which would have had limited value to the industry and the wider community,” said Woods Bagot principal Gavin Kain. “Instead we took the alternative, which was to imagine a thriving community within the significant industrial remains of the Tonsley site.”
The Pods create flexible and adaptable work environment for the new industrial employment precinct.
The jury was struck by the sheer size of the project. “It’s so vast,” said jury member Jo Wright, practice leader of Arup Associates.
Fellow jury member Ziona Strelitz added, “It’s taken a dinosaur of hugely embodied energy and turned it into a contemporary series of places of quality and functional relevance. If more people could follow the architect’s model on these massive legacy spaces that no one knows what to do with, it would be very constructive.”
Tonsley has also been awarded a 6-star Green Star Communities certification – the only urban renewal project certified at that level.
