2018 National Architecture Awards: National Award for Small Project Architecture

Jury citation

Cottesloe Lobby and Landscape is a sensitive reworking of the public entrance to a 1970s beachside residential tower in suburban Cottesloe, Perth. The consideration of the entry sequence begins outside the site with material palette references to the coastal landscape. The overall effect is one that binds the project to its place of sand and salt water.

A generous public contribution is made through the brick textured plaza mediating engagement with the street. In time, the dappled light that will fall through the canopy of the centrally planted feature tree will subtly mark the first threshold. The sand- coloured brick wedge plaza uses English bond and narrows down toward the concrete canopy seemingly floating above standings of stainless steel tubes. A turn of direction and the resident is presented with the reconsidered vaulted entry lobby, where great care has been taken to seamlessly resolve the threshold as an extension of the external materials abutting the original work deeper in the plan.

The jury was impressed by the rigour of thought shown in this delightful reworking of the engagement between the old and the new, the tower and the ground. The possibilities of thresholds and materiality as generators of experience are successfully explored here.