2019 National Architecture Awards: National Award for Heritage

Jury citation

Offering a bold yet sensitive approach to heritage adaptive re-use, Paramount House Hotel brings delight to this historic pocket of Sydney’s Surry Hills. The result of an “artefact and ornament” approach to defining old and new, the sheer alignment between the original brick building and the new copper crown responds decisively to the complex and congested urban site. Floating above the brick parapet, the delicate crown provides a permeable skin for light and ventilation to rooms and mediates privacy between buildings.

Externally, paint was removed from the facade to reveal the building’s original brickwork. Inside, historic fabric has been peeled away to reveal layers of time and function. In the glazed foyer, a light-filled atrium where heritage and new materials complement each other to celebrate then and now, your eye is drawn upwards by evidence of where a wall once stood.

Each room is unique and contains locally sourced fittings and fixtures. The remnant building features are characterful and celebrated throughout, creating an authentic, comfortable and inviting home away from home.

Paramount House Hotel is located in Surry Hills, New South Wales, and built on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

– Paramount House Hotel was reviewed by Tobias Horrocks in Artichoke 64. Read the review here.