The winners of this 12 months’s Australian City Design Awards have been revealed, showcasing exemplar city design initiatives, leaders and initiatives from throughout the nation.
Established in 1996, the awards purpose to platform clever and progressive city design contributions that enhance the efficiency of Australian cities for communities.
In 2026, twelve winners have been named, together with 9 initiatives chosen from 27 shortlisted entries, and three people. In whole, this 12 months’s awards program attracted over 80 entrants throughout its 4 classes: Constructed Outcomes, Analysis and Advocacy, Strategic Design and Coverage, and City Design Champions.
Chair of the Steering Committee for the Australian City Design Awards Katheine Sundermann commented that the outcomes of this 12 months’s awards contrasted considerably with latest years, which had been marked by planning reform, housing provide and main transport initiatives.
“This 12 months’s winners mirror a gentler method to city transformation: initiatives rooted in Indigenous and group management, ecological landscapes, and the creation of locations for individuals to collect,” she mentioned. “These initiatives reinforce a easy concept: city transformation works finest when it entails numerous individuals, responds to the specifics of place, and improves locations over time.”
One in all three joint winners within the Constructed Outcomes class, Balam Balam Place in Brunswick by Kennedy Nolan, Open Work and Discovering Infinity was praised by the jury as a socially inclusive civic precinct developed with a delicate method to the renewal of present heritage cloth, whose “deliberate sense of incompleteness is a major power.”
For the jury, the Campbelltown Station Commuter Carpark by Hill Thalis Structure and City Initiatives, additionally a winner on this class, reconceived a purely utilitarian constructing sort as an everlasting civic infrastructure animated by color and planting; of their phrases, “not merely an infrastructure for automobiles, however a resilient, civic-minded and genuinely optimistic automotive ‘park’.”
The third winner on this class, St Kilda Pier Redevelopment by Jackson Clements Burrows Architects, Website Workplace Panorama Structure and AW Maritime, was described by the jury as “a significant piece of civic engineering … that’s each resilient and kooky”, responding to a number of a long time of grasp planning with ” a significant element of enhanced public realm and consolidated coastal infrastructure.”
The 2026 jury comprised Matt Pullinger, director of Matthew Pullinger Architect; Invoice Tsakalos, metropolis architect and director of transformational design at Blacktown Metropolis Council; Leigh Woolley, director of Leigh Woolley Architect; and Emily Wong, editor of Panorama Structure Australia within the Constructed Outcomes class. The jury for the Analysis and Advocacy, and Strategic Design and Coverage classes included Anna Chauvel of Design and Place, Placemaking NSW, Cameron Caldwell, Member for Fadden, Liberal Nationwide Get together of Queensland, Ben Driver, senior lecturer in city improvement and design at UNSW, and Bridget Smyth, metropolis architect and government supervisor of metropolis design and public artwork on the Metropolis of Sydney. Judging the City Design Champions class was Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Member for Ryan, Australian Greens; Tina Perinotto, managing editor of The Fifth Property; Danièle Hromek, director and design lead of Djinjama; Ian Woodcock, senior lecturer in urbanism on the College of Structure, Design and Planning, the College of Sydney; and Jennie Officer, director of Officer Woods Architects.
The total listing of winners are:
Constructed Outcomes
Balam Balam Place – Kennedy Nolan, Open Work and Discovering Infinity
Campbelltown Station Commuter Carpark – Hill Thalis Structure and City Initiatives
St Kilda Pier Redevelopment – Jackson Clements Burrows Architects, Website Workplace Panorama Structure and AW Maritime
Analysis and Advocacy
Safer Cities program – Transport for NSW
The Grassening – “The Grassening” Crew
ULI Australia, and Division of Transport and Planning (Victoria) Internet Zero Crucial: Technical Help Panel (TAP) – Road Timber as Important Infrastructure – The City Land Institute (ULI) Australia, and the Division of Transport and Planning (Victoria)
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Strategic Design and Coverage
Doomadgee Future Planning Undertaking – Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire Council, Circ Design and Meridian City
From Coverage to Place: Vincent’s Co-Funded Framework for City Centre Transformation – Metropolis of Vincent and the native companies of Vincent
NSW Housing Sample Ebook – Authorities Architect NSW with the NSW DPHI Strategic Planning and Coverage Crew
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City Design Champions
Michael Rayner
Rob McGauran
Shelley Penn AM
The Australian City Design Awards are co-convened by the Australian Institute of Architects, the Australian Institute of Panorama Architects and the Planning Institute of Australia, and supported by principal companion Bondor Metecno and supporting companion Dulux.
