Gifted to the Australian people by Arthur and Yvonne Boyd, Bundanon’s purpose is to foster an appreciation and understanding of art and environment. The new works enable expanded programming towards this and open up this extraordinary place and its $46.5M collection to the public with an art museum of national significance. Developed as a rich ensemble of distinct periods in Bundanon’s evolution, the new site wide works are equal parts subtle and dramatic, preserving and transforming. They incorporate radical solutions to a changing climate with a net zero energy target. Defendable against fire and flood which for millennia have shaped this landscape, The Art Museum, embedded in the landscape, is resistant to fire. By contrast The Bridge for creative learning is resilient, and allows flood waters to flow through it unimpeded. In the spirit of painting en plein air climate and its vicissitudes are felt and central to the experience.

Pepper Tree Passive House is a high performance secondary dwelling designed around an established Pepper Tree. Instead of extensive alterations and additions to the existing home, the new detached building provides the additional amenity required for the young family. As the existing home functioned well for the clients already, preference instead was given to create a new self contained addition and use the budget to create moments of delight across the site. When not being used as a home office by the clients, the building is used as a ‘try-before-you-buy’ for those interested in the Passive House standard. The self-contained dwelling allows those considering pursuing (or even skeptical to) a Passive House project to experience the higher levels of thermal comfort and air quality afforded by the more rigorous building standards. Pepper Tree Passive House gives the clients a perfect space to work while being able to create a distinct separation between work and home life, without the lengthy commutes and empty building hours experienced in a traditional workplace model.

Gibbons Street sets for the benchmark for quality, high-density social and affordable housing in Australia.
DKO, SGCH and Lendlease worked collaboratively with the Government Architect through the Design Excellence process to ensure the best design and commercial outcome was achieved, delivering a 160-apartment complex in Redfern. Built on the site of an old City of Sydney depot, the complex offers 40 social and 120 affordable housing units, tenure-blind. Gibbons Street incorporates a range of sustainable initiatives and targets and has an average 8.3-star NatHERs rating for the energyefficient unit design.
The design takes inspiration from the built and cultural history of Redfern as well as elements from the surrounding streetscapes. The use of brick was important because the material is relatively maintenance-free, durable and appropriate to the locality. Artwork by Indigenous artist, Joe Hurst, from the Boomali Aboriginal Artists Co-Op has been integrated throughout the building’s fabric.

The clients wished to extend their 1920s Bungalow to fit their family of five and provide natural, healthy, and comfortable living spaces.
Retaining the large established Gumtrees onsite while maintaining privacy, shaped the building form. Clad in local untreated, rough sawn Blackbutt timber battens and left to naturally grey over time, a connection to the trees within the garden was created.
The interior of this modest residential building features exposed timber walls, floors and ceilings and is based on the idea of connecting to nature within a suburban environment; with views into the canopy, it encompasses all aspects of biophilic design principles.
Designed to the Passivhaus standard, the building works year round without the need for artificial heating and requires minimal cooling.
The cross-laminated, prefabricated timber structure was installed in 15 hours and allowed the building to be waterproof, insulated, and airtight within one week.

Curl Curl House was designed for an introverted family, who sought a home that would feel protective, reclusive, and quiet.
The project was inspired by time spent in Mexico. There, we were drawn to an urban condition where houses were hidden behind walls, creating private oases within.
Curl Curl House is a walled garden house that feels calm, confident, and quiet. Its twin sentinels peer above their fence line, partly visible between green.
The house is composed of two brick towers, linked by a pavilion. Thickened brick walls evoke solidity and heft.
Our sustainability approach focused on longevity and achieving carbon neutral operations. The home is all electric; its hydronics, heating and cooling and hot water are all solar-powered.
Curl Curl House elegantly reconciles two common contexts found in Sydney: the brick suburbs and the coast. The result is a relaxed yet ambitious work of architecture that aspires to timelessness.

Eden Welcome Centre is a celebration of the town’s main industries of fishing, forestry and tourism, standing as a symbol of optimism for the town.
The structure and cladding to the building are made from Indigenous hardwoods as a celebration of the local timber industry. The building form and detailing references the robust wharf side buildings of the fishing industry, emblematic of Eden’s traditional architecture.
The building design employs a modular system to allow for easy construction and future growth in the anticipated expansion and revitalisation of Snug Cove.
The ground floor houses Eden Visitor Information Centre, along with a covered area for market stalls. The first floor provides the Port of Eden with a new maritime hub for Port Authority, Maritime NSW and NSW Police.
“Informed subtle design choices have provided locals and visitors an outcome that enhances its place and is for its people.” COX Director, David Holm

The Rosby Cellar Door and Gallery is a contemporary building response that sensitively respects the historical suite of earth buildings on a working property in Mudgee, NSW. The historic dairy farm, was taken over by Kay and Gerald Norton-Knight in 1982, establishing a vineyard while raising 4 daughters in the historic, pise homestead. Rosby Wines was launched in a mudbrick hut overlooking the vineyard at the top of the property, a building that plays a special role in the history of Rosby and the collective memory of all who have attended wine lunches and family weddings there. The roof of the new building rises to salute the top of the vineyard and adjacent mud hut, a formal gesture of respect to where it all started, while also rising to welcome visitors from the parking area. The 4 four timber portal frames reference the four daughters and the rammed earth walls respect the alignment and materiality of the historic earth buildings (the main pise homestead and outbuildings, C1890) and mud brick extensions to these buildings, 1983).

Pedestrian co-founder Oscar Martin has teamed up with Australian architect Peter Stutchbury to reconsider the housing industry with planet-friendly, energy-efficient, and recyclable smart homes that are customised at the click of a button.
Introducing Dimensions X, a fast design focused and sustainable solution which is rich in spirit and aesthetic but not in price.
These are cost effective, recyclable homes delivered to the site with planet friendly inclusions such as environmental roofs, solar energy, compositing, rainwater tanks and beehives.
The future success for architects, developers & builders should be measured by the amount of waste leaving a building site. Dimensions X will create jobs and most importantly reduce the impact on the earth.
These dwellings are as affordable and eco-friendly as they are beautiful and considered. A small ecological footprint can make a big environmental difference.

The Phoenix House became a metaphor for the architects own personal rebuild. We decided to treat the old house as a ‘remix album’. To strip it back to the bones, and reassemble it in a new way. A ‘sustainable jigsaw puzzle’ of sorts.
The house is situated in a heritage precinct, in the old part of Byron. With sports fields across the road to the north, and beyond this, the bay. The veranda acts as ‘stage to the park’, an interface between the park and the dwelling, creating a strong connection to ‘community’.
Phoenix House bridges the nexus between the old and new ‘Byron Lifestyle’. It reflects on the past while also providing cues on how we can build sensitively into the future as these beautiful coastal towns in Australia find themselves under more pressure than they have ever been.

Dawn Fraser Baths, Balmain, are the oldest surviving example of a fully enclosed, public tidal baths in Australia. Constructed in 1882 and successively rebuilt enlarged in the early twentieth century, the Baths derive historical and social significance from their continuous use for recreational bathing and aesthetic significance from their picturesque setting on Parramatta River.
Subject to persistent flooding due to tidal patterns of the river, the historic baths had deteriorated substantially. To address this issue and to accommodate predicted sea level rises, it was determined that the southern pavilion needed to be raised by one metre.
The timber-framed pavilion was carefully recorded and dismantled, and the sandstone boardwalk raised in height. The pavilion was reconstructed from salvaged historic timber and second-hand timber, with details corresponding to the original.
The reconstructed pavilion incorporates improved amenities including a new main entry, new change rooms and Olympicstandard water polo lighting.

‘No Show’ is a site-responsive temporary installation for Sydney’s historic Carriageworks at Eveleigh. The design takes reuse and repurpose as its main sustainable principle and imaginatively deploys everyday materials sourced from a suburban hardware store into an innovative and spatially complex outcome for the display of art.

Sam Crawford Architects was engaged by Centennial Park & Moore Park Trust to design a new footbridge over Kensington Ponds, incorporating new pedestrian and cycle paths as well as a viewing platform. The bridge was designed to act as a gateway to the park and to connect the recently completed light rail station and surrounding suburbs to a network of pedestrian and cycle paths throughout the park.
Ponds within the Parklands are home to the ‘bara’ or long finned eel. Bara are compelled by instinct to journey to the warm waters of the Pacific to reproduce before returning to the same ponds later in the year. The design of the bridge aims to draw attention to this incredible and ancient migration; celebrating the form and dynamism of the eel and its importance as a source of food to local Dharawal [also known as Gadhungal] people for thousands of years.

Located in the Sydney suburb of Bronte, Light House transforms a dark, cold and overshadowed building into a home flooded with natural light connected with with its landscape. A new Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) addition to the first floor provides a young family the additional amenity needed, while also significantly improving the home’s insulation and airtightness to ensure the home’s longevity. By retaining the structurally sound brick walls to the ground floor and improving the thermal performance, a larger majority of material was able to stay on site and avoid landfill. Designed and constructed to the principles of ‘passive-solar design’, the home is both high performance and strong in its biophilic connection with the endemic landscaping. Light House is intended to be ‘light’ in every way – light in operational and embodied energy, abundant in natural light, and a light ecological impact through its regenerative native planting and restored site porosity.

The Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta engaged BVN to deliver Santa Sophia Catholic College, an early learning centre, a four-stream primary and six stream secondary school, located 42km northwest of Sydney’s central business district in the local government area of The Hills Shire.
Santa Sophia is a pre to post-school (K-12), offering a contemporary learning environment in one of Sydney’s fastest-growing suburbs. The school’s location in the new town centre has made it the heart of the new suburb, delivering local amenities and providing a vibrant community hub.
Utilising progressive learning models and developing a campus shaped around hubs, the five individual buildings are embraced by levels of decking. The decking not only interconnects all the school levels but for a campus positioned on a small site. It offers much needed outdoor space that has been cleverly utilised to facilitate both outdoor learning and play areas.

Designing a sports facility in a public park presents a few conundrums; how can a building be robust and hard-wearing but at the same time warm, welcoming and inclusive? How can it express its ‘publicness’ and offer something to the community when the majority of the time it will be shut?
Key functional elements were split between two adjacent pavilions sit side by side on a heavy stepping base. The project is experienced ‘in the round’ so we sought a sculptural quality. The relationship between pavilions is one of counterpoint; roof forms acting as playful markers of internal activity.
Brick unifies the project, each pavilion space finding its poetic point of difference in response to need; ventilation, illumination, animation and scale. Poetic subtleties play an important role; the rough-cut bricks adding warmth and texture whilst playing poetically with the missing bricks where ventilation is required.

The design of the Eric Tweedale Stadium is driven by the stadium’s connection to the local environment and history of the Cumberland Plains. Located within Granville Park, once a widely forested area, it’s form and materiality responds to the site’s heritage and creates a connection to its current sporting environment.
The Stadium includes a grandstand with change rooms, multipurpose room, first-floor function space, commercial kitchen and outdoor viewing deck. The glulam roof cantilevers over eight meters over the seating, creating a simple yet impactful and beautiful form that also gives historical reference to the forest that once dominated the site.
Timber rafters and columns are exposed in the interior spaces, bringing a warm earthy glow, softening the interior palette. The use of a mass timber structure in the Stadium is the first use of glulam timber for this type of facility in Australia, representing an impressive achievement in timber engineering.

The Ken Rosewall Arena at Sydney Olympic Park was the original tennis venue for the 2000 Olympics Games and home to Tennis NSW.
COX Architecture was appointed in late 2018 to transform the facility to host the inaugural ATP Cup tournament in January 2020 and Netball NSW home games for the Swifts and the Giants as part of the Suncorp Super Netball 2020 season.
The resultant design provides a new cable net structure working with the existing bowl structure to support a PTFE fabric roof, (a first of this structure type for stadia in Australia) which was designed in collaboration with Arup and Fabritecture. The roof creates the required shading and protection from the elements.
This upgrade transforms Ken Rosewall Arena into a multipurpose outdoor covered arena and includes an operable façade to enclose the arena for the Netball season while still providing an open feel when retracted for Tennis.

This new house on an elevated site enjoys sunrise-to-sunset aspects and filtered views through the tree canopy to the Pacific Ocean and Pittwater.
Positioned on a spur running off the Bilgola Plateau – and between sandstone outcrops – the design nestles into its dramatic ground plane. Rooms on both levels open to a range of outdoor spaces including entertaining terraces, timber decks and garden roofs.
The lower level is embedded into the earth with brick walls and concrete floors. The elevated living area is enveloped in a lightweight structure featuring beautifully detailed Australian Hardwood timbers, and is topped by an east-west butterfly roof.
Passive solar design principles combine with thermal mass to create a home that is naturally comfortable all year round.
By excavating into the site – and capturing dual aspects from some rooms – the design provides multiple opportunities for the family to engage with and enjoy the spectacular surroundings more fully.

This project revisits a house we designed sixteen years ago with new owners, interior designer, and landscape architect. It involved passive design and technology upgrades, internal fit-out, external works, new pool and cabana.
In the rear yard, a series of courtyards and stepped platforms ensure a strong visual connection through varied landscape experiences, culminating in a platform at the top of the site for the pool, rotated 30° to frame a distant headland view. The cabana is deliberately playful as a destination. Sunken into the landscape with edge seating, kitchenette, and concrete table. The square plan is divided at the angle of the pool, splitting the roof into two: a sloping roof provides full shade and a horizontal pergola float over the pool allowing dappled shadows throughout the day. The cabana is both embracing and open to the landscape and is rich in detail for experiential occupation of the garden.

This ephemeral architecture aims to bridge the divide between QEII Square in the centre of Albury and the river landscape which has brought people together for millennia. The softly curved form is a container which gathers a collection of large, locally harvested live edge timber slabs. The slabs are positioned vertically, maintaining their connection to the forest from which they came. The blackened timber board exterior is created from timber salvaged from the 2019-2020 bushfires. The pavilion aims to create discussions around the local environment, sustainability and the meaning of summer in the region.

Located on Djiringanj country in a scenic bush valley adjacent to the beach, this house is conceived as a response to beauty of its natural setting and coastal location, the specific way that the owners occupy the house and its surrounds, and the very real challenges of bushfire protection and sustainability.
The house’s brick skin reflects the colours of the headland rocks and provides protection within the bushfire flame zone. Brick corbels project the upper floor of the house into the trees and pins the house back to the steep site.
The new house expresses pattern of movement and occupation, around which is constructed a protective enclosure of brick and windows. The typical deck is ensued on this exposed site for protected spaces that visually connect to the landscape beyond. Views weave through the internal spaces; rooms fold and push out to create vistas to the beach and bush.

Wholechild Early Learning is an architecturally dramatic built form based on creativity, innovation and educational intent. Standing out from the banal surrounds, the striking two-storey building was constructed as interlocking geometric forms that serve distinct functions.
Functionality was a key to deliver Wholechild’s educational philosophy but without sacraficing architecture, which was to expand not detract from the facilities. The building instills a genuine sense of wonder in children and the community.
The building combines raw concrete, oversized timber blades, tactile surfaces and long-form bricks that simultaneously command attention and serve the needs of children and their educators. A dynamic tension between rectilinear communal spaces and curvilinear classrooms signals the contrast between the public and private realms.
The building capitalises on the region’s benign climate by incorporating passive thermal design, natural light, and abundant green spaces.
Collaborative design and intent was fundamental to successfully mediating the built form and function.

The Willinga Park Administration Building Interior Design project was a fitout for an executive client office and boardroom with views over the dressage and show jumping arenas. The new Administration Building entailed the adaption of existing office spaces.
The context of Willinga Park as a state-of-the-art equestrian precinct informed the interiors approach for the new Administration Building. The focus was on highlighting the equestrian activities taking place around the site, bringing them into view and making office-users feel connected to them.
Natural, local and sustainable materials were used for joinery and finishes. There was a focus in the selection process on low embodied energy and potential long term reuse opportunities. The office is designed as one large space, with minimal fixed furnishings, allowing it to adapt to future changing needs of users.

The Willinga Park Campdraft Grandstand adds a second permanent, VIP grandstand to the existing Campdraft Arena. The new grandstand seats 320 spectators, providing viewers with a unique outlook over the camp and cutting components of the event by bringing them as close as possible to the rider, horse, and cattle. The seating is accessed via an elongated truss walkway and appears to hover above the cattle yards. A lift and stair acts as the primary circulation element, while a media and judges tower on the opposite side houses discreet staff and back of house areas.

COX’s Polocrosse Amenities is a sensitive response which expands the masterplan surrounding the arena with permanent facilities for spectators. A light, serrated steel roof plane is suspended over two trapezoidal forms clad in regularly proportioned Corten sheeting, containing the utilitarian program in a sculptural response and advocating for the importance of welcoming facilities which echo the location.

The Willinga Park Conference Centre complements and supports equine pursuits at the Willinga Park Equestrian facility in Bawley Point, NSW. The design incorporates a flexible main event space for private, corporate and trade events with capacity for 200-300 patrons. Key features of the conference centre include state-of-the-art AV, boardroom, restaurant and bar area, full commercial kitchen and associated amenities.
The project rejects the idea of architecture and landscape being separate, instead creating a total environment for people, horses and nature. Natural light, ventilation, and materiality brings users closer to the rural coastal setting.

The Show Jumping Arena is a multipurpose open-air sand surface. It is 70m by 200m and includes a warm-up area. The upper retaining wall was a response to the sloped seating bowl, accommodating 1000 spectators in a roofed structure. It was designed in the context of a broader master plan for the Willinga Park Equestrian Complex. COX were required to identify a suitable location for the new Show Jumping arena, which could also be used for Dressage and Eventing.
The Show Jumping Arena is an expansive development within the Willinga Park Complex, but it is designed to feel as though it fits comfortably without imposing on the natural and built surroundings. This is experienced when the Arena is observed from the street side; it appears to be in line with the tops of event marquees and allows spectators to catch glimpses of the landscape beyond.

The Stock Management Building was a designed to accommodate an ever-growing event calendar, within the Willinga Park Equestrian Complex. The new facility addresses the increased activity on site with a reception and office, break out space for staff and volunteers, as well as housing adequate electrical and hydraulic services to power the buildings adjacent. It also includes a welcoming orientation area for visitors to the property – both competitors and spectators.
The Stock Management Building has a range of pragmatic functions; however, it is also designed to be visually elusive and interesting to look at from different perspectives. The Corten cladding makes the structure look like a simple container when viewed from a distance, while the size and detailing become more evident up close. At night the built form seems to disappear and becomes a series of hovering, warmly lit canvases, painted with the light and shadow from within.

Conceived as a site for special gatherings, yoga retreats, workshops and weddings – as well as the occasional weekender for themselves – our clients wanted a house that would comfortably house 15 and offer an experience quite different to city living. The project had to embody the spirit of camping, of ‘roughing it’ – but at the same time called for a kind of strippedback, almost monastic decadence.
We worked directly and aggressively with two existing structures of questionable quality – a timber barn and brick project home – gutting them, lopping off roofs, cutting holes here and there, adding new material and functional layers to create a family of pavilions linked by covered ways and courtyards. Guests will experience contrasting rhythms of enclosure and landscape, passing from spaces with an intense interiority through courtyard-rooms offering intimate and also distant landscape relationships.

The Great Cobar Museum and Visitors Information Centre occupies a high point that overlooks the main street, and has played a prominent social and tourism role for a century. The project breathes new life into this significant building and landscape, which is physically and culturally at the heart of Cobar, serving visitors and a vibrant local community.
In 2019, Cobar Shire Council engaged Dunn & Hillam Architects to work with Peter Freeman Conservation Architects and Planners to provide a masterplan for the 8000m2 site.
Stage 1 involved renewing and restoring the main building and designing an engaging and Cobar-specific museum.
We gave priority to large scale moves that provided the best flexibility, energy performance and lowest maintenance costs over time.
The restored landmark now functions as an accessible repository of local history and knowledge and a welcoming event space, with plans to further enhance its appeal and reach in future.