Since its inception in 1960, the NSW Country Division has provided continuous representation and service to regional architects of the Australian Institute of Architects outside the metropolitan areas of Sydney and Newcastle.
The NSW Country Division Architecture Awards celebrate the work of architects working in regional NSW.
On an exposed sloping corner site in northern NSW there is an exemplar for contemporary home office and residential architecture. Scribbly Bark House exudes timeless modernity and demonstrates an exceptional cohesion and connection to the land and surroundings.
The design has the entry and office at the lower level, with living areas of the family home opening to a striking private sanctuary garden courtyard at the upper level. The external and internal areas are seamlessly integrated with the private framed courtyard that effectively expands the house. Responding to the needs of the occupants and the local climate, there is a small transitional surrounding veranda consisting of moveable screens, which allows all the spaces to breathe.
The exterior facades use decoration referencing the scribbly gum tree that allows for patterns of light into the interior that change and move throughout the day which gives an extraordinary display at night. This celebration of the contemporary family home, incorporating clever planning into a small yet generous footprint, means Scribbly Bark House is worthy of the 2022 James Barnet Award.
The Timber Screen Extension house design is driven using timber as a resilient, renewable and affordable material. Sensitively crafted timber detailing separates the new and old whilst reflecting the timber hardwood dress studs used on the cladding of the existing house. The design successfully defines a series of flexible outdoor rooms using screens as shade devices, wind protection and privacy elements complimenting and completing the existing architectural composition. The warmth embodied in the use of timber utilizing shade shadow and contrast reflects a natural attitude acknowledging a challenging context and climate.
The design explores the idea of flexible living that can be used year-round via careful orientation and detailing. The thoughtful use of a restricted palette of materials and minimal elegant detailing has allowed the house to be achieved to a budget whilst allowing greater usage throughout the varying annual climates.
Summerland Farm is a community asset which celebrates the quintessential Australian working farm, as well as providing a place of employment for people with a disability. More than 80,000 people visit the farm annually, exploring the adventure playground, retail hub, plant nursery and café facilities.
The design for the site deliberately sought to reuse existing buildings, which have been carefully expanded and made more user-friendly through the introduction of covered walkways and verandah elements. The landscape is treated as the hero element, and prioritised throughout the site, in a considered and restrained approach.
The simple forms create varied indoor and outdoor spaces for enjoyment – from the soaring covered entry to the shed refitted as a café, and the market square defined by covered walkways. Visitors of all abilities can enjoy access throughout the site and take in the view over the surrounding garden and play areas. Summerland Farm represents a skilful approach which prioritises and places the user at the centre of the experience.
Summerland Farm demonstrates a refined and restrained approach as it draws existing buildings, new structures, and landscape into a cohesive whole. The reimagined masterplan features a new adventure playground set in lush landscaping, overlooked by the retail hub, housing a café, gift/produce shop, back-of-house facilities, plant nursery and ticket booth.
An existing large shed was adapted to house the majority of the program, and elegantly enhanced through the addition of wrap-around verandas. These verandas provide a new soaring entry canopy and form a market square connecting with the plant nursery. While simple in form and material, these additions augment the existing and enhance the site’s agricultural context.
The sequence of indoor and covered outdoor spaces create a seamless connection to the surrounding landscape and play areas. Summerland Farm prioritises landscape and user experience in a successful and sophisticated way, providing an exemplary series of buildings and spaces for visitors to enjoy.
March Pool Pavilion is a rigorously crafted space for relaxation and recreational bathing.
Warm and calm, monolithic stone slabs, vibrant aquamarine tiles, brass highlights and blackbutt cladding, combine, in an interior where visual simplicity belies complex detailing.
The oversized operable roof window and sliding door, serve the classic Australian aspiration of “bringing the outside in”, the former bestowing an expressive play of light whilst framing views of the sky from the pool and timber lined sauna. A single cascading sheet of water springs from a minimal slot in the stone adding a visually and audibly playful element to the space.
Mudgee Arts Precinct blends the refurbishment of the former Cudgegong Shire building with a new gallery environment containing flexible exhibition spaces, tourism offices and ancillary facilities.
The context of rectilinear heritage listed colonial buildings is juxtaposed by the angled expansion set below the adjacent roof form allowing the existing to retain its primacy. Sculptural skylights capture the essence of heritage chimneys and work with solar panels and a mechanical system with humidification control, aiding sustainability reducing energy consumption.
The design captures a contemporary expression of the arts and architecture respecting and enhancing an existing heritage environment.
My Malua is a humble and beautifully executed renovation of a tired beach house. All too often older houses are knocked down in favour of big, bold new builds, and with that the character and stories of the street are lost. My Malua sensitively reflects the scale, materiality and tone of its surrounding area and creates a considered outcome for the streetscape through the redesign of the front facade.
Key challenges of the flawed existing house are addressed through simple but considered moves such as opening the house to views, natural light, and ventilation. The architect took a conscious approach to empower the three girls who will grow up in the house to act as the clients. This personal approach is reflected in the transformation of the internal spaces and the attention to detail in each room. The outcome is a great celebration of architecture in a small community, and a refreshing reminder that older houses can have a second life.
The Timber Screen Extension house is a carefully crafted blend and expansion to an existing house in the Southern Highlands of NSW. The design explores a series of flexible outdoor rooms using screens as shade devices, wind protection and privacy elements whilst also complimenting and completing the existing architectural composition.
The design explores the idea of flexible living that can be used year-round via careful orientation and detailing.
The thoughtful use of a restricted palette of materials and minimal detailing has allowed the house to be achieved to a budget whilst allowing greater usage throughout the varying annual climates.
Scribbly Bark House is a celebration of the contemporary family home, incorporating clever planning into a small yet generous footprint. The design is split over two levels, and seamlessly integrates a home office studio within the home. The exterior of the house is strikingly embellished with decorated operable screens, created by artist Georgie Lucock in reference to the bark patterns of the local scribbly gum tree. The continuous artwork of perforated pattern wraps around the perimeter of the house, also casting patterns of light into the interior that change and move throughout the day.
The house has been designed to respond to the needs of the occupants and the local climate, the screens, and windows able to be opened and closed to adapt to the changing conditions. A courtyard created adjacent to the living zone effectively expands the footprint of the house, providing an additional room in good weather.
Scribbly Bark House is joyous, elegant, and refined – an exemplar of contemporary Australian residential architecture.
Muli Muli is a modern take on the traditional beach house. A refreshingly restrained floor plan sees the architecture celebrated through careful technical detailing, considered material choices and connection to the lush landscape setting.
The house is designed to sit towards the edges of the block allowing the landscape to be prioritised and celebrated. A sense of privacy within the suburban context is created through internal courtyard spaces that offer views of the garden rather than neighbouring houses.
The architect’s approach to embrace the mild coastal climate results in a clever and efficient footprint. Functions are separated into pavilions and the hallway circulation is located externally. While rooms are modest in size, they expand through the placement of windows that embrace garden views and draw in natural light and ventilation.
The new house by DFJ is an excellent example of a quality design outcome that is modest, flexible, and beautifully executed.
In historic Burradoo, Osborne House fits within a context of expansive country houses whilst taking a more refined and subdued approach.
Three pavilions form a structured and decisive planning arrangement, allowing for expansion and contraction of shifting occupational needs. The entry, via a glazed portal between solid sandstone clad walls, which visually express the geology of the region, isolates a guest pavilion large enough to accommodate visiting family from the two everyday living pavilions.
A material palette of timber cladding and zinc provides a lightweight contrast to the robust mass of the sandstone walls anchoring the ends of each pavilion.
A stand-alone addition to a previous renovation and extension of a heritage home in Orange, March Pool Pavilion is sited within the established garden and provides its occupants with year-round pool access in the cool climate of the central tablelands.
The singular form makes a big impact. A limited external palette of black render, steel and blackbutt timber elements, fastidiously detailed to conceal obvious joints or connection points, creates a monolithic form which is at once sculptural and commanding of attention, yet recessive within its surrounds.
The garage cum gym is concealed year-round, while in good weather a large skylight and sliding timber door open the small footprint of the internal pool area to the garden. The skylight facilitates a delightful and ever shifting play of light across the pool, sauna, and minimal interiors, a finely composed interplay of grey dolomite stone slabs, blackbutt and aquamarine water.
In picturesque valleys surrounding Oberon, there is a simple but sculptural galvanised iron clad form set into the hillside that has structured and decisive planning arrangement for this farm stay accommodation experience.
There is a strong rectangular plan for the living and bedroom areas that face north and provides the dramatic views to the undulating hills beyond. The angled service area to the south provides for circulation and working spaces that allow for a dramatic sloping roof form which anchors the building to the hill. The house is designed to be completely off grid and the passive environmental systems were key in the design with a single depth floor plan allowing for cross ventilation. The interior spaces are refined but restrained with robust finishes and the project represents extraordinary value for such a very tight budget.
The Australian Institute of Architects acknowledges First Nations peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, and skies of the continent now called Australia.
We express our gratitude to their Elders and Knowledge Holders whose wisdom, actions and knowledge have kept culture alive.
We recognise First Nations peoples as the first architects and builders. We appreciate their continuing work on Country from pre-invasion times to contemporary First Nations architects, and respect their rights to continue to care for Country.
