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It’s been almost a year since NSW announced it would bring back a state “pattern book” to provide easy approvals for residential building.
After the long process of launching a competition to select architects, nominating a shortlist of 21 professionals and firms and then charging them with the task, the NSW government has finally revealed the designs that will shape the future of home building in the state.
Many of the designs are tailored for medium-density building, and therefore are expected to be primarily popular with Sydney development. The winning designs, which include three options for terrace construction and three mid-rise apartment concepts, had a long list of specifications they needed to fit.
They were asked to respond to the unique Australian climate, including a focus on indoor and outdoor living and incorporate shade and ventilation. The state mandated that they must be accessible, adaptable to changing lifestyle needs, affordable and environmentally sustainable.
Both professional and student practitioners were selected to create designs, with one student’s concept making into the final selection, and the remaining five the result of work by professional firms.
The terrace design winners are:
- Housing is a Verb (professional), comprising a collaborative team including Other Architects, NMBW Architecture Studio and TARN
- Officer Woods Architects (professional)
- In Common Studio (student) comprising Madeleine Gallagher, Poppy Brown, Kangyun Kim, Paris Perry, John Suh and Catherine Taylor from The University of Sydney, NSW
The mid-rise design winners are:
- Andrew Burges Architects (professional)
- Neeson Murcutt Neille, Finding Infinity and Monash Urban Lab (professional)
- Spacecraft Architects (professional)
All five professional winners will now work with the NSW government architect to refine their designs and ensure they meet required standards for inclusion in the NSW Housing Pattern Book.
The designs will then be brought to life and built on a selection of five NSW government-owned sites from Homes NSW, Landcom and Sydney Olympic Park Authority, so that the public can walk through and experience them firsthand.
The public is also being invited to pick their favourite design from the six selections, with the winner to be announced early next year.
Premier Chris Minns unveiled the winners on Friday, 15 November, noting that the pattern book will ultimately be launched for public use in mid-2025, with access to a fast-tracked planning pathway then available to anyone using one of the designs.
“The designs are innovative, adaptable and functional. More importantly, incorporating these designs into the NSW Housing Pattern Book will help us deliver more homes faster,” he said.
Government architect of NSW, Abbie Galvin, called the quality of entries “extremely high both at the expressions of interest stage and among the shortlisted candidates”.
“This made the task of selecting the winning designs very challenging,” he noted.
Galvin expressed his assurance that once integrated into NSW building, these homes will ”enhance living standards [and] be an asset to our neighbourhoods”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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