Australia

+ 14

+ 12

Designed by architects Nic Moore and Monica Earl, in collaboration with Lea Fernandez, Darryl Chandler, and Terence Yong, their third prize winning proposal for the Lodge on the Lake understands that a new Lodge needs both to fulfill the requirements of a complex brief, but also to be a strong symbol of Australian domestic and political values. This scheme is sited at the tip of Attunga Point and requires the sculpting of the Lake’s shore in order to bury a low landscape building in the ridge of the promontory. This building is made by fingers of heavy earthen walls, which project into the Lake. More images and architects' description after the break.

Grant Associates, the UK landscape architects behind Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay, has just been appointed by the Royal Botanics and Domain Trust in Sydney to help develop a new sustainable masterplan for the historic Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney and adjacent public Domain. Working alongside Cox Richardson Architects and Planners, Grant Associates will be responsible for developing the landscape strategy and public realm elements of the new masterplan which includes an area of 64 hectares on a spectacular location bordering the iconic Sydney Harbor waterfront. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Young Australian designers, Nic Gonsalves and Nic Martoo from leading architecture firm Conrad Gargett Riddel, have won an international award for their innovative emergency shelter design for victims of natural and man-made disasters. Showcased in Brisbane's King George Square last year and having recently toured to Melbourne's Federation Square last month, their design provides ease of fabrication without the use mechanical tools; a place to house both occupants and their belongings; and the ability to control the level of engagement with the outside world through a flexible skin of solid, translucent and transparent shingles. More images and the designers' description after the break.

+ 17

+ 10

In this proposal for a new Australian Prime Ministers lodge, the core concept focused around the question; 'What if the British had embraced Indigenous culture in 1788?' Designed by Stephen Collier Architects, they propose to reconfigure and redefine this boundary of the lodge as a ring of landscape that is retained for public use. This land would be defined by a cluster of deciduous trees while public access to Lake Burley Griffin for all Australians will remain in perpetuity. More images and architects' description after the break.

+ 10

Designed by Henry Stephens, Nick Roberts, and Jack Davies, the winning proposal for The Lodge on the Lake returns to the issues bound up in Australian identity and issues of modernity. The lodge is both a development and a critique of the Australian relationship of landscape and dwelling, through an intersection of public assembly, intimate domesticity, and ground plane. From the composed house atop a plinth, to the slippages and interpolations that unravel down toward the lake, the lodge on the lake is a democratic marriage of land and architectural typology, introspective private dwelling, and public assembly. More images and architects' description after the break.

+ 3

+ 8

+ 7

Titled 'A House That Floods', the design for The Lodge on the Lake by Other Architects imagined re-inserting the narrative of the flooding and emptying Lake George into the benign, artificial landscape of Canberra. The movement of water acts as a spatial device that dictates and clarifies the otherwise overlapping and confused functions of the Prime Minister's Lodge. Drained or submerged at certain times, the spaces of the house are optimized for ceremonial events and domestic life, public access and secret meetings. More images and architects' description after the break.

+ 8

+ 7

+ 10

+ 20