Announcement
Top architectural honours for UniSA's Hawke Building
The University of South Australia’s Hawke Building has been honoured with the top prize for public architecture at this year’s Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) South Australia Architecture Awards.
The Hawke Building, designed by John Wardle Architects in association with Hassell and named after former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, took out the Jack McConnell Award for Public Architecture and was further honoured with an award of merit for interior architecture.
The Hawke Building, which sits on UniSA’s City West campus at the western end of North Terrace, is home to the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre and Library and features the second largest public art gallery in the state, the Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art; the Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, purpose-built for exhibitions relating to culture, history and social debate; and the large Allan Scott Auditorium for both student and public lectures.
The SA jury for public architecture highly commended the building on its clarity, consistency and completeness of design resolution, as well as for its contribution to urban design.
"The Hawke Building captures the changing role of the university - and the architecture of education - in the civic life of a city. It orchestrates connections between its public and private spaces and fulfils the City of Adelaide’s intentions for strong north-south public links,” said Stephen Loo, chair of the SA jury for public architecture.
The jury citations noted that by orchestrating connections between public spaces such as the Samstag Museum of Art and the Bradley Forum, and private spaces such as the Chancellery, the building easily facilitates interaction between the university community and the general public towards mutual learning.
Winning the named award puts the Hawke Building and its architects into contention for Australia’s highest honour for public architecture, the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Building, which the architects won two years ago for the neighbouring UniSA building, the Kaurna Building.
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