The very best in NSW architecture have been named in the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2025 NSW Architecture Awards. Revealed in a gala celebration at Sydney’s ILUMINA on Friday 20 June, the award winners offer a vivid snapshot of the ever-changing built environment across the state.
This year’s awarded projects speak to a profession stepping up to meet some of the biggest challenges facing our communities – climate resilience, housing equity, cultural recognition, and urban transformation – through work that is both imaginative and deeply grounded.
The 72 winners and commendations (listed below) were selected from a remarkable 284 entries. A comprehensive judging process determined the shortlisted entries and eventual winners. Chosen by a jury of industry experts from a shortlist of 137 projects, this year’s winners display a breadth of architectural thinking that reveals not just how we live today, but what our built environment could be tomorrow.
This year’s winning projects are united by a number of defining themes. Chief among them is a commitment to designing with care: care for Country; for communities; for heritage; and the environment. Examples of innovative adaptive reuse strategies prove that great design does not need to begin from scratch. New housing models explore how higher-density living can enhance, not diminish, quality of life. Sustainability considered from the very start of the design process places future resilience front and centre, not as a bonus but as a baseline. Another theme that emerged for the juries was the value of collaboration across disciplines and practices, with several awarded projects the result of partnerships that yielded richer, more complex outcomes.
Jury Chair of Chairs, Annabel Lahz LFRAIA, said, on the breadth of this year’s awards program:
“The NSW Chapter’s Architecture Awards program recognises more than design excellence—it promotes public awareness, encourages best practice, and sets benchmarks for quality, sustainability, and social impact. With 284 entries across 13 categories, judged by 37 jurors through 137 site visits, the scale of the program reflects its significance,”
“Architecture today extends beyond buildings, encompassing diverse contexts and addressing complex social, environmental, and cultural challenges. This year’s awarded projects highlight the breadth of the profession and its positive impact on everyday life—from small-scale additions to major infrastructure, these works enrich the spaces we live, learn, work, and move through.”
NSW Chapter President, Elizabeth Carpenter FRAIA, stated that:
“This year’s NSW Architecture Awards highlight a profession not only responding to urgent challenges, but leading with integrity, innovation and care. The awarded projects are powerful reminders that architecture is both an art and a responsibility—one that connects communities, strengthens cultural understanding, and shapes more sustainable and inclusive futures. Congratulations to every entrant, finalist and winner—you are part of a collective effort to build something better,”
Casey Brown Architecture: Three Awards, including the John Verge Award for Interior Architecture, for Two Pittwater Splendours
Immersive celebrations of place, environment and nature embedded in honouring the old with careful and considered renewal marks the realisation of two projects completed by Casey Brown Architecture.
Babylon House, perched on the Avalon-Clareville escarpment has won two awards: The John Verge Award for Interior Architecture and the award for Alterations and Additions.
Across the estuary, Morning Bay House, has won an award in the Residential Architecture – Houses (New) category.
Babylon House – Alterations and Additions Award 2025
Originally designed by Edwin Kingsberry in the early 1950s, who could not afford to build and sold the land to Leslie Erwin, a salesman for Colgate/Palmolive who wanted an impressive home as a gift to his young wife. Erwin’s son Jonathan (Jonty of the Bilgola Bop Band) said the architect Edwin Kingsberry originally owned the land and would sit listening to Wagner on a wind-up gramophone. The property was, then, named Götterdämmerung; from Wagner’s famous Ring Cycle opera. Architect Kingsberry's concept of “harmonious architecture”, of a round central building with four radiating wings, no 90-degree angles, and magical reflecting ponds, connects this building to the land it sits on as the stone came from the same place for a 1953 build. Residents called it “the Castle”, with many of us trekking up that shallow set of stone steps atop Chisholm for the music and the parties.
Jonty - at right, singing - then with the 'Bopulators' and friends - interior of then named 'Götterdämmerun'. Photo: A J Guesdon, 2012
Exterior in 2011. L to R: (back) Paul Wheeler and Simon Abbott, (front) Ivor Simpson-Kennedy and Jonty Erwin.
The 'Castle' was placed on the market in 2014 and passed into the hands of renowned Fiona Spence-Lyda and Morris Lyda, founders of Spence & Lyda, source of the best in furniture, lighting, textiles and objects in order to showcase creators and makers - for decades.
The Practice Team state on this project:
Babylon House—a name inspired by the mythical Tower of Babel—represents a unique and captivating building. Much like the unfinished mythical tower reaching toward the heavens, Babylon House climbs a rocky summit with a sense of grandeur. The new additions complete its journey, adding the final touches to a magical and whimsical place.
Babylon House sits on a ridge dividing Avalon and Pittwater, offering expansive vistas of the surrounding landscape. The design brief was deeply attuned to the “spirit of the place,” honouring both Kingsberry’s eccentric vision and the natural majesty of the environment.
Working closely with the client and builder, design decisions were tested rigorously to preserve the house’s whimsical character while enhancing its liveability. The result is a coherent integration of old and new, where the existing charm is enriched by thoughtful additions.
The charismatic and unconventional design is rooted, barring occasional deviations, in an exaggerated interpretation of the modernist period. Most notable are the living areas nestled beneath the 320 sqm kidney-shaped roof. No right angles. All with over 4-metre-high ceilings, expansive views, and a simple palette of wood and stone materiality. Mysterious external and internal corridors and passageways circuitously interconnect these spaces, leading unexpectedly to an expansive 80m² free-span dining room flowing onto an enormous, seemingly isolated patio with unimpaired Pacific Ocean and Pittwater views.
Babylon House - Alterations and Additions | Casey Brown Architecture | Photographer: Zella Casey Brown
Photo: Wakehurst MP Michael Regan, Federal MP for Mackellar Dr. Sophie Scamps and Pittwater MP Jacqui Scruby attended a strike by Nurses and Midwives at Northern Beaches Hospital in NSW on March 24, 2025, as part of a broader series of rolling stoppages at Healthscope hospitals. The strike, led by the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association (NSWNMA), aimed to pressure Healthscope, the private operator of the hospital, to address issues like staffing ratios, pay, and working conditions. This was the second such action in recent months - another was held on November 5 2024
Profile of the Week Bruce GooldOur community lost one of its favourite sons on Monday June 16. A lanky Puck natured icon of the Barrenjoey peninsula, Bruce Goold refined Australian Art through his own development and expanded its 21st century perimeters.
Renowned for bold graphic prints using linocuts and woodblock techniques, Bruce Goold’s instantly recognisable style established him as one of the most influential and celebrated artists in Australia. Goold was famous for his use of woodcut and lino techniques, which drew on the skill of hand cutting designs, using the positive and negative spaces to create beds for ink application. Once printed the designs come to life, with depth and texture.
For Bruce, Art is not just for the walls, it can be worn, and then it is not just about the style and cut of the cloth, it is about what the printed threads bring together; the colours, the subject, and with so many Australian birds, wildflowers, his designs were unapologetic celebrations of here and a call to immerse yourself in living Art.
There are not many locals who do not have a t-shirt, a cushion, a curtain, a Mambo shirt in his favoured themes of marine, flora and fauna, the tropical and those he called 'curiosities' - a kind of Edward Lear nonsense poem, only Bruce's acutely epitomised version.
Bruce was a joy-maker, who called all to allow themselves to be immersed. His smile, his dancing, were about sharing we are all living in a vision, knit currents of air, earth and water, and in these threads and their verses we too are all connected too to the Creative in all of us.
The first wharf built at Church Point was the result of those living here in the 1880's calling for this facility to provide safe access for children to the school held during weekdays at the Chapel which gave Church Point its current name.
On June 1st 1883, the Mayor of St Leonards, the District where so many births in Pittwater are recorded during the 1800’s, prevailed on the then Colonial Secretary of the colony for a wharf. The response is recorded:
DEPUTATIONS. THE NARRABEEN-ROAD.
A deputation, consisting of the Mayor of St Leonards, Dr Tibbit's, and several other gentlemen, waited upon the Hon. Alexander Stuart, Colonial Secretary, yesterday, to request that the Narrabeen-road from Manly to Pittwater be put in a proper state of repair, and that a jetty be constructed on Church Point at Bayview, Newport. The road, it was represented, is now in a very bad condition, and if it were put into proper order it would open up one of the most beautiful districts in the colony. The jetty was required for the benefit of children going to school and persons attending church. The deputation also asked for a bathing place... DEPUTATIONS. THE NARRABEEN-ROAD. (1883, June 2). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13536041
Dr. Tibbits of Petersham, a medical practitioner, is the landholder of 40 acres, part of Portion 25 and formerly a section of the William Oliver and grant, on the west side of the ‘church acre’ on which the chapel has been built.
Over a year later a Tender was advertised and it was subsequently announced a person being accepted for the work, Newport's William Boulton. This Issue a few insights into the 140+ years of one of Pittwater's oldest wharves.
Community News Vale Bruce Goold, Narrabeen Youth Club's 60th: Call for old photos, BPPS 60th Celebrations, 2025 Election Review: Liberal Party of Australia, Statement: Committee of Management, Six in-a-line blocks placed on Market at North Narrabeen, NSW SES Warringah / Pittwater Unit: Workshops for Women 2025, Jack's Day: Sat. July 5, Hats on for Soibada, Valuation of Land Regulation remake, Winter School Holidays Break, Have your say on NSW’s anti-discrimination laws, 2026 Australian of the Year Nominations now open, Frank Veltro SC appointed to the District Court of NSW, Two new judges appointed to the Supreme Court of NSW, Renewing the water main in Old Barrenjoey Road: Update, Two new appointments to the NSW Coroners Court, Red Cross van at Mona Vale : July 10 to 13, Australia Post expands Community Grants program, The 2025 CWAS "David Malin Awards", Monika's Doggie Rescue Pets of the Week: Button + Bjorn, Nominations open for the 2025 Australian Mental Health Prize, Pothole Problems: How to report, Proposed Road Reserve Lease - Wilga Street and Powderworks Road, Elanora Heights, Bilgola Beach Carpark Accessible parking upgrade: Feedback Invited, More funding available for war memorials in NSW, Create NSW Cultural Grants - Now Open, Pittwater Sports, Social, Environment, Residents Associations and Groups
Environment Eco Schools Grants for 2025, Engineers make a big splash turning water treatment sludge into sustainable concrete, University of Sydney Sustainability researcher wins $1.5m award for work tackling the climate crisis, Saving species starts at home: how you can help Australia’s 1,000 threatened invertebrates, Chemical CleanOut: June 28-29 at Mona Vale Beach, Surfrider Foundation: June 22 Surf Swap, Whale Census Day 2025: June 29, Have your say on council's climate change policy, Council's Proposed Amendments to Development Control Plans (DCPs) For Low and Mid-Rise Housing: Have Your Say, Land Management Code amendments: have your say, As the federal government fumbles on nature law reform the states are forging ahead, West Australian miners flexed their muscle to block a federal EPA last year. Will it be different this time?, Australia could become the world’s first net-zero exporter of fossil fuels – here’s how, ‘Guerrilla rewilding’ aims for DIY conservation – but it may do more harm than good, Seabed mining is becoming an environmental flashpoint, Migrating bogong moths use the stars and Earth’s magnetic field to find ancestral summer caves each year, Koalas on the brink: Precision DNA test offers a lifeline to Australia’s icons, Jaws at 50: how a single movie changed our perception of white sharks forever, Sharks come in many different shapes and sizes. But they all follow a centuries-old mathematical rule, A solar panel recycling scheme would help reduce waste but please repair and reuse first, A weird group of boronias puzzled botanists for decades. Now we’ve solved the pollination mystery, The historic High Seas Treaty is almost reality. Here’s what it would mean for ocean conservation, Ancient termite poo reveals 120 million-year-old secrets of Australia’s polar forests, Colonisation cleared 95% of these woodlands – Indigenous cultural burning is bringing it back, Brazil’s ‘bill of devastation’ pushes Amazon towards tipping point, Wetland restoration is seen as sunk cost – but new research shows why it should be considered an investment, Trade in a mythical fish is threatening real species of rays that are rare and at risk, Declining soil health is a global concern – here’s how AI could help, Weed of the Week: Morning Glory - please get it out of your garden, ‘1080 pest management’, Volunteers for Barrenjoey Lighthouse Tours needed, Johnson Brothers Mitre 10 Recycling Batteries: at Mona Vale + Avalon Beach, Reporting Dogs Offleash - Dog Attacks to Council, Plastic Bread Ties For Wheelchairs, Stay Safe From Mosquitoes, Mountain Bike Incidents On Public Land, Report fox sightings, Marine wildlife rescue group Central Coast, Watch out - shorebirds about, Possums In Your Roof?: do the right thing, Aviaries + Possum Release Sites Needed, Bushcare in Pittwater: where + when, Friends Of Narrabeen Lagoon Catchment, Gardens and Environment Groups and Organisations in Pittwater, Ringtail Posses, Pittwater Reserves: histories + Walks, Birds, +
Aquatics New 'Google Maps for the sea' to cut shipping industry’s CO2 emissions: UNSW Research
Children Sunday Cartoons This Issue: Lilo & Stitch: The Series First Full Episode, Australia's First Steamers, 2025 Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards entries are now open, What bird is that? Wattlebirds, Curious Kids: what comes after space? + How pterosaurs can inspire aircraft design + Is Mars really red? A physicist explains the planet’s reddish hue and why it looks different to some telescopes + In what order did the planets in our solar system form? + What was the first thing scientists discovered? A historian makes the case for Babylonian astronomy, Stories this week: Sincerely, Antonia + 'A Bad Case of Stripes' read by Sean Astin, clubs fun and more for you
Youth Eco Schools Grants for 2025, Talent runs deep for school swimmers, Australia's First Steamers, cktown tests auto skills on national stage, Opportunities: Surfrider Foundation June 2025 Surf Swap + Kay Cottee Women's Development Regatta + The 2025 CWAS "David Malin Awards" + More places available in innovative jobs program for women + 2025 Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards entries are now open + Band Comp. at Palmy, Financial help for young people, School Leavers Support, Word Of The Week: Cairngorm, A 3-tonne, $1.5 billion satellite to watch Earth’s every move is set to launch this week, How pterosaurs learned to fly: scientists have been looking in the wrong place to solve this mystery, Could trees know when the summer solstice is?, The critical response to Miley Cyrus’s Something Beautiful exposes pop’s gender double standards, Jaws at 50: how two musical notes terrified an entire generation, Artist Eric Smith won 3 Archibalds, then vanished. A new show reveals his unseen works, How pterosaurs can inspire aircraft design, China’s Everest obsession: following Mallory’s footsteps a century on, I saw how tourism and climate change are transforming the mountain, Jaws at 50: a cinematic masterpiece – and an incredible piece of propaganda, local groups and services for you
Seniors Free Medicare chronic wound care scheme starts, NSW SES Warringah / Pittwater Unit: Workshops for Women 2025, cost of living relief for over 2.4 million recipients from 1 July, Government action needed to protect older Australians: COTA, History of Narrabeen: U3A Speaker, First-of-its-kind test can predict dementia up to nine years before diagnosis, AvPals 25th Year: Term Two Newport Sessions, Your brain has a hidden beat — and smarter minds sync to it, Record high: Study finds growing cannabis use among older US adults, Judy Davis gives a singularly vivid performance in The Spare Room – but the play falls short, Alzheimer’s: bacteria that causes stomach ulcers may protect the brain; new research indicates, Ice Age shelter high up in the Blue Mountains reveals Aboriginal heritage from 20,000 years ago, Jaws at 50: how two musical notes terrified an entire generation, Services for you
Pictures Cremorne Point Walk: June 2025 by Joe Mills
DIY Ideas 11 Ways to keep your home warm, safe and save money this Winter
Park Bench Philosophers Sea ice plays important role in variability of carbon uptake by Southern Ocean: New Study
Food Winter Warmers Leek And Potato Soup, Coq Au Vin + Apple, Date and Walnut Cake With Caramel Sauce
It's that time of year when you want something hot and substantial - 'rib sticking' food in other words. With food prices having increased an average of 25% over the past few months, choosing seasonal ingredients, that usually come at a better price, and items grown not too far from home to eliminate transporting goods add-on costs, this Issue a few of the dishes we've been making to feed a hungry family without breaking the budget.
Events Raturdays, Warringah Rugby's Annual Luncheon, Band Comp. at Palm Beach, Music, Markets, Social Groups, + lots more.
Inbox News ‘I was in a semi-breaking-down sort of place’: new study sheds light on the emotional toll for emergency volunteers, Optus agrees to $100m penalty, subject to court approval, for unconscionable conduct, National Australia Bank pays $751,200 in penalties for alleged breaches of Consumer Data Right Rules, Warning issued after ACCC phone numbers spoofed by scammers, Cape York deserves World Heritage status – and Queensland may need it to become a global leader in tourism, Death cap mushroom detections prompt health warning: NSW Health, When new dads struggle their kids’ health can suffer; Tackling mental distress early can help, Need to see a specialist? You might have to choose between high costs and a long wait; Here’s what needs to change, AMA calls for urgent Medicare rebate reforms to meet rising healthcare costs, Drones to enhance NSW Ambulance Aeromedical and Special Operations, New research shows Australians see influencers as major sources of misinformation, What is ‘cognitive shuffling’ and does it really help you get to sleep? Two sleep scientists explain, NSW Government announces infrastructure package to support Western Sydney Aerotropolis growth, Dopamine can make it hard to put down our phone or abandon the online shopping cart; Here’s why, Assessment in the age of AI – unis must do more than tell students what not to do
