2020 Houses Awards shortlist reveals new state of domestic bliss

A low-lying heritage-style terrace in North Fitzroy, Melbourne, has been obscured behind a grille of painted timber batons by architect Rob Kennon. That might seem defensive, but yes, it could also appear playful as the scrims swing open to reveal original window placements and a long corridor which leads to a lushly landscaped yard.

While Butler insists this new Australian architecture is “very honest, authentic, a clear expression of materials and texture”, she does concede that this year’s Houses Awards jury – judging our dwellings in a time of global health crisis – was not immune to the preoccupations du jour.

“We were thinking about climate change, [the] current pandemic and economic downturn and how these will affect the architecture that is created,” she says, noting that the five-person jury examined the entries amid bigger questions such as whether architecture itself would change as a result of these factors. The best architectural juries, after all, are barometers of the Zeitgeist.

Ten years ago we had a relatively singular architectural culture. Now I’d say it’s characterised by integrity, complexity and plurality.

— Hannah Tribe

The Pritker Prize, for instance – global architecture’s highest accolade – was for decades awarded to middle-aged white men in big cities, expert in a certain domineering type of modernism. But since 2010, when the prize went to the female-male tandem of SANAA (who are designing the new wing of the Art Gallery of NSW), the prestigious award has celebrated the talent of architects on the periphery, in India, say, or Chile. The 2020 Pritzker, announced in March, went to Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, of Dublin practice Grafton Architects.

When the Houses Awards were launched in 2011, Sydney architect Virginia Kerridge won for her grand interpretation of a rural homestead in country NSW. The following year, Melbourne architect John Wardle scooped House of the Year for his neo-rustic Shearer’s Quarters on Bruny Island, off the south coast of Tasmania. These said a lot about the house as outback refuge in the Australian psyche.

In 2016 the House of the Year award went for the first time to an apartment, designed by Chenchow Little in the posh Sydney suburb of Darling Point. “It was a moment when everyone was starting to become very conscious of the need to increase density in our cities,” says Butler.

Last year’s winner, the Daylesford Longhouse in Victoria, designed by Brisbane practice Partners Hill, is an airy, 110-metre linear shed that incorporates a boutique farm and kitchen garden, cooking school and reception venue, as well as a home. A fantasy of a men’s shed on steroids, wearing an apron.

“Ten years ago we had a relatively singular architectural culture, particularly in the residential sector,” says Hannah Tribe, principal of Sydney's Tribe Studio Architects. “Now I’d say it’s characterised by integrity, complexity and most importantly, plurality.”

Tribe, who was on this year’s Houses Awards jury, attributes that change to broader shifts in Australian domesticity. “Men are now sharing the work of the house – cooking, washing, cleaning, raising children – so I think the gendered spaces of houses are evaporating.

“We’re not just seeing loads of excellent women architects, we’re seeing briefs from working mums, stay-at-home dads, families with a 50-50 split, different family shapes and sizes, and we’re seeing male architects with home lives where they are engaged with domesticity in a way our dads were not.”

It might well be that in this sophisticated nuance, a new era of Australian architecture resides.

Either way, it’s time, says Butler, to “move beyond beautiful spaces and think about what it’s like to live in these houses.”

Need to know

The winners of the 2020 Houses Awards in categories including Best House under and over 200m², House Alteration, Apartment or Unit, and House of the Year, will be announced on July 31, 2020.
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