2019 National Architecture Awards: National Award for Public Architecture

Maitland Riverlink by Chrofi with McGregor Coxall.

Jury citation

Maitland Riverlink is an exacting work, civically generous and courageous. Beyond the realization of an appropriate form for communal amenity, the design revitalizes and fortifies the communal consciousness.

The project offers the people of Maitland a public place that is both carefully scaled to the grain of its urban context and highly transformational. It is a public living room, an outdoor cinema, an urban stage, a covered plaza, a forecourt to a restaurant and cafe, a gallery for urban art and a threshold to a new riverside promenade.

The reintroduction of the Hunter River to the context of the main street has turned an economic and cultural tide. Shops and businesses are extending their frontages and reorienting to an expansive riverside network of public walkways and promenades.

Maitland Riverlink elevates a prosaic brief to a larger vision for the public good. The materiality of the project is uncompromising, with a robustness and hand-finished quality that bespeaks a deeper attitude of civic pride and care.

Maitland Riverlink is located in Maitland, New South Wales and is built on the land of the Wonnarua people.

— Maitland Riverlink was reviewed by Kerry Clare and SueAnne Ware in Architecture Australia Jan/Feb 2019.

Credits

Project
Maitland Riverllink
Architect
CHROFI
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Project Team
Tai Ropiha (project director), Susanne Pollmann, Joshua Zoeller (project architects), Adrian McGregor (landscape architect)
Architect
McGregor Coxall
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Consultants
AV consultant Marshall Day Entertech
Accessibility consultant BCA Access Solutions
BCA consultant Steve Watson and Partners
Builder Graph Building
Engineer SDA
Fire engineer MCD Fire Engineering
Graphic design Deuce Design
Heritage consultant City Plan
Hydraulic consultant Whipps Wood Consulting
Kitchen consultant Frost
Public art consultants Braddon Snape
Quantity surveyor Rider Levett Bucknall
Services consultant Northrop
Town planner Ethos Urban
Site Details
Location Maitland,  NSW,  Australia
Project Details
Status Built
Category Landscape / urban, Public / cultural
Type Public domain

Source

Award

Published online: 7 Nov 2019
Words: 2019 National Awards Jury
Images: Simon Wood

Issue

Architecture Australia, November 2019

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