2022 Walter Burley Griffin Award for Urban Design

Jury citation

Quay Quarter Lanes masterfully captures the best of Sydney urbanism and succinctly creates a sensitive and confident city in microcosm. Spatial variety is choreographed as a succession of complementary spaces that embrace diversification: laneways, avenues, compressed spaces, covered spaces and open spaces combine to create a network of unique experiences, all of which are fully connected to the broader precinct as a result of the architects’ and landscape architects’ thorough understanding of the surrounding city.

This project demonstrates the power of skilful architects and landscape architects working together with respect and mutual understanding for the value of urban space. Each voice considers the next, working collectively while allowing individual identity to shine. This variety delivers a richness of experience and a generosity that tempts the visitor to remain and discover more.

Every opportunity to extract public space is considered here and injected into the building edges; the interface of buildings and public space is generous, intimate and, at times, joyfully complex. Space is liberating and liberated through the deft skill of the designers.

Art plays a significant symbolic role, embedded in surfaces, enriched with meaning, at times subtle and at times dynamic. The architecture that creates the urban connections holds similar values. These connections to place speak of both pre- and post-settlement, sensitively embracing the past to enrich and inform the present. Materiality and formal language builds on context both past and existing, creating clear and precise connections with a subtle inventiveness that will endure over time.

Quay Quarter Lanes is a gift to the city of Sydney. We truly hope that such skilful interventions will continue in the future and act as a benchmark for projects in other cities.

— Quay Quarter Lanes was reviewed by Lee Hillam in Architecture Australia May/June 2022. Read the review here.

Project credits

Project leads SJB, Silvester Fuller, Studio Bright, Carter Williamson, Lippmann Partnership and Aspect Studios; Project team Adam Haddow, Emily Wombwell, Rachel Yabsley, Rebecca Donoghue, Marcus Lewin, Sevda Cetin, Bianca Caprara, Simone Rego, Kristen Stanisich, Beatrice Tung, Brenan McCloughan, Penny Fuller, Jad Silvester, Helen Stumbaum, Bruce Feng, Rosamond Kember, Marek Sinagl, Lachlan Cuthbert, Shaun Carter, Nuala Collins, Stephanie Chiu, Vivienne Hinschen, Lisa Merkesteyn, Louis Faucheaux, Ed Lippmann, Brad Sorensen, Tim O’Sullivan, Sacha Coles, Kate Luckraft, Bianca Pineda, Laura Solsona, Georgia Brennan, Melissa Bright, Rob McIntyre, Ryan de Winnaar, Emily Watson, Jaxon Webb, Annie Suratt, Todd de Hoog, Pei She Lee, Maia Close, Ben Peake, Blake Lewis; Builder Richard Crookes Constructions; Public art Jonathan Jones; Heritage consultant Urbis; BCA Group DLA; Structural and civil engineer SCP Consulting; Facade engineer Inhabit; Mechanical engineer Air Conditioning Engineering Services; Hydraulic consultant Harris Page and Associates; Electrical engineer Simpson Kotzman; Acoustic consultant Acoustic Logic; Brickwork contractor Favetti

Quay Quarter Lanes is located in Circular Quay, New South Wales on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.