The City of Melbourne celebrated the Melbourne Awards on Sunday 13 November. Now in its 20th year, the Melbourne Awards are the council’s highest accolade, recognising local individuals and organisations that help to make the city a better place.
In 2022, winners were recognised across eight categories: Aboriginal Melbourne (the ganbu guljin Award); Arts and Events; Community; Hospitality; Knowledge and Innovation; LGBTIQ+; Sustainability; and Urban Design.
Kerstin Thompson Architects and BVN received the Urban Design Award for their reimagining of the Gothic Bank Complex at the corner of Queen and Collins streets in Melbourne’s CBD.
Commissioned in 2017, the brief was to “reposition the building as a commercial asset” while celebrating the building’s neo-gothic heritage. The design approach is a respectful reinterpretation that exposes the buildings layers of history while creating new clarity and identity to each of the contributory buildings.
Collins Arch and Market Street Park by Oculus, Woods Bagot and Shop Architects was a finalist in the Urban Design category of the Melbourne Awards.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp thanked the winners for their meaningful contributions to the fabric of the city. “There is no greater honour than acknowledging and celebrating the efforts of ordinary Melburnians doing extraordinary things,” Capp said.
Queen and Collins also received an Award for Commercial Architecture at the 2020 National Architecture Awards.
For more coverage, read Cameron Bruhn’s review of Queen and Collins in Artichoke 81.
