Grimshaw received the highest recognition at the Australian Institute of Architects → Awards (Victorian Chapter) which were announced via a live broadcast from Melbourne on 18 June.

The Monash University → Woodside Building for Technology & Design, by Grimshaw in collaboration with Monash University, was awarded the highest honour, the Victorian Architecture Medal, as well as The Melbourne Prize, the Colorbond Award for Steel Architecture and architecture awards in the Sustainability and Education categories.

The jury noted that the building embodied the highest level of design excellence and thinking and stated: “In the context of a global climate crisis, the Woodside Building demonstrates an elegant and optimistic response, delivering a complex program for an environmentally sustainable future while simultaneously proposing a transformational vision of what tertiary education can be.”

Grimshaw Partner Andrew Cortese, Design Director of the Woodside Building thanked the University for establishing a common endeavour for exceptional sustainable design, learning and research environments, and for giving purpose to the architecture which activates a locus for the engineering and technology disciplines and their industry partners, and for demonstrating the University’s abiding commitment to leadership.

Grimshaw, with interior designer Carr, was also awarded for Interior Architecture for Olderfleet with the jury commenting: “a careful consideration of contraction and expansion, darkness and light, interwoven to create mood and experience.” The practices refurbishment of 35 Collins Street was commended as a sensitive and sophisticated insertion into one of Melbourne’s civic and commercial assets, “upgrading to contemporary programs and crafted to last.”