The award acknowledges the work of Peter Stutchbury Architecture, as well as his teaching and his role as a founding director of the Architecture Foundation Australia. His international work speaks on specific cultural contexts and sustainable design principles. The Gold Medal is awarded by the Australian Institute of Architects in recognition of a significant contribution to Australian architecture. Previous recipients include Jørn Utzon, Glenn Murcutt and Peter Wilson.
The 2015 winners are.-
Gold Medal. Peter Stutchbury, Peter Stutchbury Architecture (NSW).
Emerging Architect Prize.- Nic Brunsdon, Post- and Spacemarket (WA).
National President’s Prize.- Ian Close and Sue Harris, Architecture Media (Vic).
Student Prize for Advancement of Architecture.- Barnaby Hartford-Davis, RMIT (Vic).
BlueScope Glenn Murcutt Student Prize.- Matthew Hyland, University of Tasmania (Qld)
Jin Chen Lee, University of NSW (NSW).
Leadership in Sustainability Prize.- Professor Emeritus Allan Rodger LFRAIA (Vic)
William J Mitchell International Committee Prize.- Louise Cox AO LFRAIA (NSW)
Neville Quarry Architectural Education Prize.- Professor Paul Memmott, University of Queensland (Qld)
Dulux Study Tour Prize.-
Bonnie Herring, Breathe Architecture (Vic)
Casey Bryant, Andrew Burns Architect (NSW)
John Ellway, James Russell Architect (Qld)
Monique Woodward, WOWOWA (Vic)
Nic Brunsdon, Post- and Spacemarket (WA)
Read a jury citation from architect and critic Kenneth Frampton
As Stutchbury himself has made clear, there is no single point of departure for his architecture. One can only say that it derives its wide-ranging character from the enigmatic experience of the Australian continent in all its vastness.
Like Glenn Murcutt and Richard Leplastrier, the two Australian master architects with whom he is most closely associated and with whom he habitually teaches a studio course for advanced students every summer, Stutchbury builds the spirit of the outback into his work, wherein the exotic flora and fauna of the continent, not to mention its geology, topography and climate, find a responsive echo in his architecture.
This architect, as agent provocateur, remains a man of the people, combining in one volatile persona both a leader and a collaborator. This is a figure who recognises and acknowledges on a daily basis that distinguished works of architecture are never created by a single individual after the myth of genius. On the contrary, he is perennially involved in fleeting collaborations between multiple talents and protagonists, from the essential structural and environmental engineers to small-scale, quasi-industrial manufacturers working away on the edge of things, along with those dedicated young architects refining a given piece at the last minute, in the early hours of the morning.
