2019 National Architecture Awards: National Award for Public Architecture

Jury citation

Maitland Riverlink is 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 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