West End

The Brick Industry Association (BIA) is a renowned design organisation that hosts the Brick in Architecture Awards, recognising architectural projects featuring clay brick. The award is globally recognised, with winners spanning across the world, from China to Germany.

Ray Leonhard, BIA’s president and CEO explains how “these exceptional projects show there’s virtually no limit to brick as a leading element of sustainable design”. The curved archways and bricklaying patterns demonstrate the range of the singular product.

Over the past 32 years, the BIA-run award seeks to honour projects and individuals that use brick in innovative and architecturally stunning ways. With over 120 entries, being considered as a finalist is a momentous accolade. Silver award-winning project West End is situated in Glebe, an inner-city fringe suburb that has a uniquely neighbourly feel.

The suburb is known for its classic terrace-style homes often sitting adjacent to modern urban developments. Turner Studio’s West End project is located at the meeting point of Glebe and Ultimo, only a short distance from Darling Harbour. To fit the brief, the project had to sit comfortably between these styles, not disturbing the cultural aesthetic of either suburb.

The project is a testament to creating serene housing options in the heart of the city. The building boasts panoramic city views, lushly landscaped courtyards by Oculus and roof-top social spaces. The project is comprised of Bowral Bricks in Simmental Silver, offering a uniformity to the development, intended to assimilate with both the modern warehouse precinct of the east, with the more quaint terrace homes of the west. This materiality is also incredibly durable and acts as a thermal regulator, to keep the large-scale building cool in summer and warm in the crisper months.

The site was originally a brickmaking factory, and so the brick facade and intricate detailing pays homage to the site’s history. Stephen Cox, director at Turner Studios explains how, “The Building doesn’t seek to replicate the past, but rather works with the character of the local architecture to make something new”. A key design feature of the urban project is the brick arches at the front of the building. These arches break up the symmetry of the facade and offer clear legibility from the street. They attribute a modern feel to the development and draw focus to the scale and size of the building housing 231 apartments.