Articles
Award Winners 2008
Date: 16th September 2008
Venue : Grand Ballroom, The Westin Sydney
Special thanks to our exclusive sponsor for their continued support of these Awards.
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The Annual Dinner and Development Excellence Awards were held on Tuesday 16 September 2008 in the grand ballroom of the Westin Sydney hotel. The Development of the Year 2008 was Regent Place, Sydney, by Frasers Property.
The Taskforces awards acknowledge development projects that achieve the best outcomes in terms of client requirements, environment, business and community considerations; as well as time, cost and quality.
These awards recognise the crucial role of the developer in making a new development an outstanding success. The 2008 winners are set out below. |
 Dev. Excellence Award Winners in 2008,
The Hon, Kristina Keneally MP - Minister for Planning, Prof Chris Johnson - Chair of the Judging Panel & UTF Executive Members. |
Development of the Year: Development Excellence Awards 2008
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Regent Place, Sydney
The REGENT PLACE development includes the Lumiere Residences. The jury was most impressed by the sophistication and elegance of these two buildings located on the edge of the Town Hall and Cathedral Precinct of Sydney. Design excellence competition was won by Foster and Partners with PTW from Sydney.
While the buildings sit well in the broader context of the city, they are also well managed at the street level where the podium picks up the heights of the existing buildings. One of the features of both buildings is the deep recesses that allow air and light to the internal corridor system thus minimising energy costs.
The combination of apartments is carefully tailored to the marketplace and the sales results indicate that a very successful financial result has come from aiming for high quality throughout the building.
The ground level retail and arcades offer a fusion of a European food hall with a high-end Asian supermarket. The supermarket chain Miracle has committed to open its new max M concept store in the complex.
The Japanese restaurant Azuma will open in its second branch in the building and there will be a retail concept space called CO*OP. CO* is a concept highly popular in Asia where young retailers and designers can take space without the usual high overheads and barriers of going it alone.
Overall a very successful building complex that knits comfortably into its Sydney environment with an elegant design.
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Winner: Development Excellence Award for Commercial Development 2008
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Quad Business Park
This project adds to a number of very successful business and commercial buildings developed by GTP in the Quad precinct. This latest building designed by Cox Richardson takes the environmental performance to new levels with the incorporation of chilled beams, waterless urinals, sun-shading devices and double-glazed windows.
Quad also incorporates a 90 place child care centre which gives parents the ability to have children cared for in this pleasant environment.
As evidence of the commercial success of the project, all the spaces were leased within six months of completion and the building is currently 100 percent leased with good quality yields. The building is one further step that GPT are taking towards improved environmental performance. It has a five star rating, but in fact exceeds this by 24 percent.
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Winner: Development Excellence Award for Residential Development 2008
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Alchemy, Lavender Bay
This project has evolved from the demolition of the original Kirribilli Club and the development of a new revitalised club in a new podium structure, while establishing twenty luxury, three bedroom apartments within the five floors above. The building overlooks Lavender Bay and the name of the apartments comes from a painting by one of Australias most famous artists, Brett Whiteley, who had his studio also overlooking Lavender Bay.
Alchemy is one of his most famous paintings and a waterfeature sitting within the Clubs lobby interprets another of Whiteleys paintings ˜Waves on the Harbour. The jury was impressed with the simplicity of the building with its simple curve and strong horizontal lines. This curved sculptured form floats elegantly above the podium that incorporates the Club.
The curve form responds to the expansive panoramic views that are gained from each of the apartments. The market has responded well to the projects with most apartments already sold. The Club is very content with its new facilities which also gain from the expansive views of the harbour.
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Winner: Development Excellence Award for Mixed Use Development 2008
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Darwin Waterfront Development
This project is a very bold move to reconnect Darwin to its neighbours to the north and the rest of Australia through the creation of a major convention centre, community infrastructure and commercial development. At an overall cost of approximately $1 billion, the consortium headed by ABN Amro has certainly invested in a bold manner. The vision includes a 1,500 seat convention centre, waterfeatures, a wave lagoon, a beach, a cruise ship terminal and gardens, 1,400 apartments, two hotels and a number of restaurants. All of this has been well designed through the architects Hassall and there are significant sustainability features across the project.
As the first winner of an Urban Taskforce Award outside New South Wales, this project demonstrates the value of development undertaken with vision, with good design quality and with environmental sensitivity. It demonstrates how a single development can have a major impact on the future of a whole city. |
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Winner: Development Excellence Award for Adaptive Re-use 2008
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The Cove Apartments, Manly
THE COVE APARTMENTS AT LITTLE MANLY are a remarkable transformation from a very uninspiring three-storey, walk-up, texture brick home unit building to an elegant building that contributes to the streetscape.
The simple devices of adding large balconies to the street façade and painting the building, have transformed this ugly duckling into a swan-like building that is now an asset to the street. The building now celebrates its site location with sweeping views over Little Manly Beach and sales of the apartments are indicating a significantly increased value has occurred as a result of this exceptional makeover. |
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Winner: Development Excellence Award for Retirement Living 2008
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Waterbrook Greenwich WATERBROOK GREENWICH. This project provides facilities for retirement living in a resort lifestyle character not previously offered in the Australian retirement marketplace. The 79 luxury apartments have sold particularly well. Most of the new residents previously resided in the local area within five to ten kilometres of Greenwich. Environmental principals have been carefully considered by the architects Marchese and Partners with the result that the project has already won awards for excellence for this reason. Solar access and cross-ventilation are maximised. An extensive period of community consultation was undertaken by Waterbrook with the local community. A number of meetings were held with the community on the site and liaison meetings were held during the construction phase. While being at the top-end of the market for retirement homes, there is no doubt that this is a very successful project. |
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Commendation for Community Facilities 2008
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Cabravale Leisure Centre The CABRAVALE LEISURE CENTRE is a project for Fairfield City Council that presents a dramatic modern sculptural image of a new leisure centre. Significant consultation occurred with over 1,000 residents. Fairfield City Council decided that changes to local demographics over the last 30 years required a new type of leisure centre that was based on activities associated with gym training, aerobics, dance and marshal arts. The new centre provides an excellent community benefit and is of a very high design quality. The centre uses significant sustainability devices including solar panels, natural ventilation and water harvesting to produce a solution that is environmentally socially and financially successful. While this project is not strictly a commercial development in term of the Urban Taskforce Awards, it does demonstrate the value of well planned community facilities that have no doubt been partly funded through contributions from developments within the Fairfield area. |
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Judging Panel |
| Chair - Professor Chris Johnson Executive Director, Cities & Centres NSW Department of Planning |
Mr Peter Mould NSW Government Architect Department of Commerce |
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| Mr John Ferrarin Director WT Partnership |
Ms Sue Salmon Chair Total Environment Centre |
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| Mr Robert Harley Property Editor Australian Financial Review |
Mr David Tanevski Managing Director, KWC Capital Group and Hon. Secretary/Treasurer, Urban Taskforce |
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| Mr John Wynne Director Urbis Pty Ltd |
| These projects represent the pinnacle of achievement for the property industry in Australia. For more information about the awards contact Urban Taskforce on (02) 9238 3955 |
