The 2026 Queensland Architecture awards have unveiled a slate of projects that signal a new chapter in the state’s built environment. This year’s winners pushed the design boundary across every category, judges said, showcasing a level of ambition that stretched from Brisbane’s core to the far reaches of regional Queensland.
Top Honour: BNE Commercial Tower
Taking out top honours with the Queensland Medallion was a North Quay commercial high rise overlooking the Brisbane River. The Hassell, REX, Richards & Spence collaboration for BNE Commercial Tower was the outcome of a design competition launched by Cbus Property, and features an elevated commercial lobby with a shaded open-air public plaza beneath. The tower offers workers high rise landscaped outdoor terraces off the sides of the building. The project also won the Beatrice Hutton award for commercial architecture and the art and architecture prize, recognising the 31-metre long bas-relief sculpture by Brisbane-based artist Bruce Reynolds called City Reach, cast in situ across the full underside of the Herschel Street awning.
Judges praised the bravura of the design and its capacity to foster an inventive and generous relationship between the tower and its setting.
Residential Innovation: Birdwood and Dolphin Court House
A radical reimagining of the traditional Queenslander won Peter Besley the Robin Dods award for residential architecture for his home. Rising from bushland in Mount Coot-tha just 6km west of Brisbane’s CBD, “Birdwood” was also praised by judges for its daring. “There is a sedate and well understood range of understandings that define the qualities and resilience of the conventional Queenslander house,” they said. “Virtually all of these are overturned and challenged by the adventurous shaping and redefining of the design of Birdwood. Overall, this is an adventurous house that brings to life alternative and imaginative ways houses might better respond to the demands of Queensland’s climate.”
Another residential award winner was a canal-side multigenerational home on the Gold Coast, created by Burleigh Heads architecture firm ME. The Dolphin Court House was admired by judges for its “considered rather than ostentatious” design, making it a “calm and confident addition to the Gold Coast waterfront”. The home also won an award for interior architecture, commended for its carefully orchestrated procession from gate to courtyard, to living spaces and beyond. The staircase at the centre of the open-plan design was described by judges as “a sculptural theatre piece in steel”, rising from a plinth clad in earthy Australian red stone and timber. “The detailing throughout is meticulous and superbly executed,” judges said. “Recycled timber, terrazzo and locally sourced stone complete a palette that is warm, tactile and consciously Australian.”
Interior and Educational Awards
Sharing the award for interior architecture was the University of Queensland’s Plant Futures Facility. The new research centre was also one of the winners in the educational architecture category. The m3architecture design featuring multi-hued layered brickwork and curved edges created a conceptual walled garden, the judges said, masterfully fulfilling a challenging windowless brief essential to preserve the climate controlled artificial internal environments. Externally the building resembled a club sandwich, they noted, while internally, whimsical curvilinear mirror walls gave it a “Kubrickian-like atmosphere”.
A Middle Eastern restaurant in Brisbane’s CBD was the third winner in the interiors category. J.AR Office’s design for Golden Avenue was recognised for its “bold and indelible” contribution to the city’s epicurean culture, with its opulent nod to the Gardens of Babylon, pulling the outdoors inside. With its rich balance of delicate Murano glass with robust concrete, granite and marble, the design exuded a quality of “decadent subterranean permanence and durability” judges said, making the restaurant a memorable venue that was “an institution in the making”.
Heritage and Regional Recognition
One of two heritage awards went to the upgrade of a turn of the 20th-century police station in the rural township of Warwick in south-west Queensland, which has a notable collection of heritage buildings constructed from the local sandstone. Phillips Smith Conwell Architects had completed the project with only crucial keyhole modifications to the original building, judges said, while the integration of the heritage component and the new contemporary annexe had been done attentively. “The project reflects a range of regional sensitivities and a mature handling of site elements,” they said.
Boldness was one of the standout themes in this year’s award winners the jury chair, Prof Michael Keniger said. “[There are] many examples of adventurous and ambitious commercial and community buildings that are helping to revitalise Brisbane’s CBD,” he said in a statement. “All in all, the 2026 Queensland Architecture awards program offers a broad spectrum of inviting and purposeful architecture that taken together illustrates the possibilities for an enhanced and vibrant future.”
